קרן Ford: השורשים העמוקים של התפשטות DEI

מסגרת מתודולוגית

מטרה: לזהות את המנגנון שבאמצעותו מדיניות המענקים של קרן Ford — הקרן הפרטית הגדולה בארה"ב — הופנתה מסדר יום הומניטרי רחב למימון ארגונים הפועלים במסגרת DEI: צדק גזעי, צדק מגדרי, זכויות LGBTQ+ כצירים מקושרים של אי-שוויון מבני הדורשים פתרונות מוסדיים.

יחידת ניתוח: החלטות מוסדיות של קרן Ford בתקופה 2008–2025: מינויי כוח אדם, מבנים מחדש תוכניתיים ומכשירים פיננסיים, וכן האנשים שקיבלו אותם.

מקורות ראשוניים: IRS Form 990-PF (EIN 13-1684331), הודעות לעיתונות של קרן Ford, טקסט תוכניתי של ווקר "Toward a New Gospel of Wealth" (2015), דוחות הערכה של SMU DataArts ו-Impact Architects (2022), מערכת הערכת הבקשות הרשמית של JustFilms עם משקלות. משניים: Chronicle of Philanthropy (יוני 2015), Variety, Reuters, AP. שלישוניים: InfluenceWatch — רק במקומות שבהם הנתונים אומתו דרך רמות 1–2.

מגבלות: פרוטוקולי ישיבות מועצת הנאמנים סגורים. המוטיבציה מאחורי החלטות בודדות משוחזרת מהצהרות פומביות וכרונולוגיה — לא ממסמכים פנימיים. ייחוס כוונות אסור: רק רצף עובדות הניתנות לאימות.

I. הקשר (1957–2008)

קרן Ford היא הקרן הפרטית הגדולה ביותר בארה"ב למתן מענקים. הוקמה ב-1936 על ידי משפחת הנרי פורד, מטה בניו יורק. הקדש נכון ל-2023: $16.8 מיליארד. מחלקת $500 מיליון עד $1 מיליארד בשנה במענקים לארגונים ברחבי העולם בתחומי חינוך, זכויות אזרח, אמנויות ופיתוח בין-לאומי. מנוהלת על ידי מועצת נאמנים בת 15 חברים ונשיא עם סמכויות ביצועיות — הנשיא הוא שקובע את סדרי העדיפויות התוכניתיים. זה לא גוף ממשלתי ולא קרן תאגידית: Ford אינה תלויה בתקציב ממשלתי ולא בבעלי מניות. היא תלויה בהקדש — ובמי שמנהל אותו.

קרן Ford יצרה אגף נפרד לאמנויות הומניסטיות ב-1957 בלוגיקה של מלחמה קרה: קידום התרבות האמריקאית בעולם כמשקל נגד לצנזורה הסובייטית. ב-1959–1960 הקרן הוציאה כמעט $580,000 בשנה על סופרים בודדים — בין המקבלים היו ג’יימס בולדווין וג’ייקוב לורנס — וב-1961 תקציב האגף גדל מ-$6.3 מיליון ל-$15 מיליון.^[1]

הפנייה הראשונה לקהילות גזעיות התרחשה תחת הנשיא מקג’ורג’ באנדי (1966–1979), בלוגיקה שונה — לא של מלחמה קרה. באנדי הגיע ל-Ford מהבית הלבן, שם שימש כיועץ לביטחון לאומי; תקופתו חפפה שני תהליכים מקבילים: משבר פנימי בארה"ב — מהומות בדטרויט וניוארק (1967), רצח מרטין לותר קינג (אפריל 1968) — ותעמולה סובייטית שניצלה את אותם אירועים. מסמכים פנימיים של הקרן שהיו מאפשרים להבחין בין הוקטורים אינם זמינים. התוצאה: מימון ל-New Lafayette Theatre, Free Southern Theater, Dance Theatre of Harlem. מ-1965 עד 1970 חלק המענקים הקשורים לארגונים אפרו-אמריקאיים עלה מ-2.5% ל-40% מכלל התקציב המקומי.^[2]

שתי החלטות בשתי לוגיקות שונות: 1957 — תגובת מלחמה קרה לאתגר חיצוני; 1966 — תגובה למשבר פוליטי פנימי.

סוזן ברזפורד (1996–2007) הנהיגה את הקרן במשך אחת-עשרה שנים בלוגיקה של כיסוי רחב ללא אנכיות אידיאולוגית. האקטיביזם של שנות ה-60 לא בוטל — הוא התמוסס בתיק ההשקעות.

כשלואיס אוביניאס הגיע ב-2008 — בוגר HBS, לשעבר יועץ McKinsey — ההקדש כבר ירד מ-$12 מיליארד (2007) לכיוון $9.5 מיליארד (2010). אוביניאס פתר את הבעיה הפיננסית בנחישות: פיטר 30% מהעובדים, שינה את אסטרטגיית ההשקעות, מיקד את התוכניות. אך דווקא ההצלחה התפעולית חשפה גירעון עמוק יותר. פרופ’ סטנלי כץ מפרינסטון זיהה זאת ישירות: "תחת אוביניאס, Ford התרחקה מתפקידה כגורם מענקים חברתי והפכה לממוקדת-עסקית יותר. אף אחד לא הבין מהי הפילוסופיה שלו" (Chronicle of Philanthropy, יוני 2015).^[3]

המסורת של שנות ה-60 לא חוסלה. היא הוקפאה — האגף התקיים כיחידה מנהלתית, לא כפרויקט אידיאולוגי. זהו התנאי המוקדם למה שקרה אחר כך.

II. Entry Point: Ubiñas Hires Walker (March 2010)

By 2009–2010, Ubiñas had solved the financial problem: the balance was stabilized, staff reduced, strategy compressed. But success itself exposed two levels of a single crisis that financial stabilization does not cure.

The first was philosophical. The Cold War framework of 1957 ("we promote American culture as soft power") had long been obsolete, and the "education and development" framework built by Susan Berresford over 1996–2007 had no answer to the intellectual climate of 2008–2013. An institution that had survived several presidential transitions could not answer the question "what exactly is right and why" with respect to its own work. From the philosophical crisis grew a second — narrative: without a clear framework, it is impossible to articulate an answer to the question "why do we exist." What is Ford Foundation beyond a well-managed endowment?

The context beyond the foundation was meanwhile moving in one direction. Barack Obama in the White House — the first African American president — was not in itself an ideological signal, but an institutional fact: the conversation about racial equality moved from the activist periphery into mainstream discourse. Simultaneously, the financial crisis made "inequality" an analytical, not merely political, category — Occupy Wall Street was still ahead (2011), Thomas Piketty still ahead (2013), but the intellectual climate had already shifted.

In March 2010, Ubiñas personally recruited Darren Walker from the Rockefeller Foundation for the position of Vice President for the Education, Creativity and Free Expression program — one of the foundation’s three wings. The mandate was broadly formulated: school reform, media regulation, development of new art spaces, rights on a global scale. Walker received $150 million in annual grants and board officer authority.^[4]

Walker was not an outsider: his career was literally built on programs that Ford had financed. He grew up in a poor family in Texas, studied on federal Pell Grants — a federal program of Senator Claiborne Pell (Higher Education Act 1965), unrelated to Ford — then volunteered at a Harlem school for low-income families, then served as COO of Harlem’s Abyssinian Development Corporation, where his first employer was a Ford grant for housing construction. His biography was living proof of the thesis he was about to scale — and he did not conceal this thesis. Ubiñas hired a man to solve a tactical problem — narrative legitimacy — and got exactly what he came for: a man with a ready answer to the philosophical question. The mechanism triggers not when an institution is deceived, but when it receives exactly what it asked for.

III. Three Years of Proving the Model (2010–2013)

In January 2011, ten months after joining Ford, Walker announced JustFilms at the Sundance Film Festival together with program director Orlando Bagwell. JustFilms was positioned as one of the largest documentary film funds in the world, focused on "advancing social justice through documentary filmmaking" — and the choice of Sundance as the platform was not accidental: the festival was already a potential partner, subsequently receiving over $14.7 million (figure requires verification via 990-PF; confirmed first cycle: $5 million).^[5]

Over three years, Walker built within the wing not a set of grants but an ecosystem with closed feedback loops. Sundance selected films for competition, winners gained reputation, reputation converted into the next Ford grant; Distribution Advocates produced research on barriers for non-white filmmakers, and Ford cited this research as justification for its criteria. The foundation funded organizations that produced data legitimizing its own policy — the loop was closed.

30% of all Ford grants during this period passed through Walker’s wing, and the board observed the competition among three wings from the inside. Human Rights and Economic Opportunity and Assets operated on the classical grantmaker model: money goes to an organization, the organization reports on outcomes. Results depended on external reality — did minority rights improve or not, did poverty decrease or not — and the foundation did not control that reality. Education, Creativity and Free Expression operated differently: the foundation funded organizations that produced data justifying the fund’s own selection criteria. Sundance legitimized a film, Distribution Advocates confirmed the existence of barriers, JustFilms criteria determined the next grant recipient, the recipient appeared at Sundance. No external verification point existed — the entire cycle was internal to the ecosystem. This was the competitive advantage over the other two wings: the CFE model could not fail by its own success criteria, in conditions where no competing criteria existed.

IIIb. Anatomy of the Evaluation System: Who Wrote the Rules and How the Cycle Launched

From day one, JustFilms operated through three channels: partnerships with Sundance Institute, ITVS, and Tribeca Film Institute; an open application competition; and direct grants to projects connected with existing foundation recipients. All three were publicly announced in the launch press release — the day before Sundance 2011 opened. The named list of initial recipients by channel and the ratios between them are not disclosed in the foundation’s public materials.^[5]

The selection criteria were written by Walker and program director Orlando Bagwell: a 100-point system where 30 points go to power analysis, 25 to the author’s intersectional identity, 25 to narrative innovation in favor of justice.

Calibration. Ford funded the Sundance Institute ($14.7 million cumulative) — the festival selected films for competition and thereby established what counts as quality social-justice documentary.

Verification. Ford funded Distribution Advocates and similar research organizations — they produced data about barriers for non-white filmmakers and thereby confirmed the necessity of JustFilms criteria.

Filtration. JustFilms criteria, relying on this data, determined the next grant recipient.

Recirculation. The grant recipient appeared at Sundance with the reputation of a Ford recipient, and the circle closed at the calibration phase.

The key structural point: the authors of the criteria and the judges by those criteria are the same people. Not because this was a conspiracy, but because in 2011, no one else existed. The loop could not be challenged from outside because there was no external body with alternative criteria.

IV. Voluntary Capitulation: The Insider Becomes President (July 2013)

In March 2013, ninth president Luis Ubiñas announced his departure. His six-year presidency was the shortest since the 1950s: the stabilization task was solved; the task of finding the reason for the organization’s existence — still was not.

The board of trustees under Chair Irene Hirano Inouye announced a broad international search and, by her account, received an exceptionally large number of candidates — including external ones. The press release of July 24, 2013 described the winner as a person with "grassroots instinct for a global organization" — a rare combination for a candidate of that caliber — and noted that he "came from the foundation’s own talent pipeline."^[6] The board had observed his work from the inside for three years — and chose what it already knew.

No external pressure existed at this moment: George Floyd had not happened, #OscarsSoWhite had not happened, BLM was founded in 2013 but as a hashtag, not as a movement with institutional weight. Darren Walker became president of Ford in the standard quietness of corporate succession — and this is what fundamentally distinguishes the Ford mechanism from the AMPAS mechanism. AMPAS used an external scandal as political cover for electoral reform; Ford needed no scandal because the wing’s logic became the institution’s logic through a standard hiring procedure. Not a reaction to external pressure — expansion from within. Darren Walker filled a vacuum that competitors left empty: he had a ready answer to the philosophical question; the rest did not. The quality of this philosophy is beyond the scope of this report. But it was a fair victory — even if technical, over opponents who refused to compete.

V. Restructuring as Scaling (2015–2016)

Walker spent his first two years as president traveling — listening to program officers and recipients around the world — and simultaneously hired two key people: Hilary Pennington from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Xavier de Souza Briggs, former Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget under Obama. According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, they played a key role in shaping the new strategy.^[3]

In June 2015, Walker published his programmatic text "Toward a New Gospel of Wealth"^[9] — a direct polemic with Andrew Carnegie’s classical philanthropy — with the thesis: traditional philanthropy reproduces inequality because it treats symptoms, not causes. Following the text came an institutional decision: all foundation programs were redirected to a single principle — inequality as root cause. Organizations not working with inequality saw their funding phased out, including some longstanding partners. "Artists, filmmakers, and choreographers seeking Ford support will need to focus on social justice and challenge ‘dominant narratives’" — Walker himself stated in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, June 2015.^[3]

In 2016, two instruments of scale launched simultaneously. CFE Arts & Culture emerged as a separate program with a budget that would reach $230 million by 2021. BUILD went further: $1 billion over five years for 300 social justice organizations worldwide — not project grants but operational funding for the organizations’ very existence. The logic of one wing became the architecture of the entire foundation. From Walker’s hiring to complete restructuring: five years.

VI. Floyd and #OscarsSoWhite: Not a Cause, but an Accelerator

External events of 2015–2020 are commonly interpreted as the cause of major cultural institutions’ pivot to DEI policy. In Ford’s case, this interpretation is imprecise.

By the time the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag appeared (January 2015), Ford’s restructuring was already underway — Walker had been working on the new strategy since 2013. By the time of George Floyd’s death (May 2020), the infrastructure was fully ready: BUILD had been operating for four years, JustFilms had built its ecosystem, the board of trustees had been restaffed. The chronology speaks for itself:

Sixteen weeks from Floyd’s death to ACT. Social Bond — in one month. The speed of deploying instruments of this scale is incompatible with a reaction to an event: the Social Bond required legal preparation, rating negotiations with Moody’s and S&P, underwriting by Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley — such instruments are not created in six weeks; they are created in advance and await the moment.^[7]

External events provided political cover for deploying what had already been built, but the "external events" themselves are not uniform — these are two different mechanisms at two different stages. Obama (2008–2016) created legitimacy: the conversation about racial equality moved into mainstream discourse, lowering the threshold of resistance within the board — enabling Walker’s hiring in 2010 and his election as president in 2013. Floyd (2020) created urgency and money: corporate donors opened their wallets, political cover became sufficient for issuing the Social Bond and launching ACT. Obama reduced friction at the entry point. Floyd accelerated the final capitalization.

VII. What Was Actually Promoted: The Operational Values Map

Ford’s values are verified not through declarations but through operational decisions — each thesis below is a consequence of a specific institutional choice.

Inequality is a structural problem, not an individual one. From this thesis directly follows the funding logic: not individual authors but organizations working on the causes of racial and ethnic inequality in access to cultural resources. Verified through the official JustFilms evaluation system: the first criterion — "analysis of political, economic, or cultural power" — occupies 30 of 100 points.

Who tells the story matters more than the story itself. If inequality is structural, then its reproduction in culture is too; hence the second JustFilms criterion (25 of 100 points): priority to authors with "intersectional analysis" from underrepresented groups. This is not a requirement for a film’s content — it is a requirement for the author’s biography. Result in 2021: 73% of JustFilms funds went to authors identifying as BIPOC (SMU DataArts 2022 data for CFE A&C overall; direct verification for JustFilms alone is unavailable).^[8]

Sustainable institutions matter more than one-off projects. A single film does not change structure — an organization existing for decades does; this is precisely why BUILD (2016–2026) funds not projects but the very existence of organizations: five years of stable operational funding for staff, management, and sustainability. America’s Cultural Treasures (2020): all 20 national recipients are organizations identifying as BIPOC institutions.

Culture is an instrument of social change, not aesthetic autonomy. The third JustFilms criterion (25 of 100 points) — "Innovation in Storytelling" — in the foundation’s formulation means "reimagining narratives to advance justice," not independent aesthetic exploration. The 2024 recipient list confirms this: "Union" (Amazon warehouse union), "#WhileBlack" (deaths of Floyd and Castile), "The Battle for Laikipia" (land conflict in Kenya).

The network matters more than the sum of its participants. BUILD creates not only financially sustainable organizations but connections between them — when in 2021 some recipients unexpectedly received large donations from MacKenzie Scott and could not handle rapid growth, Ford hired La Piana Consulting for the "Building for Growth" program. This is network management, not portfolio management.

VIII. Financial Architecture: What Makes the System Sustainable

Over the period 2011–2021, Ford’s cumulative grant disbursements grew from $422 million to $1.114 billion — plus 164%. Growth was uneven: Ubiñas’s baseline, Walker’s gradual increase through 2015, and George Floyd’s death as a catalyst for doubling in two years. The justice cluster of programs occupies 25% of grants and 27% of total funding — while the average check in justice programs ($562K) is twice the average in Creativity/Arts ($213K). Not just more directions — larger sums.

Social Bond is the key instrument of irreversibility. Repayment of $300 million in 2050, $700 million in 2070: the foundation’s course is locked by financial obligation for half a century ahead. No future president can "quietly wind down" the program — the social bond was issued under a publicly stated mission, and abandoning it would create reputational and legal risk for the Aaa/AAA ratings. Walker did not merely redirect the foundation. He set it in concrete through 2070.

Correlation, not causation. Growth is explained by at least three parallel factors: endowment growth mechanically increases minimum distribution; COVID increased demand for NGO support generally; the departure of major donors from adjacent niches created a vacuum that Ford filled. The growth of the justice program share is verified qualitatively, but not through a comparative quantitative series of 2008 vs. 2021 — see methodological limitation in Section 0.

IX. Vulnerabilities: EO 14173 and 2025

The Directive Level

EO 14173 (January 2025) requires federal agencies to investigate DEI programs in nonprofit organizations with assets exceeding $500 million; Ford ($16.8 billion) is a direct target, and in September 2025 the foundation was named by the White House.

The attack targets the directive level — the published JustFilms evaluation system with numerical weights, which can be cited as formal selection by demographic criteria. This is verifiable, public, and challengeable in court.

Heather Gerken’s appointment as president (November 2025)^[11] is an adaptation of language, not a reversal of strategy. Her specialization is constitutional law and electoral systems, and choosing someone who knows how to defend institutions in court — rather than build film ecosystems — indicates on which front Ford expects the next confrontation.

The departure of the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) from the DEI funding niche (May 2025, dozens of revoked grants) creates a paradoxical effect: organizations that lost government support now depend on Ford more heavily — simultaneously increasing the foundation’s leverage and its regulatory vulnerability.

The Reflexive Level

BUILD and ACT as an ecosystem are legally invulnerable precisely because there are no published rules, no weights, nothing that can be classified as a discriminatory prescription. What exists are organizations sustained by operational grants and a professional class of NGO managers raised in the BUILD logic. A directive can be repealed. An environment cannot.

The real vulnerability at this level is not a lawsuit. The real vulnerability is the emergence of a new philosophical framework compelling enough to formulate the next answer to the question "why does a cultural institution exist." Whoever formulates it will receive what Walker received in 2010 — and not only at Ford Foundation. The mechanism is not protected against repetition — it is reproducible in any direction.

X. מסקנה מבנית

Ford נושאת בתוכה מסורת אקטיביזם גזעי מ-1966, שנוסדה על ידי מקג’ורג’ באנדי כתגובה למשבר פוליטי פנימי — לא כפרויקט מלחמה קרה. תחת אוביניאס היא הוקפאה אך לא חוסלה מבנית.

משבר 2008 היה דו-שכבתי. הפיננסי — שטחי; אוביניאס פתר אותו בחמש שנים. מתחתיו רבץ הפילוסופי: לקרן לא הייתה יותר מסגרת המסבירה את עצם קיומה. מהמשבר הפילוסופי צמח משבר נרטיבי. מוסד ללא תשובה ל"למה" הוא מוסד במצב של פגיעות מבנית.

המנגנון הראשון — אוביניאס שוכר את ווקר למילוי הוואקום הנרטיבי, וווקר לא מסתיר את המסגרת שלו — הוא הוא המסגרת. הביוגרפיה שלו, התוכניות שלו, התזות הפומביות שלו אומרות ישירות: אי-שוויון הוא מבני, התרבות משחזרת אותו, הקרן חייבת לממן שינוי מבני. השרשרת סגורה מהיסוד הפילוסופי ועד שורת התקציב. המנגנון מופעל לא כשמרמים מוסד — אלא כשהמוסד מקבל בדיוק את מה שביקש.

המנגנון השני — ייצור לגיטימציה מבפנים. הקרן ממנת ארגונים שמייצרים נתונים המצדיקים את קריטריוני ההערכה. הקריטריונים קובעים אילו ארגונים יקבלו את המענק הבא. הלולאה סגורה: אין נקודת אימות חיצונית.

במשך שלוש שנים ווקר בונה הוכחת-היתכנות בתוך האגף: JustFilms, Sundance, אקוסיסטם עם לולאות סגורות. המועצה רואה מודל עובד. אוביניאס עוזב, המועצה בוחרת אינסיידר עם מודל מוכח, ונוהל סטנדרטי של ירושה מייצר תוצאה לא-סטנדרטית: הלוגיקה של אגף אחד הופכת ללוגיקה של המוסד כולו.

ב-2015–2016 Ford עוברת מבנה מחדש. ב-2016–2020 BUILD והאקוסיסטם בונים את הרמה הרפלקסיבית — מוסדות, מעמד מקצועי, לולאות מוניטין סגורות. אלה כבר לא כללים. זו סביבה.

ברק אובמה הפחית חיכוך בכניסה (2008–2016). ג’ורג’ פלויד האיץ את ההיוון הסופי (2020). שני מנגנונים שונים, שני שלבים שונים. לא תגובה למשבר — שימוש במשבר.

גרעין העימות

הקרן מקבלת פטורי מס, כלומר כסף ציבורי ממן החלטות תרבותיות פרטיות ללא מנדט ציבורי וללא מנגנון ערעור. סתירה מבנית זו קיימת לפני דארן ווקר, קיימת אחריו, ואינה תלויה בשפה שמתארת אותה.

המחזור כולו — מהקפאת המסורת ועד לתשתית בלתי הפיכה — ארך 15 שנה. לא נדרש לחץ חיצוני. נדרש גיוס טקטי אחד ברגע של וואקום מוסדי. הדפוס ניתן לשחזור ונייטרלי אידיאולוגית: האידיאולוגיה היא תוכן התשובה; המנגנון הוא המכל. פגיעות מבנית אינה נחשפת כקונספירציה — היא מופעלת כמכניקה.

XI. Open Questions

Ubiñas hired Walker for narrative legitimacy — and got a complete reassembly of the entire foundation. To what extent did the board of trustees in 2013 realize that it was choosing not merely a new president but a new operational framework? Each individual decision looked rational — hire, elect, approve the restructuring, launch BUILD — but the cumulative effect became apparent only in retrospect. Minutes are closed. There is no public evidence in either direction.

BUILD’s second cycle ends in 2026, and there is no published exit strategy. What will happen to organizations that have received operational funding for ten consecutive years if Ford does not renew the program? This is not a question about Ford — it is about the viability of what was built without it.

The reflexive level — BUILD, ACT, the ecosystem — is legally invulnerable precisely because it has no published rules. But this also means no verification in the opposite direction: Ford cannot publicly prove that the infrastructure works. Where is the independent evaluation not commissioned by the foundation itself?

And finally — a subversive question about the report’s main thesis: if the mechanism triggers not through deception but through sincere alignment of vacuum with conviction, how can an institution detect it at the entry point? A person with a ready answer to a philosophical question is not screened out in an interview because he does not conceal the answer — he is the answer. The institution either accepts this risk as a structural given or learns to live without philosophical vacuums — which requires constant work on its own narrative of legitimacy, not only on the balance sheet.

Appendix A. Financial Tables

A1. Key Metrics

Sources: IRS Form 990-PF EIN 13-1684331;[10] Ford Foundation press releases;[5][6][7] Moody’s and S&P rating letters;[7] SMU DataArts December 2022.[8]

A2. Grant Disbursements by Year

Source: field contrpdpbks, IRS Form 990-PF, ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, EIN 13-1684331.[10]

A3. Program Breakdown (Walker Era)

Source: sample of 75 grants, Ford Foundation Grants Database, 2018–2025, stratified by ID.