How Nonprofit Work Influenced Barack Obama’s Mother

In a New York Times profile of Sen. Barack Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro, the newspaper describes her as “the parent who most shaped” the Democratic presidential candidate and discusses her work in the nonprofit world and international development.

Ms. Soetoro served as a program officer in Ford Foundation’s Indonesia office focusing on helping women’s rights and microfinance. In her role, she rubbed shoulders with “leaders in the Indonesian human-rights movement, people from women’s organizations, [and] representatives of community groups doing grass-roots development.”

In addition to Ford, she did microcredit work for the United States Agency for International Development, Women’s World Banking, and an Indonesian bank.

“She was a very, very big thinker,” Nancy Barry, a former president of Women’s World Banking, a nonprofit group, told the newspaper. Ms. Soetoro worked for the organization, in New York, in the early 1990s.

Mr. Obama would not comment for the Times article. But perhaps in part because of his mother’s influence, he has shown an interest in supporting nonprofit groups.

In December, he proposed a government fund to support innovative nonprofit projects and a Social Entrepreneurship Agency to give small nonprofit groups “the same kind of support that we give small businesses.”