The billionaire philanthropist Arthur Blank announced this week that he plans to ramp up his foundation’s grant making over the next five to 10 years. To help the fund move into its next phase, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation has named Fay Twersky, a vice president at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, as its next president. The foundation has $65.9 million in assets, according to its 2018 tax filing, the most recent one available.
Twersky begins her new post on February 15, 2021. She will succeed the foundation’s current president, Penelope McPhee, who is retiring after 17 years in that role.
The co-founder of the Home Depot and his family are still fleshing out what the foundation’s accelerated giving will look like. Blank says the family is discussing what causes to continue backing, what areas to expand, and what new efforts to support. He says the family plans to do more to help others “grow and have equality and equity in their work and their lives.”
All six of his children, who range in age from 19 to 52, are closely involved with the foundation’s work, as are his businesses, some of which were involved in pushing get-out-the-vote efforts in Georgia this election year. He says his children want to go beyond giving money to charities through the foundation.
“They’re eager to try to make a difference in the lives of others and to have an influence on [public] policy,” Blank says. “We all have a shared set of values. We don’t agree on everything, but we share the same values, and the children are engaged in the foundation.”
Blank says he expects his foundation’s giving to grow significantly over the next five years, but he declined to say by how much. He told the Chronicle he plans to give “99 percent” of his fortune to his foundation — and with a current net worth pegged at $6.2 billion, according to Forbes, that is likely to be a significant sum.
The 78-year-old Blank co-founded the Home Depot chain of home-improvement stores in 1978 and retired from the company as co-chairman in 2001. He owns the Atlanta Falcons football team, PGA Tour Superstore, several resorts, and other businesses. He signed the Giving Pledge in 2012.
‘Very Keen Listener’
Blank has already given more than $800 million through his 25-year-old foundation to education organizations, parks and other natural spaces, youth-development efforts, and arts groups and programs aimed at providing access to the arts for low-income families.
He gave several big grants through the foundation this year including a $200 million grant to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta to build a new pediatric hospital and $20 million to the University of Texas at Austin to establish the Arthur M. Blank Center for Stuttering Education and Research.
He says he and his family chose Twersky to lead the foundation after a four-month search. Her extensive background working for top family foundations — she held leadership posts at the Rothschild Family Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation before joining Hewlett — and her expertise in grant-making strategy and evaluation appealed to him and his family.
“She’s worked at foundations that are game changers,” Blank says. “One thing I noticed about her is she’s a very keen listener and spends a lot of time absorbing what people are telling her.”
Twersky joined the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (a financial supporter of the Chronicle of Philanthropy) as a senior fellow in 2011. She helped the foundation create its Effective Philanthropy Group, which guides Hewlett’s grant-making strategy and evaluation, and leads its efforts to build a stronger philanthropic sector.
