Carnegie Corporation’s President Urges Grant Seekers to Focus on Ideas

The 12th president of the $3-billion Carnegie Corporation, Vartan Gregorian, “is at heart an intellectual” who works to make education and the dissemination of culture and information part of all of the fund’s efforts, says a profile of Mr. Gregorian in the Financial Times.

“I surround myself with professors and other thinkers. This place is full of scholars, idea people, creatives,” he says. “We believe in solving issues, regardless of where the solutions come from. We want to create debate.”

Mr. Gregorian, 73, has previously served as president of Brown University and the New York Public Library and became famous for his fund-raising abilities and for advising several important philanthropists, including Bill Gates and Ted Turner.

He says that he tries to encourage the flow of ideas and research within the 96-year-old foundation as well as through its grant making. Grantees, he says, must “demonstrate that you’re not in the need business, but rather in the idea business. You have to say: ‘I’m not entitled to your support. I want an opportunity to compete for your support.’”

“There are ideals worth believing in and fighting for,” he says. “When you stop learning or being curious, you’re deadening your soul. You have room to grow, no matter what age you are.”