About Us > Mediators Foundation Over the Years

BRIEF HISTORY: Mediators Foundation (1987-2004)
Mark Gerzon - President

At Mediators Foundation, we are exposed to a wide range of worthy projects designed to make a difference on critical global issues. My colleagues and I believe that the success or failure of many of these projects depend on the quality of global leadership that guides them. We have seen so many sound initiatives, often originating in North America, fail because the leadership was not truly grounded in shared global values or in a collaborative global team.

What kind of global leaders will we have in the coming decades? Will the future be handicapped by another generation of leaders who cannot see beyond their own narrow economic, ideological and national interests? Or will a new breed of leaders emerge that think and act in the best interest of the emerging global community? 

These are the kinds of questions with which my colleagues and I have been wrestling. For the past 15 years, as president of a small foundation which I started (with no endowment), my Board of Directors and I have catalyzed a series of projects which have made a difference: 

1986-1992: Entertainment Summit and Global Partners

Our work with the Entertainment Summit, and then with Global Partners, addressed this same question of cross-border leadership. Both projects were, in fact, wrestling then with the issue of global leadership. The Summit did so by bringing two sets of leaders, one Soviet and the other American, face-to-face to challenge them to make better films about each other and the superpower relationship. Global Partners did so by assembling a team of leaders who developed several new, effective global initiatives in the areas of global education, arms control, and North-South philanthropy. 

1993-2000: The Common Enterprise and Congress

During these years, our focus shifted to domestic concerns, but the underlying focus on leadership remained the same. The Common Enterprise was focused on the question of how philanthropy could catalyze a community leadership process that would generate approaches to issues in the best long-term interest of the whole community. Similarly, our work with the Bipartisan Congressional Retreats in 1997 and 1999 was focused on how to support Democratic and Republican leaders to develop a quality of leadership that would be in the best interests, specifically,  of the House of Representatives, and more generally, of the American political process.

2000-2002:  Global Dialogue Partners: State of the World Forum

The Bridge Initiative on Globalization    These years were a period of searching and experimentation. The period was marked by a series of projects probing different possibilities for fostering a new kind of "cross-boundary" leadership and deeper dialogue between leaders of opposing views. The Global Dialogue Partners assembled a group of experts in this area for a series of brainstorming conversations about process. Some consulting for the State of the World Forum (and the Commission on Globalization) attempted to apply this thinking to a large international conference and project design.  Finally, the Bridge Initiative applied some of this thinking to the specific conflict between two organizations, the World Economic Forum and the World Social Forum. 

2003 & BEYOND: CURRENT FOCUS

As a result of this decade and a half of experience, we are now in a position to collect and share some of the wisdom from this work. As we begin to do so, we are deepening our partnership with like-minded social change agents from other parts of the world. Together, we are combining our knowledge into a "Global Leadership Network," the goal of which is to identify and support a new generation of a leaders.

In the last 15 years, we have been on a path that has taken us to an exciting, promising turning point. At issue is how, in the coming years, to catalyze the kind of  "global leadership" the world needs. I agree with our colleague Peter Goldmark that many of us find our leaders to be "equivocating, distracted, outdated or incompetent in the face of serious challenges." The Global Leadership Network is designed to turn this eloquent lament into effective action.

I am delighted to report that my colleagues and I are finding a deep yearning in a wide variety of global networks for a new vision of leadership. Some of the settings in which I have (or will soon) test these ideas include: the United States Congress, the World Economic Forum and World Social Forum; international schools in Asia and educational leadership organizations in North America; funders involved in resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict; leading environmentalists and economists from around the world; university professors teaching "leadership" courses at major universities in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the United States; a conference on "Authentic Leadership" in Canada for which I am serving as faculty;   and a global mediation conference involving experts throughout the world. 

Although effective global leadership is an essential ingredient in the success of any global initiative, it is in dangerously short supply.  All of us have been shaped as children and youth by our own backgrounds, by national education systems, by parochial politics, and by limited cultural experiences. To launch any global project, its leaders must move beyond these boundaries and develop a capacity to think, act, and lead in the global interest. We must uncover and transcend whatever personal and cultural limitations we have (regarding class, gender, language, political ideology, etc.) and develop our deepest inner resources. Only with such a commitment will we be able to develop a new generation of global institutions that can lead to a just, sustainable world.

As recent events underscore, never before has the work of the Foundation been more important. Of the many underlying factors fueling conflict in the world today, there are three on which our projects focus:

RELIGION. Although only an infinitesimal fraction of the world's 1 billion Muslims are terrorists, many of that faith believe that the United States is the enemy of Islam. There are religious, geopolitical, and cultural reasons for this hatred, which have roots as far back as the crusades. In many ways, the polarization between the West and Islam is replacing the East-West conflict of the Cold War as the primary axis of ideological hostility in the world. But this tension is exacerbated by an even more fundamental conflict: the growing gap between rich and poor.

ECONOMICS. The second factor in current global conflict is the United States' position of wealth and power, and the perception that if America is strong and rich, it must be the enemy of poor and powerless. To what degree this perception is true is openly debatable, but there is no doubt that it is held by many throughout the world, particularly in the South. To many the US remains a symbol of freedom and democracy, but we cannot afford to ignore the fact that to many, we are also the symbol of superpower arrogance and privilege.

GLOBAL GOVERNANCE. The third factor fueling the rage that threatens civil societies is more diffuse, but it relates directly to the growing and often violent protests against the World Bank, IMF and WTO. As symbolized by a series of actions in which the United States stands alone (Kyoto accords, Durban racism conference, etc), we appear to be isolating ourselves from the world around us. On one hand, we are the most "global" nation on earth with financial, corporate and political liaisons throughout the world. On the other, we seem often to be behind world public opinion, not ahead. Like the World Bank, IMF and WTO, organizations created with US support to address inequalities of global wealth and development, we are perceived as orchestrating a world that suits our national interest, regardless of the impact on other nations. If this view is taking hold in Europe, where cultural ties are closest, it is not surprising that it should be more strongly felt in the Middle East, in Africa and in South Asia.

These three sources of conflict give rise to all of the active and potential projects of the Foundation, which are outlined on this website.