The Ford Foundation is an independent, non-profit, nongovernmental organization that works mainly by making grants or loans that are intended to build knowledge and strengthen organizations and networks. The foundation has very broad goals of

• Strengthen democratic values,
• Reduce poverty and injustice,
• Promote international cooperation and
• Advance human achievement

The programs are funded under three major divisions or program areas. These are

• The Asset Building and Community Development program that helps to strengthen and augment the efficacy of people and organizations working to find solutions to problems of poverty and injustice. Funds are granted to support many vibrant social movements, institutions and partnerships that analyse current social and economic opportunities and develop responses to them.
• Peace and Social Justice Program acknowledges that peace is a prerequisite for the full realization of the foundation’s mission to promote and support democratic values, reduce poverty and inequality, encourage international cooperation and advance human achievement. The Foundation regards social justice as the basis of all healthy societies and the only long-term guarantee for sustaining peace.
• The Knowledge, Creativity and Freedom program is a global venture to advance achievement in the arts, education and scholarship and to advance a positive understanding of sexuality.

Sexuality and Reproductive Health is a field addressed in all three program divisions. The foundation vigorously supports efforts to expand and develop public understanding of sexuality and its relationship to human fulfilment, culture, religion and identity by funding projects that seek to build knowledge, research capacity and to develop policy.