The Museum of the American Revolution and Lenfest Institute each receive $50 million more from the late Gerry Lenfest

Nearly four years after H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest’s death, the Philadelphia philanthropist is showering even more support through a trust he left on two of his favorite charitable causes.

The Museum of the American Revolution and Lenfest Institute for Journalism will each receive an estimated $50 million from the residuary of Lenfest’s estate, according to the terms of a 2018 amended deed of trust filed by Lenfest, both groups announced Tuesday.

The gifts are among the largest each has ever received, and both groups plan to add the money to their endowments to fund ongoing operations and programs.

From about 2000 until his death in 2018, Lenfest and his wife, Marguerite, gave more than $1.3 billion to 1,100 cultural organizations, schools, environmental groups, and other charities, mostly in Philadelphia and the region.

But this latest infusion of funds to the Lenfest Institute, which owns The Inquirer, bolsters Lenfest’s support for journalism as a primary passion: It brings the total donation to the institute of cash and other assets, including The Inquirer itself, to about $134 million.

“What has been striking to me is what a warrior he was for freedom and democracy,” said Jim Friedlich, executive director and CEO of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism. At the end of Lenfest’s life, “the two causes that he was most focused on, the museum and the Lenfest Institute, were both causes of freedom and causes that began in the city of Philadelphia and are quintessentially American.”

For the Museum of the American Revolution, which marks its fifth anniversary on Tuesday, the $50 million will bring Lenfest’s total contribution to about $110 million. (The museum’s initial capital campaign goal was $150 million. It eventually raised more than $173 million, with Lenfest directly contributing about $59 million.)

The latest $50 million will be “going into our board-designated endowment, which will roughly double the size of our endowment,” said R. Scott Stephenson, head of the museum.

The impact of Lenfest giving to the museum has been amplified because he gave so much of the money to the museum with matching requirements.

“Thank the heavens for Gerry and for Marguerite and for the 19,000 individual donors to our capital campaign at the end of 2017,” Stephenson said. At that time, he explained, the museum doubled the original endowment fund-raising goal of $25 million — largely because of Lenfest’s penchant for pledging funds on a matching basis.

Morris W. Offit, the museum board chair, noted the importance of those matching grants.

“Gerry’s previous gifts to the museum were matching grants, and in that spirit, we hope that this gift inspires others to support our important mission,” Offit wrote in an email. “Now, we are looking to build on the success of our first five years and grow our impact through key goals identified in our strategic plan, including exponentially expanding our educational programming and digital offerings.”

For the museum it means the latest Lenfest bequest will double its endowment to $100 million.

Income from that extra endowment is critical in helping the museum recover from the pandemic shutdown, Stephenson said. And looking forward, the additional funds will enable the museum to focus more attention on programming.

“This is going to give us such stronger operating support through the income from the endowment, it really just could not place us in a stronger position to play a real leadership role, not just in the city and the region, but I think nationally in trying to rededicate ourselves to the meaning of 1776,” Stephenson said.

The $50 million bequest to the Lenfest Institute for Journalism dwarfs the $10 million in 2021 the institute raised from 4,000 donors.

The institute gives grants to groups and projects well beyond The Inquirer, though it sees its support of Philadelphia’s largest news operation as central.

At The Inquirer, according to an institute report not yet publicly released, the grants have helped pay for the operation’s digital transformation; the creation of a bilingual guide to help Philadelphians get to the city’s COVID-19 vaccination clinics; news coverage, including a focus on investigative news for historically underserved or misrepresented communities; and an independent audit by Temple University of The Inquirer’s own news coverage as it relates to race, gender, and geography.

Between 2016 and 2021, the institute had raised and given $15.4 million to The Inquirer, Friedlich said, doubling the size of the investigative news team, and funding coverage of public schools, state and local government, economic development, gun violence, race, justice, and the environment.

Inquirer publisher and CEO Elizabeth H. Hughes declined to discuss the new Lenfest money but relayed a statement that said the company remained “incredibly grateful for Gerry Lenfest’s vision that philanthropy can and should play an important role in supporting local journalism in Philadelphia,” she said.

“In 2021, The Inquirer received approximately $3.2 million in grant funding, and Spotlight PA received $1.4 million. We look forward to working with the Lenfest Institute to continue their support of The Inquirer’s public service journalism,” Hughes said.

The new Lenfest money won’t change the institute’s area of focus, says Friedlich. “The plan is to amplify and expand the work we’re doing rather than to change the focus. It gives us the resources we hope to do the job right.”

The new assets will be placed in the institute’s endowment, with only the investment income spent each year. As of April 15, the market value of the endowment and marketable securities was $92.8 million, he said. That sum includes only $28.3 million of the new Lenfest money, as that is the amount paid out of the estate so far.

The Inquirer applies to the institute for grants as other groups do. But Friedlich says that The Inquirer — because of its importance, track record, and “commitment to superb public service journalism” — is likely to remain the largest beneficiary of the institute’s support, and that the evolution at The Inquirer is seen as having a multiplier effect.

“Gerry was a very expansive and visionary thinker,” said Friedlich. “The goal was to create a sustainable business model for important local journalism and to replicate that around the United States. One of the things that we’re most proud of is that we’ve advised on similar efforts in New York City, in Baltimore, in Chicago, Omaha, and elsewhere. The replication of the Lenfest model has begun to really take hold, and I think Gerry would be extraordinarily proud of that.”

This story has been updated to reflect that $28.3 million of the new Lenfest money so far has been paid out of the estate to the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.