News and Perspectives

We need more welcoming public places where people can connect in person — high-quality, well-maintained parks, trails, libraries and community centers. Investing in them is good for us and good for democracy. Americans have never been lonelier; studies...

Today, the William Penn Foundation announced an investment of $24 million for capital improvements to five arts and culture organizations and three public space projects with significant benefits for communities locally and regionally.

In mid-July, William Penn Foundation leaders briefed over 200 individuals from across the Philadelphia area on the foundation’s new strategic plan. “It was a great session,” executive director Shawn McCaney told me a few days after the convening. “There...

Our foundation has a long history of helping the Philadelphia region access other philanthropic and public funding as a way of broadening and deepening our impact. Over the past year, we have focused on the unprecedented federal funding that has recently...

Change is coming to Philadelphia’s largest foundation devoted solely to giving in the region. The William Penn Foundation is instituting a broad set of changes — from the kinds of projects and organizations it is interested in funding, to how groups may...

The William Penn Foundation launches a new approach to its grantmaking.

Listening to community voices has been an essential component of the Foundation’s strategy revision that launched last fall.

The Chair and Vice Chair of our Board of Directors reflect on this moment in the Foundation’s history.