Rockefeller Foundation: history of creation, features, priorities

Western rich people are people with a special mind and extraordinary views on life. It is thanks to this combination, in fact, they have become wealthy persons. At the same time, in addition to the enormous wealth, many of these well-off men were also well-known benefactors, deducting part of their funds for the development of various social and other projects. This article will deal with a structure called the Rockefeller Charitable Foundation, its features and areas of work.

Founder

The man who gave impetus to the development of the whole dynasty is John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (a little later he had a son with the same name) who was born in Richford, New York. It happened in 1839. The parents of the future tycoon were Protestants, and the family had many children, of whom John was the second. His father was an owner of insignificant capital, but very often traveled to sell various elixirs. At the same time, the mother of the family was forced to greatly save on everything.

Business Training

The Rockefeller Foundation would not have been created if its creator had not been trained from the earliest childhood to be lean and rationally using his material means. So, for example, John bought a pound of sweets for himself, after which he divided them into several heaps and eventually resold them to his own sisters, but at a higher price. At the age of seven, the boy earned money from neighbors, growing potatoes and turkeys. John was also trained to keep a record of all his finances, registered them in a book, and also put aside a portion of the earned money in a piggy bank.

At the age of thirteen, the young man gave a loan to his friend at a rate of fifty dollars at 7.5% per annum.

The beginning of the road to wealth

In 1857, John learned that one of the entrepreneurs in England was looking for a partner with a $ 2000 fortune for joint business. At that time, Rockefeller had only 800 dollars, but he got the idea and therefore borrowed money from his father, which allowed him to take up the post of junior co-founder in the company "Clark and Rotchester", which was engaged in the sale of grain, meat, hay and other goods. After some time, the company needed a loan, negotiations on its receipt were conducted with the bank by John, who managed to convince the manager to give money.

In 1870, John Davison, who in a few years founded the Rockefeller Foundation, opened his own oil company. Engaged in this business, the American introduced a truly unique system of encouraging all its employees: he did not pay the usual salary, but calculated with people the shares of the company, whose quotes continuously went up and allowed to receive decent dividends. Thus, the brilliant businessman managed to interest his subordinates to work actively for the benefit of the company, because each of them understood that his personal financial success would depend on the quality of the work performed.

Charity

The Rockefeller Foundation is a charitable organization that was established in 1913 and is based directly in New York.

In general, since his youth, John regularly deducted 10% of his income in the Baptist church. In total for his life he gave over 100 million dollars in it. In addition, 80 million rich man gave the University of Chicago, he also helped the New York Institute of Medical Research.

Today, this structure is managed by the former head of the University of Pennsylvania, Ph.D. Judith Rodin, who became the first woman in this position, replacing her predecessor, Gordon Conway, in 2005.

The main activities that the Rockefeller family has devoted itself to are:

• Research in the field of medicine;
• education;
• Granting grants and scholarships in agriculture, the public sphere, as well as to study various problems related to global environmental protection;
• Financing of building a democratic society, raising the cultural level and development.

Refusal to finance hydrocarbon production

In the spring of 2016, the Rockefeller Foundation decided to withdraw assets from all companies involved in oil and coal mining. In particular, it touched the giant called ExxonMobil. According to the representatives of the charitable organization, today there is no need to continue investing money in these areas due to the fact that the world community seeks to abandon the use of fossil fuels. In addition, the Rockefellers also stated that some of the explored reserves should be kept underground so as to leave hope for future generations of people to survive and preserve an intact ecosystem.

In connection with all of the above, now the Rockefeller Foundation will have only about 1% of its assets in the oil and coal business (from its entire investment portfolio). Although, given the scale of the investment of this charitable organization, the sum will be impressive in the end.

Also, all this makes it clear that such a decision by the Americans will lead to the fact that now the Rockefeller Foundation in Russia will be much less active than it was before.

Conclusion

It is worth noting another remarkable fact. In 2012, the Rockefeller and Rothschild families announced the creation of an international trust. Now it is finally clear that not a single serious event in the world occurs without the influence of these powerful families.