The Ford Foundation Board of Trustees today announced the election of two new members, Martin Eakes and Tim Berners-Lee.
“Martin is one of the most successful social entrepreneurs of his generation, having founded a series of national nonprofit organizations. Tim’s work in the early development of the World Wide Web makes him one of the great innovators of his generation. They have launched ideas and built institutions that have had enormous impact in the lives of people around the country and around the world,” said Luis Ubinas, president of the Ford Foundation. “Together they represent an extraordinary addition to the Ford Foundation’s board.”
Berners-Lee (pictured) made an indelible mark on history when he invented the World Wide Web in 1989. In addition to his work as a professor at MIT and at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, Berners-Lee is director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which develops open standards to ensure the long-term growth of the Web. He is director of the Web Science Trust, which supports the global development of Web science. He is also founder of the World Wide Web Foundation, launched in 2009 to fund and coordinate efforts to advance the potential of the Web to benefit humanity. Among countless other honors, Berners-Lee was knighted by H.M. Queen Elizabeth in 2004, and he was awarded the Order of Merit in 2007.
Eakes founded Self-Help, which reaches low-income families who are underserved by conventional financial institutions through retail credit unions that offer a full range of deposit accounts, consumer loan products, and services to residents. He also founded the Self-Help Ventures Fund, which manages Self-Help’s higher-risk business loans, real estate development, and home loan secondary market programs, and the Self-Help Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit entity that purchases and develops residential real estate in low-income communities.
Ford Foundation trustees are elected by the full board and serve six-year terms. Trustees set broad policy relating to grant making, geographic focus, investments, governance and professional standards, and they oversee internal and independent audits. The Ford Foundation is an independent, nonprofit grant-making organization. For 75 years it has worked with courageous people on the frontlines of social change worldwide, guided by its mission to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement. With headquarters in New York, the foundation has offices in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.
