Gerry Lenfest and his wife, Marguerite, bought land in Unionville, Pa., in 1989 to build a mansion. But shortly after contractors starting bulldozing, the couple, who had amassed a fortune in the cable-broadcast industry, decided they weren’t the mansion type after all.
They told the builders to fill in the hole they had dug. Instead of living in a dream house, the Lenfests donated the land to a nature preserve in 2007.
That philanthropic gesture was just one part of a giving spree in which the couple donated more than $1-billion to various causes after selling their communications company 15 years ago.
“We knew we did not want to die with a lot of wealth, and so the challenge was finding out what good we could do with just giving it away,” says Mr. Lenfest, who is 84. His wife is 80.
New Focus on Youth
Much of the Lenfests’ giving is concentrated in Philadelphia, which is Mrs. Lenfest’s hometown and where Mr. Lenfest’s civic boosterism can be seen, not just in his philanthropy but in his business interests. Just last month he and another investor bought the Philadelphia Inquirer and several other news outlets for $88-million.
While the Lenfests have given more than $1-billion to a range of cultural nonprofits, environmental projects, and other efforts, they are now directing most of their gifts to programs that benefit the city’s neediest young people.
To help them spend the more than $100-million still left in their foundation, the couple have hired Keith Leaphart, a 39-year-old osteopathic physician and owner of a graphic-design company. He entered the couple’s lives while working his way through medical and business school as a janitor cleaning Mr. Lenfest’s offices.
Mr. Lenfest says he stepped down as chairman of the philanthropic fund last year because he was confident that the foundation’s future would be secure under the guidance of Dr. Leaphart, who became an accomplished professional after growing up in Philadelphia’s rough West Oak Lane neighborhood.
“Keith is better able to understand what the needs are, and I think it’s in better hands than I could have done,” says Mr. Lenfest, who declined to say how much of his fortune, beyond the amount in the foundation, is still left to give to charity.
‘A Man of Action’
Although he handed off the leadership role at his foundation, Mr. Lenfest continues to be a strong philanthropy leader in Philadelphia. For example, he intends to remain deeply involved in the building of the $150-million Museum of the American Revolution, scheduled to open in late 2016.
In 2011, Mr. Lenfest and his wife gave $40-million to the project, a gift that helped them land, for the sixth time, on The Chronicle’s annual list of America’s most-generous donors.
The Lenfests’ philanthropy and civic involvement go hand in hand, charity leaders say.
Elizabeth Warshawer, executive vice president at the Curtis Institute of Music, calls Mr. Lenfest “an awesome board manager and a man of action.”
Case in point: Curtis officials had talked about a new building since the 1980s, but the effort didn’t get off the ground until two decades later, when the Lenfests got involved and pushed the project. Mrs. Lenfest served on the school’s Board of Overseers, and Mr. Lenfest was chairman of the Board of Trustees. The couple provided a $30-million matching gift in 2008, and the building was completed in 2011.
Some philanthropists, says Ms. Warshawer, “will overanalyze and put you through so many paces you start to think, wow, is this gift really worth it? But [Mr. Lenfest has] already done the homework before he offers the gift. There’s a lot of intellect and a lot of heart there.”
Responding to Crisis
Mr. Lenfest’s qualities as a get-it-done philanthropist were underscored while he was serving as chairman of the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s board.
The museum’s director, Anne d’Harnoncourt, died unexpectedly one night in 2008, and Mr. Lenfest agreed by noon the next day to postpone his previously announced plan to step down later that year. He led the museum through the search for Ms. d’Harnoncourt’s successor before leaving the board after nine years.
“You really see leadership in tough times,” says David Haas, who chairs his family’s William Penn Foundation and was a fellow trustee of the museum. “And with Anne dying so suddenly you really saw where Gerry’s strength showed through.”
During the country’s financial crisis, Mr. Lenfest and his wife, who was serving on the museum board’s education committee, also stepped up. They pledged $27-million for endowment and to shore up the salaries of curators and others.
Gail Harrity, the museum’s president, says the institution’s endowment stood then at about $180-million, a modest amount compared with those of its peers.
Mr. Lenfest structured the gift as a five-year match, asking museum officials to raise another $27-million. That sum was raised from about 30 donors.
With the new money, the institution was able to endow 29 senior and mid-level staff positions. Today, the endowment stands at roughly $420-million, according to Ms. Harrity. That is due in part, she says, to Mr. Lenfest’s gift, which “showed confidence in the future and encouraged others to step up.”
A Rural Childhood
The Lenfests’ modest way of life has impressed many of their friends and associates. They live in the same house here that they bought in 1966 and in which they installed air conditioning only a few years ago. Mr. Lenfest often brings his accountant homemade sandwiches for lunch.
But that does not mean they lead a completely ascetic life. They own a yacht called the “Beau Geste” and have a pied-à-terre in Philadelphia’s tony Rittenhouse Square neighborhood.
Still, no matter how much he has enjoyed his wealth and been involved with some of Philadelphia’s biggest and glitziest cultural institutions, it is clear that helping the needy is what animates Mr. Lenfest.
He says he is proudest of his foundation’s efforts to provide college scholarships to students from rural areas in Pennsylvania, an idea that stemmed from his own rural roots.
He grew up in Scarsdale, N.Y., and on a farm in Hunterdon County, N.J., the son of a naval architect. His mother died when he was 13. Hit hard by the loss, he turned into an unhappy, wild, and rebellious kid.
“If I didn’t want to go to school, I didn’t go,” he recalls. “It was nine miles from home and too far for the juvenile officer to come out.”
Eventually, his fed-up father enrolled the boy in Mercersburg Academy, which Mr. Lenfest credits with turning his life around. From there, it was on to Washington and Lee University and then Columbia Law School, where he earned a degree in 1958. He practiced law in New York before joining Walter Annenberg’s Triangle Publications. In 1974 he bought two of Mr. Annenberg’s cable companies and formed Lenfest Communications.
New Leadership
As Mr. Lenfest turns over the reins of his foundation, he says the scholarship program will continue. But another of the fund’s efforts, the Lenfest Ocean Program, a research project run by the Pew Charitable Trusts, is set to end in 2017.
The change will help free up more resources for the foundation’s plan to help needy kids by supporting early childhood education, programs to make kids’ time outside of school more enriching, and career and technical education.
Steering this new phase of grant making will be Dr. Leaphart, who started working with the foundation in 2007 as a consultant who organized collaborative efforts with the city on grant programs to help people leaving prison succeed.
Mr. Lenfest invited Dr. Leaphart to join the board in 2011, after long talks the two men had about the criminal justice system, poverty in Philadelphia, and what happens to undereducated young people who don’t see a path forward in life.
“Gerry believes young people need jobs, they need opportunity, they need something in their pocket to be incentivized,” says Dr. Leaphart, who will serve as chairman in the next year, after which the board will decide whether to renew his term. “I’d like to be involved at least in these first five years,” he says. “I’d like to see the work get off the ground.”
Willingness to Delegate
Mr. Lenfest still serves on the board, although he doesn’t attend meetings. But Dr. Leaphart says he continues to seek the philanthropist’s advice.
“Gerry is still an integral springboard for me,” he says. “I bounce ideas off of him and consider him a mentor and a fatherlike figure.”
He may have to twist his friend’s arm. Whether it’s his own foundation or another nonprofit’s board, Mr. Lenfest thinks a previous board chair can interfere with the new one’s ability to govern.
“It should be a clear slate,” he says. “The mere presence of the former chair, people will turn around and look at you and ask what you think. You don’t want to be in that position.”
And that’s another thread running throughout Mr. Lenfest’s giving. He places a premium on the board chair’s ability to delegate to committees.
“If you have the right chairs and the committees are operating and engaged and have enough to do, then you have a successful board,” he says. “I’m totally opposed to decisions by boards where you have a whole board deciding every issue.”
But that doesn’t mean he’s done making choices about which causes to support.
“It’s hard giving money away because you’ve got to put a lot of time and effort into what is the best way to give,” he says. “You try to do it the most effectively. That’s why I come to the office every day.”
What’s Next for the Lenfest Foundation
Gerry and Marguerite Lenfest have given more than $1-billion to charity over the past 15 years, through personal giving and their Lenfest Foundation. The couple have more than $100-million in assets left in their fund, which they intend to give away by 2029.
The foundation has supported college scholarships, environmental causes, and a variety of charities in Philadelphia. Last year the board voted to focus on three grant-making priorities as part of a primary interest in helping disadvantaged youth:
- Early childhood education
- Extracurricular enrichment activities
- Career and technical education
A big philanthropist offers Tips to Fundraisers
- Speak to the potential donor in person, not by phone.
- Put mission before money. Don’t ask for a gift right away. Talk to the potential donor first about the work of your nonprofit and what it hopes to accomplish.
- Spend some time getting to know the people you are cultivating. Visit them two or three times before bringing up the possibility of a gift.
- Listen deeply. Don’t just talk to a potential donor; let him or her talk to you. Learn what interests that person and why.
- Motivate your board members to contact and solicit key potential donors. If trustees are uncomfortable asking others for money, remind them to keep their eye on the goal of supporting the cause.