Rockefeller Foundation on social innovation

John Elkington

February 13, 2011

I was stunned a few weeks back to hear that I had been awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellowship, literally out of the blue. Then I came across this interview with Dr Judith Rodin, the Foundation’s President, which helped sketch in some of the background – and provides deep insights into this emerging field of ours. She also argues, persuasively, that the Foundation was doing ‘social innovation’ 100 years ago.

For anyone interested in the deep history of the Rockefeller world, here’s a book that has been on my bookshelves for many years: Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., by Ron Chernow (Random House, New York, 1998).