To be accountable to the public, private foundations need to be transparent. By keeping and maintaining their archives, foundations build public trust and contribute to the process of collective learning.
On Wednesday, June 12, the Ford Foundation hosted a one-day conference in New York City entitled “Advancing Foundation Archives: Advocacy, Strategies, and Solutions.” Sponsored by the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Archive Center, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, the event was the first conference focused on the preservation of philanthropic archival collections in three decades.
The entire Vantage Point team attended the event, engaging in discussions about the strategies, risks, and rewards of institutional archiving and oral history. Meanwhile, Vantage Point President Eric Abrahamson presented alongside Justine Greenland Duke from the Mastercard Foundation. Together, they shared how, with Vantage Point’s help, the Mastercard Foundation captured key insights from its first ten years of operation.