Leonore Annenberg: a Philanthropist Who Deserved Attention

Leonore Annenberg was a philanthropist par excellence, although her dedication to giving and the vast sums of her philanthropy may come as a surprise to some.

As a full partner with her husband, the late Ambassador Walter Annenberg, as well as on her own, she was the embodiment of generosity and committed citizenship.

The Annenbergs’ philanthropy, particularly in the areas of education, communication, and public policy, is on a par with that of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Andrew Carnegie. In truth, it is unlikely we will ever know the full extent of the Annenbergs’ philanthropy, because they did not seek publicity for their gifts and made so many of them anonymously.

Leonore Annenberg believed, as did her husband, a communications magnate and former ambassador to Britain, that wealth carries with it responsibility and an obligation to one’s community, one’s society, and one’s country. Indeed, both Mr. and Mrs. Annenberg were dedicated to the cause of democracy and of equal opportunity. Voicing sentiments that both he and his wife shared, Walter Annenberg once said, “My country has been very good to me. I must be good to my country.”

Walter and Lee, as she was known to her friends, stood behind that conviction and put their wealth to work in the service of advancing the public well-being. In fact, they used their fortune to endow the future, to the benefit of countless Americans.

During Walter Annenberg’s lifetime, the couple carried out most of their giving through the Annenberg Foundation, which was established in 1989. After Mr. Annenberg’s death, in 2002, Leonore Annenberg assumed the presidency of the foundation and dedicated herself to continuing its mission. As a philanthropist, she never wanted to do anything small; when she made grants, she wanted them to have a big impact. Under her leadership, 1,797 grants were made, totaling $1.85-billion. Let me note just a few of them:

• The Leonore Annenberg Scholarship and School Funds were endowed with $30-million. One of the ideas that spurred Mrs. Annenberg to create this three-part, 10-year program was her belief that focusing on talented young people and sticking with them for the long haul — through their full college education — would be a transformative experience that would lift up even those who had to overcome incredible odds.

  To that end, the College Scholarship Fund covers all undergraduate expenses for exceptional students with inadequate resources to attend an academically rigorous college or university. It fulfills Mrs. Annenberg’s wish to really “reach out and touch” individual students and give them the opportunity to change the very trajectory of their lives — to soar as high as their skills and ability can take them. The Fellowship Program in the Arts reflects Mrs. Annenberg’s decades of volunteer support as a trustee or director of major arts and cultural institutions in both the United States and Britain by making substantial investments in exceptionally talented young dancers, musicians, actors, and visual artists as they complete their training and begin their professional lives.

  The School Fund for Children builds on Mrs. Annenberg’s numerous grants to ensure the educational prospects and general well-being of children by providing needed educational resources — including those designed to promote the development of the whole child — for elementary schools in which the majority of children are poor.

• The Walter and Leonore Annenberg Center for Information Science and Technology at the California Institute of Technology was created with a $25-million gift. The center is a continuation of the Annenbergs’ longstanding interest in how improved communication can strengthen our democracy and enrich the lives of our citizens. In a similar vein, the Annenberg Foundation gave $1-million to the Committee to Protect Journalists, which promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journalists.
• The Annenberg Foundation also gave $100-million to the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California and $100-million to the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

In announcing those grants, Mrs. Annenberg and her stepdaughter, Wallis Annenberg, emphasized the ability of philanthropy to make investments that will benefit generations to come. “This gift,” she said, “will ensure that the important work of the schools will continue into the next century and beyond.”

Mrs. Annenberg was a longtime patron of the fine arts. Her conviction that the progress of our national life could be measured, in part, by the depth and quality of our arts and our cultural institutions took shape in gifts totaling $70-million to the Philadelphia Museum of Art; $60-million to the Philadelphia Orchestra; $30-million to support the relocation of the Barnes Foundation collection and endow a new facility to house it; $17-million to expand the Center for Arts Education programs in the New York City Public Schools; $43.5-million for acquisitions and other needs of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; $15-million to endow the international radio broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera, and millions more to support public television, public radio, and a host of other institutions and organizations that make an invaluable contribution to our nation.

One of her most recent gifts was made in partnership with the Carnegie Corporation of New York. In 2007, with $5-million from the Annenberg Foundation and additional funds from the corporation, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation created the Leonore Annenberg Teaching Fellowships to attract top students into teaching and transform teacher education in the United States, with the particular goal of recruiting teachers to work in high-poverty neighborhoods and struggling schools.

The program, meant to be the Rhodes scholarships of teaching, offers about 33 national fellowships a year, with $30,000 stipends, for students to attend graduate education programs at Stanford University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Virginia, or the University of Washington.

In the realm of improving teacher education, the Annenberg Foundation contributed about $12.5-million for the creation of the Teachers for a New Era initiative, which was also financed by the Carnegie Corporation and the Ford Foundation. The program’s aim is to strengthen elementary and secondary teaching by promoting improvement of teacher-education programs to focus on evidence-driven practices and clinical experiences in partnership with elementary and secondary schools. The Annenberg support also contributed to a network of 30 colleges and universities sharing the lessons and knowledge developed by Teachers for a New Era.

Leonore Annenberg’s legacy also includes millions of dollars for civics education, to improve high schools, and for endowments of institutions such as Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Southern California, and through support of the National Constitution Center, in Philadelphia, increasing public understanding and appreciation for the meaning and relevance of our Constitution and promoting its study.

It was the Annenberg Challenge, announced at the White House in 1993 and carried out under the leadership of Walter and Leonore Annenberg, that put public elementary and secondary education atop the nation’s agenda. The challenge, which totaled $500-million, raised $600-million in matching funds from more than 1,600 businesses, foundations, colleges, and individuals. It endowed the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University with a gift of $50-million, which at the time was the single largest gift that Brown had ever received.

The Annenbergs’ effort was a “challenge” in the truest sense of the word — not merely financial, but also a moral and political challenge, because its intent was to galvanize the nation, to energize and empower educators, administrators, parents, school-district personnel, teachers, policy makers, and concerned citizens from every walk of life and from all corners of the nation — from West Baltimore to Chattanooga, from New York City to Los Angeles, from the Ozarks to the Rockies to the hills of Appalachia — to work in and with their local schools in order to make them better places for children to learn. Some of the current school-improvement successes in cities such as New York, Boston, and Chicago can be traced to changes undertaken as part of the Annenberg Challenge.

It must be noted that while Mrs. Annenberg was an ambassador for all that embodied the spirit and hope of America, her munificence was not confined to the United States but also encompassed Britain, where Walter Annenberg spent five years as U.S. ambassador.

During their tenure in London, Mrs. Annenberg brought her distinctive taste, style, and elegance to the royal court. Later, in Washington, she served with the same tact and diplomacy as chief of protocol, with the rank of ambassador, during the Reagan Administration. In 2001 it was the great honor of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and its more than 20 sister organizations, established in the United States and abroad by Andrew Carnegie, to bestow upon Leonore and Walter Annenberg the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy.

Leonore Annenberg’s life wove together the themes of art and education, culture and public service, knitting a tapestry of honor, service, and vision that put her nation and many others around the world deeply in her debt. It was a privilege to have this remarkable woman of grace, vision, elegance, style, wit, passion, and compassion as my friend of 35 years and as a leader in philanthropy. She will be missed by her many devoted friends and by all those whose lives have been touched by her good works, not only in the past and in the present, but long into the future.

Vartan Gregorian is president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.