ABSTRACT

The Rockefeller Foundation probably has had a more profound effect upon the lives of more people in the emerging lands of Asia, Africa, and Latin America than any other single private American institution. Although the Rockefeller Foundation did not set out on a path of "foreign assistance" as such, it did seek to "eradicate" certain diseases. In 1916 the officers of the foundation decided to take a look at medical education abroad and began with a study of medicine in Brazil. In 1928 the foundation gave the China Medical Board independent status and a substantial endowment, and set it free to operate on its own. By the early 1970s, Lilly Endowment of Indianapolis, founded in 1937, had grown into one of the half-dozen largest foundations in the country, with assets of more than one billion dollars. A small family philanthropy located in Indianapolis, the West Foundation gives perhaps half of its grants each year for international projects.