The rich in the West are people with a special mind and extraordinary outlook on life. Thanks to such a combination, in fact, they became wealthy people. At the same time, in addition to tremendous wealth, many of these wealthy men were also well-known benefactors, allocated part of their funds to the development of various social and other projects. This article will discuss the structure called the Rockefeller Charitable Foundation, its features and areas of work.
Founder
The man who gave impetus to the development of an entire dynasty is John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (a little later he had a son with the same name), who was born in the town of Richford, New York. It happened in 1839. The parents of the future tycoon were Protestants, and the family had many children, of which John was the second. His dad was the owner of a small amount of capital, but very often traveled with the aim of selling various elixirs. At the same time, the mother of the family was forced to greatly save on everything.
Business training
The Rockefeller Foundation would not have been created if its creator had not learned from early childhood to be thrifty and rationally use their material means. So, for example, John bought a pound of sweets for himself, after which he divided them into several piles and eventually resold them to his own sisters, but at a higher price. At the age of seven, the boy earned money from his neighbors, growing potatoes and turkeys. John was also trained to keep a record of all his finances, registered them in a book, and also set aside part of the earned funds in the piggy bank.
At the age of thirteen, the young man issued a loan to his friend in the amount of fifty dollars at 7.5% per annum.
The beginning of the path to wealth
In 1857, John became aware that one of the entrepreneurs in England was looking for a partner with $ 2,000 worth of wealth to do business together. At that time, Rockefeller had only 800 dollars, but was inspired by the idea and therefore borrowed money from his father, which allowed him to take the post of junior co-founder of the company Clark and Rothchester, which was engaged in the sale of grain, meat, hay and other goods. After some time, the company needed a loan, it was John who negotiated it with the bank, who managed to convince the manager to give money.
In 1870, John Davison, who founded the Rockefeller Foundation a few years later, had already opened his own oil company. Carrying out this business, the American introduced a truly unique reward system for all his employees: he did not pay the usual salary, but paid people shares in the company, the quotes of which constantly went up and made it possible to get decent dividends. Thus, a brilliant businessman managed to interest his subordinates to work actively for the good of the company, because each of them understood that his personal financial success will depend on the quality of the work done.
Charity
The Rockefeller Foundation is a charitable organization that was created in 1913 and is based directly in New York.
In general, since his youth, John regularly donated 10% of his income to the Baptist Church. In total, in his life he gave over 100 million dollars to it. In addition, 80 million rich gave the University of Chicago, he also helped the New York Institute for Medical Research.
These days, the structure is managed by the former head of the University of Pennsylvania, Ph.D. Judith Rodin, who became the first woman in this post, replacing a predecessor named Gordon Conway in 2005.
The main activities to which the Rockefeller Family Foundation has dedicated itself are:
- research in the field of medicine;
- education;
- allocation of grants and scholarships in agriculture, the public sphere, as well as for studying various problems related to global environmental protection;
- financing the building of a democratic society, raising the cultural level and development.
Refusal to finance hydrocarbon production
In the spring of 2016, the Rockefeller Foundation decided to withdraw assets from all companies involved in oil and coal mining. In particular, it touched a giant called ExxonMobil. According to representatives of a charitable organization, today there is no need to continue investing money in these areas due to the fact that the world community seeks to abandon the use of fossil fuels. In addition, the Rockefellers also stated that some of the already explored reserves must be stored underground in order to leave hope for future generations of people to survive and preserve the ecosystem intact.
In connection with all of the above, the Rockefeller Fund will now have only about 1% of its assets in the oil and coal business (of its entire investment portfolio). Although, given the scale of the investments of this charitable structure, in the end the amount will still be impressive.
Also, all this allows us to understand that such a decision by the Americans will lead to the fact that now the Rockefeller Foundation in Russia will be significantly less active than it was before.
Conclusion
It is worth noting another remarkable fact. In 2012, the Rockefeller and Rothschild families announced the creation of an international trust. Now it becomes completely clear that not a single serious event in the world occurs without the influence of these powerful families.