ABSTRACT
A champion of community building and renewal, John Gardner was instrumental in identifying the role of government in propelling social causes to action. As US President Johnson’s Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Gardner structured Great Society programmes, including Medicare health programmes, the Public Broadcasting System and the Civil Rights Act. In 1970, he founded Common Cause, a citizens’ group that aims to increase government accountability and oversight. In 1979, he co-founded the Independent Sector, a national association of non-profits and foundations. Gardner was also a professor at Stanford’s business and education schools and President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
