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Opinion: Ford’s Darren Walker Sets Back Push on Inequality by Joining Pepsi Board

March 10, 2017

To: Darren Walker, president, the Ford Foundation

From: Pablo Eisenberg, senior fellow, Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy

Dear Darren,

We have worked together over the years on projects that help the neediest of Americans, so I feel compelled to tell you publicly how deeply disappointed and disturbed I was by your decision to join the board of PepsiCo. While I’m certain your intentions were good, I believe you failed to understand the negative impact your action could have on philanthropy, and on those working to change corporate behavior.

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To: Darren Walker, president, the Ford Foundation

From: Pablo Eisenberg, senior fellow, Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy

Dear Darren,

We have worked together over the years on projects that help the neediest of Americans, so I feel compelled to tell you publicly how deeply disappointed and disturbed I was by your decision to join the board of PepsiCo. While I’m certain your intentions were good, I believe you failed to understand the negative impact your action could have on philanthropy, and on those working to change corporate behavior.

You said your motivation was to change Pepsi’s practices, but you underestimated the difficulty of such a task, This is, after all, a company whose goals and objectives revolve around selling soft drinks and junk food to its customers, including children. Critics have pointed out that Pepsi has a history of questionable behavior, such as lobbying against public-health legislation and regulations aimed at combating obesity.

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One person on the board is not going to make a major difference in the way Pepsi operates. It is a money-making entity, not a social-welfare agency. And while you may be able to help the company change a few practices around the fringes, Pepsi will never alter its fundamental mission: earning profits. Name for me one person who, by joining a major corporation’s board, has succeeded in changing the way it does its real business. It’s nice to tilt at windmills, but it is a futile exercise that might make you feel good but won’t achieve anything substantial.

What you have done is make PepsiCo look more caring and concerned about health issues by affiliating itself with a well-known and respected figure whose name is associated with social justice and change. You have provided Pepsi with a public-relations coup.

Conflict of Interest

Darren, your public comments about dedicating the efforts of the Ford Foundation and other philanthropic institutions to attacking inequality sounded a high moral note and laid down a challenge. Yet you have joined a corporation that sells unhealthy soda and junk food to kids, often poor and disadvantaged ones, thereby increasing inequality. Your action undercuts the moral stance you have taken.

There is also an inherent conflict of interest in the CEO of the Ford Foundation joining a corporation whose interests may be at odds with those of your organization and its grantees. How will such problems be resolved? By whom? For example, will Ford be willing to fund advocacy organizations that criticize or attack PepsiCo?

It is true that you are not alone among foundation heads in your corporate cooperation. Judith Rodin, who just retired as head of the Rockefeller Foundation, has been a member of at least three corporate boards, and some of your predecessors at Ford have also enjoyed the sizable perks that come with corporate directorships. But that doesn’t make it right or advisable. Your example could prompt other foundation CEOs to join corporate boards, thereby jeopardizing their institutions’ integrity.

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You earned almost $800,000 at Ford in 2015, not to mention substantial benefits. According to The New York Times, you stand to earn between $275,000 and $418,000 a year as a board member at Pepsi, plus bonuses and corporate shares. Will you keep this money, or do you plan to give it to charity or a Ford-funded project? You have an obligation to make this information public.

Darren, you already sit on numerous nonprofit boards. And you are in charge of a $12.5 billion operation. How much time do you have to devote to board service with a huge corporation? It’s all you can do to make certain that Ford’s work on inequality is carried out effectively. Your staff needs supervision, and you need to be checking out what’s going on in the communities where nonprofits you support work, both at home and abroad. That should be your major focus and task.

Under your leadership, the Ford Foundation has become a pillar of philanthropic enlightenment, raising crucial concerns about poverty and inequality, helping to give other foundations a new direction and sense of social justice. Please don’t blow the opportunity you have to continue this leadership.

Pablo Eisenberg, a regular Chronicle contributor, is a senior fellow at the Center for Public & Nonprofit Leadership at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. His email address is pseisenberg@verizon.net.

We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
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