The Ford Foundation has been Left since at least the late 60s - way before Obama was on the scene. No outsider was needed to ruin that institution - the inmates who run that asylum are the some of the nuttiest people on earth.
Zero teamed up with Bill Ayers to use Annenberg money to fund a communist takeover of the Chicago schools.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/225348/chicago-annenberg-challenge-shutdown/stanley-kurtz
There were other “projects” of a similar ilk in Zero's Chicago resume.