Jeremiah Milbank created The
JM Foundation in 1924 to
help integrate people with
disabilities into all aspects of
American life. He was also an
ardent champion of individual
liberty and limited government.
To realize his vision, The JM
Foundation Directors support
activities that foster self-sufficiency,
personal
responsibility, and private
initiative.
The Foundation’s current philanthropic
goals are to encourage
market-oriented public policy
solutions; to enhance America’s
unique system of free enterprise,
entrepreneurship, private property
ownership, and voluntarism;
and to strengthen American
families.
The Founder
Jeremiah Milbank was a man
of remarkable accomplishments.
A businessman and financier, he
developed an intensely personal
interest in health and rehabilitation
after losing his mother,
father, wife, and a son to disease
and premature death in the five
years before his 30th birthday.
Motivated by a desire to help disabled
World War I veterans, he collaborated
with the Red Cross to found the first
comprehensive rehabilitation center in
the United States to address their needs.
The professional standards and rehabilitative
techniques pioneered there were
adopted throughout the world. The facility
still operates in Manhattan as the ICD-International
Center for the Disabled.
Jeremiah Milbank led efforts to eradicate
diphtheria and organized the
International Committee for the Study of
Infantile Paralysis in 1928. Because of
his active interest in a cure for polio,
President Franklin Roosevelt asked him
to chair the organization that was the
forerunner of the National Foundation
for Infantile Paralysis.
A lifelong volunteer, Jeremiah Milbank
helped President Herbert Hoover to
develop the Boys & Girls Clubs of
America into a strong organization
that provides supportive services for
disadvantaged youth. He served as
Treasurer of the national organization
for 25 years.
Deeply held spiritual beliefs led him to
finance the first film about the life of
Jesus Christ, Cecil B. DeMille’s epic King
of Kings. Jeremiah Milbank instructed
that all income derived from the film
should be used to make it available to
new audiences. DeMille later wrote,
“There is a persistent myth that capitalists
think of nothing but capital . . . I
have known a certain number of very
rich men who were scamps and a larger
number who were just dullards; but two
of the finest men I have ever known, with
the largest minds and highest ideals,
were also men of great financial power.
One of them is Jeremiah Milbank.”
