News

In his new book, Staying the Course: Reflections on 40 Years of Grantmaking at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, William S. Moody, a former program director, charts the opportunities of working with individuals and communities around the world to make lasting and positive change.

The European Foundation Centre (EFC) has released a paper comparing and analyzing the current landscape for public-benefit foundations and nonprofits in six countries of the Western Balkans. The EFC’s European Center for Non-Profit Law published the report, contrasting the legal and monetary nuances of foundation work in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia.

Stephen Heintz, president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, spoke at a seminar about philanthropy at the Terry Sanford Institute's Center for Strategic Philanthropy and Civil Society at Duke University in December 2014. Mr. Heintz discussed the Rockefeller family tradition of philanthropy, impact investing, and collaboration with other foundations, among other topics.

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund has made revisions to its Pivotal Place: New York City Program guidelines. Recognizing the many accomplishments of our grantees and the Fund's interest in concentrating limited resources on other areas in which we are currently working to achieve greater impact, the RBF will conclude its grantmaking of civic and political participation of immigrant communities in New York City.

Fourteen of the Picasso tapestries commissioned by Governor Nelson Rockefeller are on loan to the San Antonio Museum of Art for a special exhibition through March 8, 2015. The hand-woven tapestries are on view together for the first time outside of the Rockefeller family estate at the Pocantico Historic Area.

Thomas Friedman highlights RBF grantee, EcoPeace Middle East, as a model of "healthy interdependency," which he argues is the only way to enduring peace and security in the region. EcoPeace Middle East is led by Gidon Bromberg, an Israeli environmental lawyer, Nader al-Khateeb, a Palestinian water expert, and Munqeth Mehyar, a Jordanian architect.

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund has begun a two-step process to divest from investments in fossil fuels. The Fund's immediate focus will be on limiting its exposure to coal and tar sands, two of the most intensive sources of carbon emissions, with the goal to reduce its investments to less than one percent of the total portfolio by the end of 2014.

In working with countries in the Middle East to combat terrorist threats, the United States must not take sides in the Shi'a and Sunni conflict, The Iran Project recommends in a report published on September 17, 2014. The report, Iran and Its Neighbors: Regional Implications for U.S. Policy of a Nuclear Agreement, also examines how Iran's relations with other countries in the region might shift after a comprehensive nuclear agreement is reached.

The International Union of Architects unanimously adopted and committed to a plan to phase out all fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions from the buildings industry by 2050. Michael Northrop, director of the Sustainable Development program at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, writes that the declaration is a significant step toward reaching a universal, legal climate agreement in 2015.

AKA|Strategy and NEXT: Transition Advisors conducted a review of the Culpeper Arts and Culture Grants from 2003 to 2013. The review of grantmaking is intended to provide an understanding of the Fund’s place in the field, the evolution of the program, the strengths and weaknesses its strategies and grantmaking, an assessment of the contributions of Fund's grantees to progress in the field, and possible approaches going forward.