Leslie Lenkowsky, a professor of philanthropic studies at Indiana University, wrote in the August issue of the Chronicle of Philanthropy about the Ford Foundation and its new president, Luis A. Ubiñas. Lenkowsky - highlighting Ubinas's corporate credentials - remarked that appointing the former McKinsey executive represented a move by the Ford Foundation to adopt a more "businesslike approach" to the tackling its philanthropic causes. He then cautioned that the history of exporting business discipline to charity foundations runs back to Carnegie, and in recent year the philanthropy emerging from tech wealth - much of it venture philanthropy - has run in that vein.
I think it would be interesting to profile Uribas as well as examine the Ford Foundation as it enters the 21st century. Uribas is just starting so there's no way to gauge results, and he has stated that he doesn't intend any wholesale restructuring. But Uribas could be a good segue into what Lenkowsky calls "an important debate occuring in American philanthropy today," that of foundations picking up business techniques to help the poor against the older model of the wealthy leaving great monuments, or "elite institutions" as Lenkowsky writes (he doesn't generalize as much though).
The problem is getting access. Also, this may be such a large project that I'm getting in over my head.
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