Established in 1913 by John Davison Rockefeller, the Rockefeller Foundation works to enrich and sustain the lives and livelihoods of the poor and excluded throughout the world. The Foundation's strategic direction focuses explicitly on the challenges faced by poor and excluded people and affirms its assumptions about development, most notably (i) that for the Foundation's strategies to be most effective, poor and excluded people should have a voice in the process, ways should be sought to unleash those voices, and such voices should be heeded; (ii) that the poor and excluded people themselves should participate in researching, planning and doing the work; and (iii) that creative ways must be sought to leverage its limited dollars in order to attract new funding from the private sector, international aid organisations, and national, state and provincial governments. Since its inception the Rockefeller Foundation has given more than US$2 billion to thousands of grantees worldwide and has assisted directly in the training of nearly 13,000 Rockefeller Foundation Fellows. In order to maximise its resources and leverage the Foundation's strengths, grantmaking is organised around four thematic lines of work: (i) Creativity and Culture - giving full expression to the creative impulses of individuals and communities in order to enhance the well-being of societies and better equip them to interact in a globalised world; (ii) Food Security – improving the food security of the rural poor through the generation of agricultural technologies, institutions and policies that will provide sustainable livelihoods in areas of sub-Saharan Africa and Asia by-passed by the Green Revolution; (iii) Health Equity – advancing global health equity by pursuing the reduction of avoidable and unfair differences in the health status of populations; and (iv) Working Communities - transforming poor urban neighbourhoods into safe, healthy and effective neighbourhoods by increasing the amount and quality of employment, improving the quality of all urban schools, and increasing the influence and voice of the poor and excluded in political decisions that affect their lives. A cross-theme of Global Inclusion supports, promotes and supplements the work of these themes. In addition, the Foundation supports various regional and special programs, among them the Africa Regional Program, the South East Asia Regional Program, Communication for Social Change, Public/Private Partnerships and Global Philanthropy. It also offers a unique place for study and creative endeavour through its Bellagio Study and Conference Center in northern Italy.