As his wealth grew in the 1870s and 1880s, Rockefeller came to favor a cooperative and conditional system of giving in which he would agree to supply part of the sum needed for a particular project if the others interested in it also would provide substantial financial support. It was on such a conditional basis that Rockefeller participated in the founding of the University of Chicago. The American Baptist Education Society had resolved in 1889 to establish a "well-equipped college" in Chicago. At the urging of the society's director, the Rev. Frederick T. Gates, Rockefeller offered to give $600,000 of the first $1 million for endowment, provided the remaining $400,000 was pledged by others within 90 days. Thus begun, the University of Chicago was incorporated in 1890, and over the next twenty years Rockefeller contributed to help build up the institution, always on condition that others should join in its support. In 1910 he made a farewell gift of $10 million, which brought his total contributions to the university to about $35 million. In withdrawing from further activity there, he wrote: "I am acting on an early and permanent conviction that this great institution, being the property of the people, should be controlled, conducted and supported by the people."
Corporate philanthropy
The total of Rockefeller's lifetime philanthropies has been estimated at about $550 million
Rockefeller recognized the difficulties of wisely applying great funds to human welfare, and he helped to define the method of scientific, efficient, corporate philanthropy. The method was this: to create charitable corporations and give them title to great funds, whose management and use would be governed by trustees and overseen by officers with specialized training and experience, with both the trustees and officers being dedicated to continuous study of the opportunities for the best uses of the funds under their care. To help manage his philanthropy, Rockefeller hired the Rev. Frederick T. Gates, whose work with the American Baptist Education Society and the University of Chicago inspired Rockefeller's confidence. With the advice of Gates and, after 1897, his son, John D. Rockefeller Jr., Rockefeller established a series of institutions that are important in the history of American philanthropy, science, and medicine and public health.
The rockefeller institute for medical research
In 1901 he founded the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now The Rockefeller University) for the purpose of discovering the causes, manner of prevention, and the cure of disease. From its laboratories have come cures for diseases, and new knowledge and scientific techniques which have helped to revolutionize medicine, biology, biochemistry, biophysics and other scientific disciplines. A few of the noted achievements of its scientists are the serum treatment of spinal meningitis and of pneumonia; knowledge of the cause and manner of infection in infantile paralysis; the nature of the virus causing epidemic influenza; blood vessel surgery; a treatment for African sleeping sickness; the first demonstration of the preservation of whole blood for subsequent transfusion; the first demonstration of how nerve cells flow from the brain to other areas of the body; the discovery that a virus can cause cancer in fowl; peptide synthesis; and identification of DNA as the crucial genetic material.
The general education board
In 1902 Rockefeller established the General Education Board (GEB) for the "promotion of education within the United States of America without the distinction of race, sex or creed." In its active years between 1902 and 1965, the GEB distributed $325 million for the improvement of education at all levels, with emphasis upon higher education, including medical schools. In the South, where there was special need, the GEB helped schools for both white and African-American students. Also, out of the Board's work with children's clubs in the farm arena grew the 4-H Club movement and the federal programs of farm and home extension.