Ford Foundation’s New Leader Is From Yale Law School

U.S.|Ford Foundation’s New Leader Is From Yale Law School

Heather K. Gerken, the dean of Yale Law School, will become the president of the Ford Foundation later this year, the group said Tuesday.

Ms. Gerken, who was seen last year as a contender for the Yale presidency, will take over one of the country’s wealthiest and most influential philanthropies at a time of especially fraught debate about social justice and inequality, two of the foundation’s touchstones.

In a statement on Tuesday, Ms. Gerken said she was looking forward to working at the foundation “to protect democracy and the rule of law and further our mission to create a more just and fair world for everyone.”

Ms. Gerken will succeed Darren Walker, who announced last summer that he would conclude a 12-year tenure in 2025. About a decade ago, he began to redirect Ford’s philanthropy toward combating inequality, writing then that the foundation would work on “not just wealth disparities, but injustices in politics, culture and society that compound inequality and limit opportunity.”

It was a shift in focus for the philanthropy, which was founded in 1936 by Edsel Ford, the only child of Henry Ford, the auto magnate. For many decades, the foundation’s giving was wide-ranging. An early grant helped create what ultimately became PBS, and the foundation went on to spend on everything from orchestras to disaster relief. In 2014, after the City of Detroit filed for bankruptcy, the foundation was at the center of a daring effort that limited the cuts to retired city workers’ pensions and protected the Detroit Institute of Arts. (The foundation, whose endowment is valued at roughly $16 billion, has also supported journalism programs, including some at The New York Times.)

The Ford Foundation remained a powerhouse after it adjusted its focus. In its most recent publicly available tax return, it reported spending more than $600 million on contributions, gifts and grants, with hundreds of millions more scheduled to be paid in the future. Much of the money recently has gone toward projects it classifies as related to “civic engagement and government,” but it still spreads its largess on an array of initiatives.