Death of Walton Matriarch Could Mean Billions of Dollars Will Flow to Charities

The death last month of Helen R. Walton, the widow of Sam M. Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart Stores,

could mean that billions of dollars from her estate will soon flow into the family’s foundation, potentially making it one of the wealthiest grant makers in the United States.

Forbes magazine recently ranked Ms. Walton the 29th-richest person in the world with a net worth of $16.4-billion, and she has been widely expected to pass a large amount of her estate to the Walton Family Foundation, in Bentonville, Ark.

If most of her money went there, the foundation would probably be bigger than the Ford Foundation, which has $12.2-billion in assets. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with $33-billion in assets, would be the only American grant maker that is larger.

School Improvement

Ms. Walton, who died at age 87, started the foundation with her husband in 1987. The foundation’s most high-profile philanthropy supports public charter schools nationwide and efforts to help students from low-income families attend private elementary and secondary schools.

William Schambra, director of the Hudson Institute’s Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal, in Washington, who met Ms. Walton in 1995 when he was working on “school choice” programs at the Bradley Foundation, in Milwaukee, said that if a significant portion of Ms. Walton’s estate ends up going to the foundation, it could mean big changes for education.

“If they continue to be as courageous and innovative as they have been, it could mean a fundamental change and progress in the American public-education system,” said Mr. Schambra, adding that one such consequence of an increase in the foundation’s assets could mean more support for public charter schools, so much so that the number of children attending public charter schools could eventually outnumber those in traditional public schools.

The foundation also supports community programs and education, economic development, environmental projects in Northwest Arkansas, and education and economic programs in the delta region of Arkansas and Mississippi.

“Money is a resource, and I firmly believe that if you have a resource to do a lot of good, you have to work at how you’re going to do it. And it’s work,” Ms. Walton once told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper.

In 2005 she gave the family foundation $365.5-million, according to the organization’s 2005 tax filings, the most recent year for which information is available. The foundation held $1.3-billion in assets that year.

The Walton family said in a statement last week that “a significant portion of her Wal-Mart interest will pass, over a period of years, to charity,” but did not specify which nonprofit organizations would receive Ms. Walton’s shares of Wal-Mart stock.

Foundation officials and the Walton family do not plan to release any additional information about the estate, said Jay Allen, a spokesman for the Walton family.

Ms. Walton was president of the foundation in 2002 when it awarded $300-million to the University of Arkansas, in Fayetteville, for scholarships and endowed professorships. A significant portion of the money — $200-million — went toward scholarships for undergraduates, and the university used the rest to establish endowed professorships and fellowships for graduate students, said Dave Gearhart, vice chancellor for university advancement.

Mr. Gearhart said the grant made it possible for the university to double the amount of scholarship money it gives undergraduates and to endow more than 120 professorships. To date the grant has helped about 2,000 undergraduates. The money, which the foundation said the university would receive only if it was able to raise an additional $300-million by June 2004, helped the university raise more than $1-billion.

“It was a huge boost to us,” said Mr. Gearhart.

The foundation had previously given the university, from which two of Ms. Walton’s three sons graduated, a $50-million grant in 1998 for its business school.

Scholarship Effort

In addition to her work with the foundation, Ms. Walton established the Walton Scholars program, which provides $10,000 scholarships to 150 children of Wal-Mart employees each year. She helped develop a nonprofit child-care center in northwest Arkansas in 1982, and in 1985 she and her husband, who died in 1992, created a program to bring students from Central America to Arkansas colleges to study democracy and U.S. business practices.

Ms. Walton helped design a plan to place computer technology in all Bentonville area schools, so that every classroom had a computer and each school building had a computer lab. Since the 1960s, she has also donated $106-million, in personal donations and through foundation grants, to the University of the Ozarks, in Clarksville, Ark. She became chairwoman of the university’s board in 1983.

“She created immeasurable opportunities for students who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to obtain that level of education,” said Steve Edmisten, executive vice president of the university.

But her two most important marks on the university were the Robson Memorial Library and the Walton Arts Center, the latter of which grew out of a need Ms. Walton saw in the early 1980s for Arkansas River Valley residents to have access to arts and culture, said Mr. Edmisten.

“Ms. Walton’s touch is woven throughout our campus. It’s like really beautiful threads woven together in a real fine tapestry.”