It’s been a while in the making and it’s interesting as the staff had a major role in putting it together. 
Click here to watch Ford Foundation President Luis A. Ubiñas introduce the new plan.
“A comprehensive set of new strategies aimed at creating fairness and equity for people everywhere.”
What’s in it for the arts, you may ask:
Supporting next-generation arts institutions
Arts and culture play a vital role in the creation of more just and
vibrant societies. Our work aims to promote public discourse, cultural
pluralism and artistic creativity through the development and
sustainability of exemplary arts facilities and key networks,
particularly in diverse communities. Throughout the world, independent
arts organizations are emerging and creating unique and vitally needed
spaces where citizens interact in an expanded public sphere. We support
exemplars of a new 21st-century arts leadership who share knowledge,
build capacity and serve as models of artistic innovation, cultural
collaboration, inclusion and social partnership.Orlando Bagwell, Director
Cultural legacies, memory and social change
Countries around the world continue to struggle to come to terms
with legacies of war, enslavement, colonialism, discrimination and
other crimes against justice, human dignity and freedom, and how that
history shapes current discourse. We believe that historical sites,
museums, archives, media products and cultural institutions are
uniquely important in excavating the histories of the human struggle
and
reintroducing them into public consciousness and debate. We support the
development of a global network of “sites of conscience” central to
public exploration of memory and history. These sites seek to enable
both historical and contemporary narratives to be constructed in more
pluralistic ways, using methods that bring together marginalized and
mainstream voices to shape complete and inclusive notions of national
identity.Orlando Bagwell, Director
What’s in it for arts education? That’s not so easy to tell. The Ford Foundation, somewhat quietly over the past five or six years, has been running one of the finest arts education initiatives I have ever encountered. While that program is in a sunset mode, fingers crossed that there will be room for arts education in Ford’s new work.
Transforming secondary education
In
today’s global economy, young people who fail to get high-quality
secondary education face increasingly dim prospects. Millions of
students from marginalized groups are essentially barred from economic,
social and political opportunity because their schools do not
adequately serve them. Our work seeks to dispel two myths: that
high-quality education is a scarce commodity and that inequalities
among our schools are inevitable and intractable. We work with
national, state and local partners to supplant these myths with durable
evidence and powerful examples of equitable, high-quality schooling for
all students. We also support parents, community groups, educators and
others seeking to use evidence and examples to achieve policies and
practices that provide fair and adequate school funding; recruit,
prepare and retain high-quality teachers; expand classroom time and
learning opportunities in the school day and academic year; and create
meaningful accountability.Jeannie Oakes, Director
Building knowledge for social justice
The
current economic crisis and political transition in the United States
have kindled in the nation an opportunity to rebuild a social contract
around fairness and opportunity, collective responsibility and the
common good. This will not happen, however, without compelling ideas,
evidence and arguments that inspire and inform concrete steps toward a
society where all have fair and decent work, where difference doesn’t
mean exclusion and disadvantage, and where all participate in
democratic civic life. Toward that end, we support think tanks, public
intellectuals, scholars and media to create and communicate knowledge
for social change. We also support the development of the next
generation of public intellectuals and leaders whose work can inform
and sustain a social contract based on justice.Jeannie Oakes, Director
