News

Last month, the Fund elected Valerie Rockefeller Wayne to chair the Rockefeller Brothers Fund board of trustees. Ms. Wayne is a middle school special education teacher specializing in adolescents with learning differences and emotional disabilities. She first joined the RBF board in 2003. Ms. Wayne succeeds Richard Rockefeller, who had led the Fund since 2006.

Rina Castelnuovo's powerful photo essay in The New York Times on July 14, 2013, featured Palestinians and Israelis brought together by grief, after having lost loved ones killed in the region's conflict. The families were convened by Rockefeller Brothers Fund grantee the Parents Circle Families Forum.

In April, Partners Albania held a nationwide competition for civil society organizations, social enterprises, and small business ventures to pitch and develop innovative, sustainable business ideas. Fifteen groups competed during the two-day Green Ideas Competition.

Charting Our Progress is an annual report of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s activities over a three-year period. This year's cover story, by Charles Granquist, spotlights The Pocantico Center, which is located on the historic Rockefeller family estate.

Former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs and Ambassador and Representative to the United Nations Thomas Pickering, and former Deputy National Security Advisor and Ambassador to the United Nations Nancy Soderberg, have published an op-ed on CNN's website encouraging Secretary of State John Kerry to sign an order to change a 2010 Supreme Court decision that has hindered peacebuilders from doing their jobs.

Community philanthropy strengthens civil society and should be a priority of development aid practitioners, according to a new report published by the Aga Khan Foundation U.S.A., the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Global Fund for Community Foundations, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The findings are aligned with the trend in the field of community philanthropy; local foundations grew by 86 percent from 2000 to 2010.

The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) has found new and surprising ways to reach audiences through arts. CIR has partnered with Tides Theatre in San Francisco to adapt investigative news articles and a documentary film into one-act plays. CIR is also collaborating with arts organizations in Berkeley, California to showcase animated shorts based on the news. Another CIR initiative brings spoken-word poet José Vadi onto its staff.

Stephen Heintz has been elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the world's oldest and most prestigious honorary societies. Founded during the American Revolution, the Academy recognizes the most influential leaders from science, scholarship, business, public affairs, and the arts, and carries out nonpartisan policy research on social, political, and intellectual topics in response to the needs and problems of society.

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund is pleased to announce the appointment of Mark Adiedo as director of human resources. As director, he will provide leadership, guidance, and professional expertise to senior management and services to staff and the Fund’s affiliates on matters related to human resources and organizational development.

The Institute for Integrated Transitions has released an analysis of international expert assistance offered in Tunisia after the January 2011 revolution. The report focuses on the country's reforms in its media, security sector, and judiciary, as well as youth employment; results have been mixed more than two years after the uprising.