The Global Philanthropy Forum presents Instruments for Social Change: Policy, Philanthropy, Private Enterprise & Social Entrepreneurship with Lael Brainard (Moderator) and panelists Peter Akerman, Bill Drayton, Alan DetheriPatricof and Timothy E. Wirth.
Bio
Peter Ackerman
Peter Ackerman is Chairman of the Board of Freedom House. He is the Managing Director of Rockport Capital Incorporated, a private investment firm. Since its inception in 1990, Rockport has made numerous direct investments in fields as diverse as movie libraries, publishing, propane distribution, textiles, variable insurance, and SMS integration, to name only a few. From 1978 to 1990 he was Director of International Capital Markets at Drexel Burnham Lambert, where he structured, financed, and invested in hundreds of recapitalizations.
William Drayton
Bill Drayton is Founder and CEO of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public Founder and Chair of Youth Venture, Community Greens and Get America Working.
He is a social entrepreneur. As a student, he was active in civil rights and founded a number of organizations ranging from Yale Legislative Services to Harvard's Ashoka Table, an interdisciplinary weekly forum in the social sciences. He graduated from Harvard with the highest honors and went on to study at Balliol College at Oxford University, where he attained his M.A. with First Class Honors.
Alan Patricof
Alan Patricof is a Co-Founder of Apax Partners, L.P. (formerly Patricof and Co. Ventures, Inc.). Alan founded the firm at a time when venture capital was at an incipient stage, and has since been instrumental in growing the industry from a base of high net-worth individuals to its position today with broad institutional backing. He was instrumental in the start-up, financing, and subsequent strategic guidance that helped facilitate the growth of companies such as American Online, Office Depot, Cadence Systems, Apple Computer, FORE Systems, NTL, Audible, Inc.
Timothy E. Wirth
Timothy E. Wirth is the president of the United Nations Foundation and Better World Fund. These organizations were founded in 1998 through a major financial commitment from R.E. Turner to support and strengthen the work of the United Nations.
Mr. Wirth began his political career as a White House fellow under President Lyndon Johnson and was deputy assistant secretary for Education in the Nixon Administration. In 1970, he returned to his home state and successfully ran for the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Colorado's 2nd Congressional District from 1975-1987. In 1986, Wirth was elected to the U.S. Senate.
Following those two decades of elected politics, Mr. Wirth served in the U.S. Department of State as the first undersecretary for Global Affairs from 1993 to 1997.
Voluntary, organized efforts intended for socially useful purposes. Philanthropic groups existed in the ancient civilizations of the Middle East, Greece, and Rome: an endowment supported Plato's Academy (c. 387 BC) for some 900 years; the Islamic waqf (religious endowment) dates to the 7th century AD; and the medieval Christian church administered trusts for benevolent purposes. Merchants in 17th- and 18th-century western Europe founded organizations for worthy causes. Starting in the late 19th century, large personal fortunes led to the creation of private foundations that bequeathed gifts totaling millions and then billions in support of the arts, education, medical research, public policy, social services, environmental causes, and other special interests. SeeAndrew Carnegie; B'nai B'rith; Bill Gates; George Peabody; Rockefeller Foundation; Straus family.
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