Formation | 2014 |
---|---|
Founders | |
Type | Non-operating private foundation |
EIN 46-4950751 [1] | |
Legal status | 501(c)(3) organization |
Headquarters | Hyde Park, Chicago, Illinois |
Valerie Jarrett | |
Revenue | $143,158,266 (2019) [2] |
Endowment | $429,545,259 (2019) [2] |
Website | www |
| ||
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Pre-presidency 44th President of the United States First term Second term Post-presidency Publications Personal | ||
The Barack Obama Foundation is a Chicago-based nonprofit organization founded in 2014. It oversees the creation of the Barack Obama Presidential Center, runs the My Brother's Keeper Alliance (a program Barack Obama began while he was president), and operates a scholarship program through the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy.
The foundation held its inaugural summit on October 31, 2017, in Chicago. According to Barack Obama, he intends for his foundation to be central to many of his post-presidential activities, which he sees as having the potential to be more consequential than his time in the White House. [3] In 2018, contributions and in-kind gifts totaled $164.8 million, according to its filed annual report in June 2019 – a drop of $67.8 million from the $232.6 million raised in 2017. [4] [5]
The foundation's first president was Adewale Adeyemo, an economist and former Deputy National Security Adviser for International Economic Affairs who joined in August 2019. [6] In 2020, President-elect Joe Biden selected Adeyemo to serve as Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, and he was replaced by Valerie Jarrett. [7]
The foundation's major project as of March 2018 [update] is to oversee the creation of the planned presidential library of former president Obama. In May 2015, the foundation, along with Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, announced the development of the center and its location in the Jackson Park neighborhood of Chicago's South Side. [8] The planning process met with criticism from some local leaders who questioned the benefit for the surrounding area and did not feel the community was sufficiently involved. [9] [10] On February 26, 2019, Chicago residents voted to require a community benefits agreement in order to make the Center official, something to which the Obama Foundation has objected. [11] [12]
Updated plans were released in 2019, with some changes based on feedback. The complex includes four buildings, with a museum, public space, public library branch, and athletic center. It was designed by the architectural firm Tod Williams Billie Tsien. [13]
Construction on the 19.3 acre campus is expected to top out in April 2024, and be completed in October 2025. [14]
The My Brother's Keeper Alliance (MBK Alliance) is a program inspired by President Obama's My Brother's Keeper Challenge that he started through the White House in 2014. Its purpose is to address challenges and opportunity gaps that boys and young men of color face, providing support through mentoring, education, job training, and other activities. [15] [16] In 2017, MBK Alliance was moved into the Obama Foundation. [17]
In February 2018 the foundation announced it had begun a scholarship program at the University of Chicago. The scholarships are awarded to 25 American and international master's students in the Harris School of Public Policy in an effort to cultivate leadership through the Presidential Center. It covers the students' tuition and living expenses while they work with the foundation and take classes. [18] [19] It also began sponsoring fellowships called Obama Foundation Scholars at Columbia University, Obama's alma mater. In its first year, 2018, the non-degree-granting program paid the expenses and provided a stipend for 12 international students. [20]
In May 2022, The Obama Foundation announced a $100 million gift from Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky. The gift was to launch a new scholarship program for students pursuing careers in public services. The Voyager Scholarship aka The Obama-Chesky Scholarship for Public Service aims to support students in their junior and senior years of college with up to $50,000 in financial aid, a $10,000 stipend and free Airbnb housing to pursue a summer work-travel experience between their junior and senior years of college; a $2,000 travel credit every year for 10 years following graduation; an annual summit; and a network of mentors. [21] On September 12, 2022, the inaugural cohort of 100 "Voyagers" was announced. The inaugural cohort represents 36 US states and territories as well as 70 US colleges and universities. [22] Barack Obama and Brian Chesky surprised the 2022 cohort via Zoom call to share insights into their public service journeys and to congratulate the students on their selection. [23]
In the United States, the presidential library system is a nationwide network of 15 libraries administered by the Office of Presidential Libraries, which is part of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). These are repositories for preserving and making available the papers, records, collections and other historical materials of every president of the United States since Herbert Hoover, the 31st president from 1929–1933. In addition to the library services, museum exhibitions concerning the presidency are displayed.
Barack Hussein Obama II is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African-American president in U.S. history. Obama previously served as a U.S. senator representing Illinois from 2005 to 2008, as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004, and as a civil rights lawyer and university lecturer.
William Michael Daley is an American lawyer, politician and former banker. He served as White House Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama, from January 2011 to January 2012. He also served as U.S. Secretary of Commerce, from 1997 to 2000, under President Bill Clinton. He has also served on the executive committee of JPMorgan Chase & Co. Daley was a candidate for Governor of Illinois in the 2014 gubernatorial election, until dropping out of the race on September 16, 2013. He ran in the 2019 Chicago mayoral election but came in third in the first-round voting, and did not advance to the runoff. He served as the Vice Chairman of BNY Mellon from June through October 2019. Since November 13, 2019, Daley has served as the Vice Chairman of Public Affairs for Wells Fargo.
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David M. Axelrod is an American political consultant, analyst, and former White House official. He is best known for being the chief strategist for Barack Obama's presidential campaigns. After Obama's election, Axelrod was appointed as Senior Advisor to the President. He left the position in early 2011 and became the Senior Strategist for Obama's successful re-election campaign in 2012. Axelrod wrote for the Chicago Tribune, and joined CNN as Senior Political Commentator in 2015. Until recently, Axelrod served as the director of the non-partisan University of Chicago Institute of Politics. His memoir is titled Believer: My Forty Years in Politics.
Alexander Giannoulias is an American financier and politician who is the Secretary of State of Illinois. He previously served as the 72nd Illinois Treasurer from 2007 to 2011.
Stanley Ann Dunham was an American anthropologist who specialized in the economic anthropology and rural development of Indonesia. She was the mother of Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States.
Julianna Smoot is an American political aide and fundraiser for the Democratic Party. She served as a Deputy Manager of Barack Obama's 2012 presidential reelection campaign, having previously served as White House Social Secretary, Deputy Assistant to the President. and Chief of Staff to United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk. Smoot previously served as a professional fundraiser for the Democratic Party. She was the national finance director for Barack Obama 2008 presidential campaign. Under her direction, the campaign raised $32.5 million during the second quarter of 2007 and by election day, more money than any campaign in American history. She was named Social Secretary after her predecessor, Desirée Rogers resigned on February 26, 2010.
The Miller Center is a nonpartisan affiliate of the University of Virginia that specializes in United States presidential scholarship, public policy, and political history.
During the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, controversy broke out regarding Barack Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a former leader of the Weather Underground, a radical left organization in the 1970s. Investigations by CNN, The New York Times and other news organizations concluded that Obama did not have a close relationship with Ayers.
The family of Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, is a prominent American family active in law, education, activism and politics. Obama's immediate family circle was the first family of the United States from 2009 to 2017, and are the first such family of African-American descent. His immediate family includes his wife Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha.
Christopher P. Lu is a Chinese American political advisor who serves as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations for Management and Reform. He is also an alternative representative to the United Nations General Assembly during his tenure as Representative for Management and Reform. In the Obama administration, Lu served as the United States Deputy Secretary of Labor from 2014 to 2017, the White House Cabinet Secretary and Assistant to the President from 2009 to 2013, and the co-chair of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Lu graduated from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and from Harvard Law School, where he was a classmate of Obama's.
Michael Alexander Strautmanis is an American lawyer and political organizer who served as chief of staff to Valerie Jarrett in the White House Office of Public Engagement during the Presidency of Barack Obama. He currently works as Executive Vice President for Public Engagement at the Obama Foundation.
Brian Joseph Chesky is an American businessman and industrial designer and the co-founder and CEO of Airbnb. As of January 2024, Chesky is the 232nd richest person in the world according to Forbes, with a net worth of $9.4 billion, mostly due to his ownership of 76 million shares of Airbnb.
Martin Hughes Nesbitt is an American businessman and public figure. Nesbit is co-CEO of the Vistria Group, a Chicago-based private equity firm. Nesbitt is on the boards of directors of publicly traded companies CenterPoint Energy, Norfolk Southern Corporation, and American Airlines Group. Nesbitt was the founder and former CEO of The Parking Spot, an airport parking company. He was on the board of the Chicago Housing Authority.
The Barack Obama Presidential Center is a planned museum, library and education project in Chicago to commemorate the presidency of Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States. The center will also include community and conference facilities and will house the nonprofit Obama Foundation. Construction on the 19.3 acre campus is expected to top out in April 2024, and the center to open in the first half of 2026.
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Rami Nashashibi is a Palestinian-American activist, community organizer, sociologist, and Islamic studies scholar. He founded the nonprofit organization Inner-City Muslim Action Network in 1997, working as its executive director for many years, and has been involved in a number of efforts to improve the welfare of residents of the South Side of Chicago. He has also worked as a sociologist and religious studies scholar at universities, and as a musician. Nashashibi was a 2017 MacArthur Fellow.
The Light of Truth: Ida B. Wells National Monument is a bronze and marble public sculpture by artist Richard Hunt. Located in the Bronzeville neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, the sculpture takes its name from a quote by civil rights activist and investigative journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862-1931): "The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them". It was unveiled in 2021 by the Ida B. Wells Commemorative Art Committee.
Media related to Obama Foundation at Wikimedia Commons