Friday, October 3, 2014
Rockefeller Foundation President Profiled in BusinessWeek
Judith Rodin is the president of the Rockefeller Foundation, which means she’s in charge of giving away one of America’s historic fortunes. One problem: “As rich as Rockefeller” doesn’t mean quite what it once did. The foundation ranks only 16th in assets among U.S. charities, according to the Foundation Center.
She said that since her foundation can’t hope to solve society’s problems by spending lots of its own money, it’s focusing on what it calls “impact investing”—highly targeted spending that opens the spigots of other sources of funding, including profit-seeking investment. Rockefeller may be one of America’s oldest foundations, but “we really believe that innovation is core to our DNA,” Rodin said. “I think we’re leading the latest trends. I don’t think old has to be working in old ways....”