A Closer Look at the Wyncote Foundation, From the Family Behind the William Penn Foundation
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Wyncote devotes a part of its funding to public media and journalism. Tero Vesalainen/shutterstock
The Wyncote Foundation was established in 2009 by John Haas, a lifelong philanthropist and the former chairman of global chemical company Rohm and Haas. With an emphasis on the greater Philadelphia region and dedicated to supporting organizations focused on arts and culture, the environment and journalism, this funder’s mission resembles that of its unofficial sister grantmaker, the older and substantially larger William Penn Foundation, which was set up by John’s father, Otto.
John Haas passed away in 2011, but family members continue to carry the torch at both foundations, with John’s four sons — Leonard, David, Duncan and Frederick — making up Wyncote’s board. The foundation also has an office in Seattle and dedicates a portion of its grantmaking to organizations in the Northwest.
Looking ahead, expect the foundation to play an increasingly important role in supporting media organizations in and around the City of Brotherly Love. According to Press Forward, the multifunder initiative that debuted last year with commitments totaling $500 million to strengthen local news, Wyncote is one of the four “principal local funders in Philadelphia journalism” — along with the Lenfest Institute, Independence Public Media Foundation, and, you guessed it, the William Penn Foundation. The Wyncote Foundation disbursed a combined $5.6 million in journalism grants in 2022 and 2023.
Here’s a quick overview of the Wyncote Foundation, which tends to fly under the radar but is a critical player in Philadelphia’s philanthropic ecosystem.
One of Philadelphia’s most charitable families
In 1909, German businessman Otto Haas emigrated to Philadelphia, where his company, Rohm and Haas, grew into a successful specialty chemical manufacturer. In 1945, Haas launched the Phoebe Waterman Foundation, which was named after his wife, who was a preeminent astronomer. His two sons, F. Otto and John, took on leadership roles at the company and the foundation, which was subsequently renamed the William Penn Foundation. When Otto passed away in 1960, John became the foundation’s chairman.
In 2009, the Dow Chemical Company purchased Rohm and Haas for $18 billion, creating what was the world’s leading specialty chemicals and advanced materials company. Buoyed by the windfall, the Haas family contributed $747 million to the William Penn Foundation as part of $1.25 billion in bequests to four charitable trusts. It was through one of these trusts that John Haas established the Wyncote Foundation, which he named after the Pennsylvania town where he and his wife, Chara, raised their family.
In 2015, four years after John Haas passed away, the family was awarded the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy. “Nearly 40 family members share a fortune estimated to be around $3 billion,” Carnegie’s site read, “and already more than half of it is slated for charitable causes.” Note that this philanthropic family is distinct from that of the late Levi Strauss and Co. chairman Walter A. Haas, whose descendants conduct much of their giving from the opposite side of the country in the Bay Area, through vehicles like the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund and others.
The fourth generation of Haases leads the William Penn and Wyncote foundations. As is sometimes the case with affluent families with more than one charitable vehicle, the two foundations cover familiar ground, with both focusing on the Philadelphia region and organizations in fields like conservation, the performing arts, health and human services, and journalism.
The main difference between the William Penn and Wyncote foundations is their size, which we can at least partially attribute to the fact that the Wyncote Foundation was established a mere 15 years ago. For the fiscal year ending December 2022, it had $548 million in assets and moved $30 million out the door — an 18% increase over the previous year, when it disbursed $25.4 million — versus the William Penn Foundation’s $3.2 billion in assets and $144 million out the door that year.
Critical support for journalism and media
During the fiscal year ending December 2022, the Wyncote Foundation disbursed 165 grants, which it split practically evenly between organizations in and outside of Pennsylvania. Twenty-eight grants flowed to organizations in Seattle, with a focus on the environment, low-income housing, and health and human services.
The five largest grants give a sense of some of the foundation’s geographic and strategic priorities: Natural Lands, which is located about 45 minutes outside of Philadelphia ($3.6 million); the Philadelphia Foundation ($2.7 million); Seattle’s Low-Income Housing Institute ($2 million), Philadelphia’s People’s Light and Theater Company ($1.3 million) and Seattle’s Plymouth Housing Group ($1.3 million). Each grant was earmarked for a specific purpose, like programs, capital improvements and endowments. And sorry, fundraisers: The Wyncote Foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals.
Support for public media and journalism is another top priority. Indeed, the foundation devotes the most real estate on its website to those topics. In 2018, Wyncote issued a mission statement for its Public Media and Journalism program area that echoes other funders in the field, pledging support for “accountability journalism” in the greater Philadelphia area and looking to strengthen civic and cultural institutions. To this end, the foundation supports NewsMatch, the largest collaborative fundraising campaign to support nonprofit news in the U.S. The foundation also provides links to a series of white papers like last year’s “Local That Works,” which explores how public media is driving impact in local communities.
Wyncote made $2.9 million and $2.6 million in journalism grants in 2022 and 2023, respectively. Grantees included Groundtruth Project to support Report for America’s programs in Pennsylvania, Pierre Omidyar’s First Look Institute, and Philadelphia’s Lenfest Institute, where Wyncote Foundation Vice Chair David Haas serves on its board of managers.
The foundation also supports American Documentary, which coordinates the Wyncote Fellowship, a collaboration between PBS Indies partners and filmmakers nominated by organizations like Reel South and Firelight Media. In late April, American Documentary announced this year’s 12 winning filmmakers. They’ll attend the PBS Annual Meeting this month in Las Vegas, where they’ll meet with station representatives and public media executives.
“Wyncote Foundation has been proud to support this valuable fellowship since its inception in 2017, and we are thrilled to convene a new cohort in Las Vegas this year,” David Haas said. “These innovative filmmakers truly exemplify the broad range of diverse and compelling voices that public media brings to local communities and national audiences.”
