Sixty three years after it was founded, the Stanley Foundation in Muscatine has changed its name. It’s now called the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.
The president, Keith Porter, says it’s always worked for peace and justice around the world, but the word “foundation” was misleading - people thought it just passed out grants.
"But the truth is that's not what we do. We drive policy progress by collaborating with others, by running all of our own programming, either on our own or in collaboration with others."
Current examples of its work include helping to organize a conference in Paris this week on preventing violence and atrocities around the world, and the annual conference in Iowa City for middle school students on promoting peace and justice, also this week.
Porter says the founders, Max and Betty Stanley, believed nations had to work together to solve the world’s problems.
"So when you think about things like climate change or nuclear weapons or even infectious disease, or the problems we see from globalization - there's no one country that can make a big enough change to fix those issues."
Max Stanley also founded Stanley Consultants, a worldwide engineering firm, and Hon Industries, which makes office furniture.
The center has a staff of 24.
