--- description: Find out why Darren Walker is on TIME’s 2026 Closers list title: Darren Walker Wants Philanthropy to Reignite American Mobility image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte54e0c028c224cdf/6998cd01e1ba0036a098e467/time-closers-2026-darren-walker-01.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Jan 27, 2026 # Darren Walker Wants Philanthropy to Reignite American Mobility by [Karl Vick](/author/karl-vick/) ## Karl Vick Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Editor at Large  Nate Langston Palmer—The New York Times/Redux By all appearances, Darren Walker’s New York City apartment is an unlikely headquarters for a campaign against inequality. It’s on Park Avenue, and the paintings on its creamy walls rival anything at the famed arts venue across the street. At the Ford Foundation, which Walker headed for a dozen years, his compensation ($1.9 million in 2024) put him in the top 1% in any state in the country. But as a Black man born in Louisiana to a single mother who worked as a nurse’s aide, Walker, 66, has other credentials. These he presents to the wealthy in his capacity as an ambassador for people he refuses to leave behind. “Today there are many Americans who are working very hard and sacrificing for their families and who are falling further behind,” he says. “While people like me are fortunate to have been born at the right time, and to have been invested in as I was—and to have a ‘mobility escalator’ that I got on, that allowed me to be here today.” His gestures around the apartment. That mobility escalator, he says, has slowed, stopped, and for some even reversed. “That mobility escalator has always been the engine of our culture, our society, our shared identity. Many of our shared values are being destroyed by the kind of inequality that, at a time when we should be coming together, actually pushes us apart.” Before stepping down from his role as president of Ford last year, Walker led the way in making justice a watchword in philanthropy. He wrote books arguing to open the structures that bring wealth, and [directed hundreds of millions](https://www.fordfoundation.org/news-and-stories/news-and-press/news/ford-foundation-commits-420-million-to-tackle-gender-inequality-around-the-globe-post-covid-19/ "undefined") from Ford’s $16 billion endowment to organizations that serve communities of color, and those led by women and girls. When COVID locked up the global economy, he engineered $1 billion in “social bonds” to fund strapped organizations. But the weather has changed with the return of President Donald Trump, and Walker— who was once a vice president at the Rockefeller Foundation—says philanthropy must tack to stay on course. “Standing on ideals alone will not sustain or get you anywhere,” he says. “You've got to be smart, strategic, shrewd about the choices you make as a leader of a foundation today. But we remain the independent sector. We remain a part of American society that does have the flexibility, the agility, the nimbleness, should we choose to really do big, important things, even in the face of headwinds that make it harder.” Tech is an obvious focus. The companies making huge investments in AI need no help promoting its promise, Walker notes, but “really aren't that interested in sharing, and deepening our understanding of, the risk.” Philanthropy is one answer, he says. “Foundations can fund experiments, ‘use cases,’ the design of policy guardrails that would help to protect the public interest, because OpenAI rightly is focused on the interests of its shareholders. Who's focused on the public's interest?” The Trump Administration, having bought into the industry’s argument that regulation will only slow down AI, [wants to bar states](https://time.com/7341296/republican-backlash-trump-ai-executive-order/ "undefined") from establishing guardrails. “The strength and beauty and history of American philanthropy is that it has often been counter-cyclical, in its priorities, to government,” Walker says. “It is about innovation and doing the things sometimes that government can't do, won't do, or doesn't have the courage to do.” If the Ford Foundation was first funded by the most famous car company in the world, Walker points out that, “when automobiles were created, the big automakers weren't concerned with air pollution. It was a group of foundation-funded organizations that did research that, indeed, some of them litigated to ensure that the public's interest was considered.” People who have grown wealthier by investing in AI may see the wisdom in exploring its downside. But Walker knows better than to expect help from many of the actual titans of tech. “I find that today, some tech entrepreneurs and philanthropists don't have that level of humility about the things outside of their domains of expertise,” he says. “And yet, because they are wealthy, we defer to them, because wealth, in some ways, can insulate you from being told that you actually don't know what you're doing.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/closers-2026/7353417/darren-walker/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/closers-2026/7353417/darren-walker/"},"headline":"Darren Walker Wants Philanthropy to Reignite American Mobility","datePublished":"2026-01-27T13:02:55.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T01:04:11.450Z","description":"Find out why Darren Walker is on TIME’s 2026 Closers list","url":"https://time.com/collections/closers-2026/7353417/darren-walker/","keywords":["Closers 2026","list","franchise","Special Project","sponsorshipblock"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte54e0c028c224cdf/6998cd01e1ba0036a098e467/time-closers-2026-darren-walker-01.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Karl Vick","jobTitle":"Editor at Large","url":"https://time.com/author/karl-vick/"}],"creator":"Karl Vick","articleSection":"U.S.","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte54e0c028c224cdf/6998cd01e1ba0036a098e467/time-closers-2026-darren-walker-01.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/closers-2026/","name":"Closers 2026"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/closers-2026/7353417/darren-walker/","name":"Darren Walker Wants Philanthropy to Reignite American Mobility"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"DARREN WALKER: THE CLOSERS","description":"Former Presdident of the Ford Foundation, Darren Walker on how he would $5 million investment.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/N3BElm1c/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2026-01-28T22:31:13.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/N3BElm1c.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/collections/closers-2026/7353417/darren-walker/","duration":"PT1M","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/collections/closers-2026/7353417/darren-walker/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```