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| Building Your Family's 100 Year Plan: The Series |
100 Year Plan Part III: The Good We Do
Daniel Gross
02/02/2004
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In 1913, John D. created the Rockefeller Foundation, endowed with about $180 million in its first six years, largely in Standard Oil stock. Junior was elected president and would devote the rest
of his life to giving away his father’s money. The Rockefeller Foundation embarked on crusades to eradicate infectious diseases and lavished funds on China. "By the 1920s, the Rockefeller Foundation was the largest grant-making foundation on Earth and America’s leading sponsor of medical science, medical education and public health," wrote Chernow.
What set the Rockefeller tradition apart was a willingness to invest in ideas and knowledge—not just buildings. By the time John D. Rockefeller died in 1939, Junior had emerged as the era’s leading philanthropist. He presided over the Rockefeller Foundation for several decades but also used his own voluminous funds to tackle grand restoration challenges: Versailles, Yellowstone Park and Colonial Williamsburg (on which he spent $55 million alone), to name just a few. In his lifetime, Junior would supervise the disbursement of about $1 billion in philanthropy.
The Rockefellers—and Rockefeller family trusts—continued to invest in developments like Rockefeller Center and other businesses. This allowed a third generation of Rockefellers to carry on the tradition. Each of Junior’s five sons went into a different field. Nelson became a politician, David a banker, Laurance a venture capitalist. John III, like his namesake, would become a full-time philanthropist.
In 1940, the sons created the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF), which was ultimately endowed with nearly $130 million in funds from Junior. And as the Rockefeller Foundation grew more independent over time, David Rockefeller wrote in Memoirs, "the Rockefeller Brothers Fund emerged as my generation’s most significant joint philanthropic endeavor, and it was the principal vehicle for our support of groups in fields such as population, conservation, economic development, urban affairs and basic scientific research." By 1973, RBF was the country’s 12th largest foundation.
John D. Rockefeller III, became chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation in 1952, and, like his father, plowed the foundation’s funds into medical and scientific funds. When he died in 1978, for the first time in nearly 100 years, no single Rockefeller was recognized as that generation’s leading, full-time, professional philanthropist.
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