Words of Wisdom
We are not alone in our mission to Fuel Good in the places we work, the communities we live in and the world that sustains us. Indeed there are many remarkable individuals and organizations that are creating a legacy that moves others to land a hand. We invite you to be inspired as we shine a light on the incredible deeds of the planet's leading philanthropic luminaries.
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MICHAEL J. FOX
Launched in 2000, The Michael J. Fox Foundation is dedicated to finding a cure for Parkinson's disease through an aggressively funded research agenda and to ensuring the development of improved therapies for those living with Parkinson's today. The foundation focuses on helping to speed up drug development for PD with innovative strategies that identify roadblocks along the therapeutic development pipeline. By sharing the risk of drug development with academic and industry researchers alike, the foundation hopes to increase the movement of new treatments into the clinic.
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NANCY BRINKER
Nancy G. Brinker founded Susan G. Komen for the Cure® after witnessing her sister's tragic battle with breast cancer. Nancy promised her sister that she would do everything in her power to end breast cancer forever. That promise is now Susan G. Komen for the Cure®, the global leader of the breast cancer movement, having invested nearly $1.5 billion since inception in 1982. As the world's largest grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists, the group focuses on working together to save lives, empower people, ensure quality care for all and energize science to find the cures.
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DANNY THOMAS
Danny Thomas founded St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in 1962 and lived to see it become an international beacon of hope for the catastrophically ill children of the world. St. Jude is unlike any other pediatric treatment and research facility. With research and patient care under one roof, St. Jude is where some of today's most gifted researchers are able to do science more quickly. St. Jude is a place where many doctors send some of their sickest patients and toughest cases. A place where cutting-edge research and revolutionary discoveries happen every day. And as America's second-largest health-care charity, all patients accepted for treatment at St. Jude are treated without regard to the family's ability to pay.
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JOSEPH P. KENNEDY II
Beginning in 1979 with oil-trading ventures in Latin America and Africa, Citizens Energy has used revenues from commercial enterprises to channel millions of dollars into charitable programs in the United States and abroad. Whether heating the homes of the elderly and the poor, lowering the cost of prescription drugs for millions of Americans, or starting solar heating projects in Jamaica and Venezuela, Citizens creates social ventures as innovative as the businesses that finance them.
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MICHAEL & SUSAN DELL
Established in 1999, this foundation initially focused on improving education and children's health in Central Texas. As with many initiatives that start at home, the desire to do good spread like wildfire and this slowly became an international organization. To date, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation has committed more than $650 million to assist nonprofit organizations working in major urban communities in the United States, South Africa and India. Their mission is to focus on opportunities with the greatest potential to directly and measurably transform the lives of children living in urban poverty.
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CHRISTOPHER & DANA REEVE
In 2002, Christopher Reeve said, "Nothing of any consequence happens unless people get behind an idea. It begins with an individual and they share the idea with more individuals...and eventually it becomes a movement." Proving himself a superman on and off screen, Christopher Reeve and his wife Dana forwarded the movement of this organization in order to find treatments and cures for paralysis caused by spinal cord injury and other neurological disorders after his unfortunate 1995 accident. As early as 2006, the Foundation has awarded more than $64 million in research and quality-of-life grants, a pattern of giving that has only increased since the death of both Christopher and Dana in 2004 and 2006.
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MARGARET MCNAMARA
Reading Is Fundamental, Inc. prepares and motivates children to read by delivering free books and literacy resources to those children and families who need them most. Founded in 1966 by former teacher Margaret McNamara, RIF is the oldest and largest children's and family nonprofit literacy organization in the United States. RIF's highest priority is reaching underserved children from birth to age 8. Through community volunteers in every state and U.S. territory, RIF provided 4.4 million children with 15 million new, free books and literacy resources last year.
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SAM AND HELEN WALTON
Sam and Helen Walton's philosophy of giving is based on life-long experiences in small town Northwest Arkansas that teach the value of personal engagement and involvement, the power of education in society, and that making philanthropic investments should make an appreciable difference in communities. The Foundation's commitment to addressing K-12 education reform, conservation of sensitive marine and freshwater environments, and economic development in the Delta Region of Arkansas and Mississippi is the result of constant and thorough evaluation and re-evaluation of strategic philanthropic investments that can deliver measurable, meaningful benefits.
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W.K. KELLOGG
Born on April 7, 1860 in Battle Creek Michigan, Will Keith (W.K.) Kellogg never went further than sixth grade in school, yet he amassed a huge fortune and enriched the lives of millions of people around the world. When he died on Oct. 6, 1951, at the age of 91, his W. K. Kellogg Foundation, formed in 1930, was one of America's richest philanthropic organizations. From the outset, the Kellogg Foundation's mission was clear - to promote the health, happiness, and well being of children. W.K. Kellogg believed in long-term solutions over short-term handouts and was steadfast in his belief that education offered the greatest opportunity to improve one generation over the other.
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ELI & EDYTHE BROAD
"Progress in urban education isn't just possible - it's happening." The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation is a national entrepreneurial philanthropy that seeks to dramatically transform American urban public education so that all children receive the skills and knowledge to succeed in college, careers and life. They have invested $370 million since 1999 to improve student learning in urban areas, and have no plans to slow down on their mission. The Foundation knows that leadership is key, that every person and every dollar must be focused on students, that good teachers are a necessity and that competition amongst schools is healthy. With these guidelines in mind, change is inevitable through the reach of the Broad Foundation.
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ANDREW CARNEGIE
Andrew Carnegie's philanthropic career began around 1870. He is best known for his gifts of free public library buildings. In 1911 he founded Carnegie Corporation, which was the largest single philanthropic trust that had ever been established. With its original $135 million endowment from Mr. Carnegie, the Corporation has made grants totaling more than $1.4 billion. He strongly believed that the rich are merely "trustees" of their wealth and are under a moral obligation to distribute it in ways that promote the welfare and happiness of the common man. One of his more famous quotes was "the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced" and he lived up to the quote, donating much of his wealth to his own Carnegie Corporation to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding and to achieve the goal of doing "real and permanent good in this world."
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JOHN D. AND CATHERINE T. MACARTHUR
The MacArthur Foundation supports creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. In addition to selecting the MacArthur Fellows, the Foundation works to defend human rights, advance global conservation and security, make cities better places, and understand how technology is affecting children and society. MacArthur is one of the nation's largest independent foundations. Through the support it provides, the Foundation fosters the development of knowledge, nurtures individual creativity, strengthens institutions, helps improve public policy, and provides information to the public, primarily through support for public interest media.
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HENRY AND EDSEL FORD
The Ford Foundation was established on Jan. 15, 1936, with an initial gift of $25,000 from Edsel Ford, whose father Henry founded the Ford Motor Company. Since the founding charter stated that resources should be used "for scientific, educational and charitable purposes, all for the public welfare," the foundation made grants to many kinds of organizations. Today, the Ford Foundation remains committed to advancing human welfare and contributes to major initiatives focused on strengthening democratic values: reducing poverty and injustice; and advancing human knowledge, creativity and achievement.
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THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded on April 13, 1870, "to be located in the City of New York, for the purpose of establishing and maintaining in said city a Museum and library of art, of encouraging and developing the study of the fine arts, and the application of arts to manufacture and practical life, of advancing the general knowledge of kindred subjects, and, to that end, of furnishing popular instruction." The founders of The Metropolitan Museum of Art understood the essential role of the library to the institution's mission. Today the Museum and library share the distinction of being among the world's greatest treasuries for the study of the arts of many cultures. The Thomas J Watson research library continues to benefit from the endowment fund established by Jacob S. Rogers in 1901. The Rogers Fund has enabled the purchase of tens of thousands of books for the library, both newly published titles and important rare books. Today, thanks to these benefactors and many others, Watson Library is a magnificent repository of treatises on art and architecture, early travel books, archaeological studies, rare collection catalogues, pioneering works on the history of art, how-to manuals, artists' biographies, complete runs of seminal journals, fencing books, manuscripts, scrapbooks, fine bindings, and examples of fine printing.
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YVON CHOUINARD
Patagonia acknowledges that the wild world we love best is disappearing. That is why everyone in the company shares a strong commitment to protecting undomesticated lands and waters and believes in using business to inspire solutions to the environmental crisis. Among other environmental programs and philanthropic initiatives, Patagonia is part of 1% For The Planet®. Since 1985, Patagonia has pledged 1% of sales to the preservation and restoration of the natural environment. Patagonia has awarded over 34 million dollars in cash and in-kind donations to domestic and international grassroots enviro groups making a difference in their local communities.
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SURFRIDER FOUNDATION
The Surfrider Foundation is a non-profit grassroots organization dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of our world's oceans, waves and beaches. Founded in 1984 by a handful of visionary surfers in Malibu, California, the Surfrider Foundation now maintains over 50,000 members and 90 chapters worldwide. What makes Surfrider Foundation unique is its membership made up of surfers, swimmers, divers, body-boarders, kayakers and beach enthusiasts from all walks of life. Surfrider Foundation members have proven to be powerful spokespeople and caretakers of the ocean environment which they treasure.
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GORDON & BETTY MOORE
Established in 2000, The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation is local to the San Francisco Bay area, Gordon and Betty's home, and seeks to develop outcome-based projects that will improve the quality of life for future generations through the use of science and environmental conservation. Each initiative is grounded in a specific theory of change with the goal of making strides and showing large scale achievement while partnering with communities, government entities, other nonprofit organizations, and the private sector. From their own backyard to the entire bay area, Gordon and Betty's passion for doing good has inspired and enriched the community in which they live.
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JOHN D ROCKEFELLER
The Rockefeller Foundation envisions a world with Smart Globalization - a world in which globalization's benefits are more widely shared; and social, economic, health, and environmental challenges are more easily weathered. The Foundation's pioneering and enduring philanthropic mission was to "promote the well-being of humanity." This desire lives on and evolves through the work of each member and contributor to the Rockefeller Foundation through the grants provided, the research conducted and the environmental change effected. Their initiatives draw on the Foundation's commitment to nurture innovation, pioneer new fields, expand access to and distribution of resources, empower beneficiaries to cultivate and spread progress in their countries, and, ultimately, generate sustainable impact on individuals, institutions, and communities.
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MOTHERS AGAINST DRUNK DRIVING
Founded by a mother who lost her child in a crash, Mothers Against Drunk Driving® (MADD) is the nation's largest nonprofit organization working to protect families from drunk driving and underage drinking. One of the largest victim services organizations in the United States, MADD also supports drunk driving victims and survivors - serving one person every 10 minutes - at no charge. MADD is proud to work with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on the "Over the Limit. Under Arrest." campaign to catch drunk drivers and discourage others from driving drunk. MADD has positive and long-standing relationships with the government, the law enforcement community, the judiciary and others committed to the safety of our communities
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NATIONAL FIRE PROTECTION ASSOCIATION
The National Fire Protection Association was established in 1896. The company's mission is to reduce the worldwide burden of fire and other hazards on the quality of life by providing and advocating consensus codes as well as standards, research, training and education. NFPA is responsible for establishing and maintaining over 300 codes and standards in the United States and around the world. Almost completely volunteer-based, the NFPA pushes for public safety education, advocacy and professional development, while providing information resources and subscription services to not only protect individuals from fire and other hazards, but to prevent the occurrence of these dangers in the future.
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MOTORCYCLE SAFETY FOUNDATION
With a mission to make motorcycling safer and more enjoyable by providing lifelong quality education and training for current and prospective riders, and by advocating a safer riding environment, the Motorcycle Safety Foundation was founded in 1973, and is sponsored by the U.S. manufacturers of several motorcycle brands. The MSF also participates in government relations, safety research, public awareness campaigns and technical assistance to state training and licensing programs. The Motorcycle Safety Foundation sets the curricula for all motorcycle courses administered in each state, ensuring uniform teaching and the safest instruction possible, and ensuring that all streets and drivers are safe and sound.
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FRED MYERS
The Humane Society of the United States is the nation's largest and most effective animal protection organization - backed by 11 million Americans, or one in every 28. Established in 1954, under the visionary leadership of Fred Myers, the HSUS seeks a humane and sustainable world for all animals - a world that will also benefit people. HSUS is America's mainstream force against cruelty, exploitation and neglect, as well as the most trusted voice extolling the human-animal bond. With the mission of "Celebrating Animals, Confronting Cruelty," HSUS's track record of effectiveness has led to meaningful victories for animals in Congress, state legislatures, courtrooms and corporate boardrooms.
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DR. MARK L MORRIS SR
A simple vision, "a healthier tomorrow for animals," from a visionary founder has resulted in the Morris Animal Foundation becoming a world leader in advancing veterinary research that protects, treats and cures animals on every continent. The Foundation has funded more than 1,600 studies, many of which have led to animal health breakthroughs in diagnostics, treatments, prevention and cures. With a committed and compassionate staff from scientists to volunteers, the Morris Animal Foundation is filled with animal lovers whose passion is their mission, and whose talents and diverse backgrounds make the Foundation what it is today - a world-class organization with enormous heart.
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NEDA DEMAYO
Return to Freedom is a non-profit wild horse sanctuary founded in 1997 by Neda DeMayo. Neda believes that the dream of harmony and balance between humans and the environment lives in all of us. The sanctuary is the realization of her life-long dream: to protect the freedom and natural lifestyle of America's free ranging wild horses. Return to Freedom provides a safe haven for nearly 200 wild horses with a focus on rescuing family bands and not separating members of the same tight-knit herd. Open to the public, the Sanctuary not only helps the wild horses in need, but also helps the public understand the horses better. With equal focus on sanctuary, education and conservation, Return to Freedom hopes to change the world for these beautiful animals.
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BILL GATES
Created by the Gates' in January of 2000, the Seattle-based Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provides funding for underrepresented minority college scholarships, AIDS prevention, and many other causes that are often ignored by the charitable community, such as diseases that often strike the third world. The Foundation has given out over $6.2 billion in grants since its inception. Their main goal is to ensure that all people lead healthy and productive lives - the belief that every life has equal value is the driving force behind the ideology of the foundation.
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ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON
At the age of 44, Johnson and his two brothers started Johnson & Johnson - now one of the world's largest healthcare companies. If you've ever used a Band-Aid, Baby Powder or a First-Aid Kit, you have Johnson & Johnson to thank. The brothers endeared themselves to the public and ensured their future good name with their response to three disasters between 1898 and 1906 - The Spanish-American War, the great Galveston hurricane of 1900 and the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Under later care of Robert Wood Johnson II and still today, Johnson & Johnson is always on board to lend a hand or a dollar to help a community in need.
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CORNELIUS VANDER STARR
In the early 1900s, a 27-year-old by the name of Cornelius Vander Starr traveled to the Far East with 300 yen in his pocket and the drive to make the most of what he had. By the time he was through, he amassed a multi-billion dollar company, know now as AIG (American International Group Inc), the leading international insurance and financial services company in the world. Always a forward thinker, Starr established The Starr Foundation in 1955. He then left his entire estate to the Foundation, which is now one of the largest in the U.S., holding assets of approximately $4.78 billion. In 2002 The Starr Foundation made over $245 million in grants to areas that included education, human needs, public policy, culture, healthcare, medicine and environment.
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GARY & FRANCES COMER
The Comer Science and Education Foundation is a private, family foundation to supporting innovative programs making a positive impact on the lives of individuals and communities. Formed in 1998 after Gary Comer visited his childhood grammar school on the South Side of Chicago and saw the need for change in the area, the foundation takes a holistic approach to problem solving in neighborhoods in need of change and inspiration and provides funding for organizations in an array of fields including education, environment, health and social services as well as neighborhood rehabilitation.
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J. PAUL GETTY
This founder of Getty Oil was known to go against the grain of the oilmen of his generation, and his philanthropic ventures were no exception. J. Paul Getty was an art-lover who felt that art should always be made available to the public for its education and enjoyment. He did not agree with private collections being only made available to a select few, thus, the Getty Museum, the Getty Conservation Institute, the Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, the Getty Education Institute for the Arts, the Getty Information Institute, the Getty Leadership Institute of Museum Management and the Getty Grant Program were each formed in his name.
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WILLIAM R HEWLETT
Co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, William R. Hewlett was first and foremost an engineer, which showed in his uncompromising service to the engineering community. In 1983 Hewlett won the nation's highest scientific honor, the National Medal of Science. A nature lover and part-time botanist, Hewlett and his wife and son formed The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in 1966, which has been making grants to improve the quality of life on the planet ever since. Over the past few years, the Foundation has been able to steadily increase the total amount of its gifts and grants, resulting in it taking its rightful place as one of the nation's largest Foundations with over $5 billion in assets.
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TED TURNER
Founded in 1990 by Ted Turner, Turner Foundation is a private family foundation committed to preventing damage to the natural systems on water, air, and land. The Foundation makes grants in the environmental sector, focusing on what they have deemed the four main components: safeguarding habitat, growing the movement, creating solutions for sustainable movement and healthy planet, healthy communities. The Turner Foundation will annually select issues to which they will contribute based on these four components and what could impact the most change and preservation.
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FLIGHT SAFETY FOUNDATION
The Flight Safety Foundation was formed in 1947 with the goal of continuously pursuing improvements in global aviation safety. The Foundation does this through research, auditing, education, advocacy and publishing. Being in a unique position of independence, impartiality and nonprofit, they are able to identify global safety issues, set priorities and serve as a catalyst to address the issues effectively. Along with their ability to bridge cultural and political divides for a common cause, they are able to earn worldwide respect for what they have accomplished.
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THE MINES AWARENESS TRUST
In reaction to the conflict in Kosovo, the Mines Awareness Trust (MAT) was established as a non-for profit organization. Since that day in May of 1999, MAT has aided in over nine countries, working hard to clear landmines from countries that have been affected by wars. Along with their solid plans and astute ability to provide landmine clearance, they pride themselves on their ability to assist in post-conflict scenarios while maintaining the highest ethical standards and principles
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DAVID & CHERYL DUFFIELD - MADDIE'S FUND
David & Cheryl Duffield are no strangers to philanthropy. Aside from funding a private elementary school and a nanotechnology research center at Cornell University, the Duffields are best known for their California-based foundation, Maddie's Fund, which supports private animal shelters and supports a "no kill" agenda. The Duffields have injected over $300 million into the foundation in order to save the lives of dogs and cats all over the country.
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HENRY BERGH - ASPCA
"To provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the United States." This was the mission of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) as stated by founder Henry Bergh in 1866 when he founded the first humane organization in the Western Hemisphere. Today, the ASPCA is still one of the largest in the world. With its roots in New York City, and its reach extending nationwide with over 1 million supporters, the organization provides a loud and strong voice for animals everywhere.