William Penn Foundation: Philadelphia Grants

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OVERVIEW: The William Penn Foundation awards grants for education and arts and culture in the Philadelphia area. It also supports protection of the Delaware River Watershed.

IP TAKE: The Philadelphia-focused William Penn Foundation gets good reviews for risk taking, relationship building and being a “[p]ositive leader in the field.” This funder is highly specific in its goals and interests, making it easy to determine if your organization is a match. It currently accepts inquiries for only one of its grantmaking programs, Creative Communities, which supports arts, culture and public spaces with broad appeal and outreach. But Penn is accessible, so if you work in watershed conservation or PK-12 education, reach out to a staff member working in this area. The foundation expects to have new strategies and guidelines available by the fall of 2024.

PROFILE: The Penn Foundation was established in 1945 by Otto Haas, founder of the chemical company Rohm and Haas, and his wife, Phoebe Waterman Haas, a noted astronomer and one of the first women in the U.S. to earn a Ph.D. in the field. The foundation was originally called the Phoebe Waterman Foundation, but the couple’s children, who took the reigns after their parents passed away, “chose to rename the foundation after William Penn, a 17th-century Quaker whose pursuit of an exemplary society led to his founding of Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love.”

The William Penn Foundation’s mission is “to help improve education for children from low-income families, ensure a sustainable environment, foster creative communities that enhance civic life and advance philanthropy in the Greater Philadelphia region.” In keeping with this mission, the foundation’s stated giving areas are Creative Communities, Great Learning and Watershed Protection. A fourth program, Cross-Program Funding, supports “projects that stretch across our priorities and align with more than one program area.” Grantmaking targets the greater Philadelphia area.

Grants for Freshwater Conservation

The William Penn Foundation’s Watershed Protection giving area focuses on the Delaware River Watershed and aims specifically “to create the long-term conditions that will ensure the watershed supports aquatic life and recreation in and on the water.” This program makes grants in three strategic areas.

  • The Watershed Wide strategy focuses on “closing the gaps in existing science and connecting research, policy, and public outreach efforts to build an integrated body of work for the benefit of clean water.”

  • The foundation also makes grants to support conservation in Targeted Sub-Watersheds that pose “growing threats to clean water.” These efforts include relevant projects for forest and land conservation, as well as for the mitigation of storm water pollution in urban areas.

  • Grants also support Constituency Building for “equitable public access to and engagement with rivers and streams in the Delaware River watershed.” Of specific interest here are programs that “that not only connect people to the water, but also serve as platforms for recreational and educational programs.”

Watershed grantees include the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, the Stroud Water Research Center and the National Wildlife Federation, among others.

Grants for Early Childhood, K-12 Education and Civic Engagement

Education grantmaking focuses on “dramatically increasing the number of children from Philadelphia’s low-income communities who experience academic success.” Grants pursue three strategies.

  • Strong Start Strong Readers is the foundation’s literacy-oriented program that supports language and literacy development from birth through age eight. Areas of priority include family and home literacy interventions, quality instruction at the early childhood and K-3 levels, teacher education and public outreach.

  • The foundation also makes grants to support High School Completion programs and interventions for at-risk students in the Philadelphia area. Grants focus on the transition to high school, support throughout the high school years and support for students as they plan their “post-secondary paths.”

  • The foundation also supports education-related Civic Engagement to “harness support for excellent education in the city’s public schools.”

Grantees working in these areas include Philadelphia’s EducationWorks, the Philadelphia City Fund, Children First, Mastery Charter Schools and the Free Library of Philadelphia.

Grants for Arts and Culture and Arts Education

Penn’s Creative Communities grantmaking funds “programs and initiatives that ensure people across Philadelphia and the region benefit from inclusive, diverse, and high-quality public spaces and arts and culture experiences.” Grants focus on arts and culture organizations and programs with broad outreach and appeal, including those that have educational or participatory components. A portion of this grantmaking also supports the development and maintenance of “inclusive, equitable, and sustainable public spaces, as well as opportunities for these spaces to generate long-term economic benefits for surrounding communities.”

Grantees of the Creative Communities program include Opera Philadelphia, the Clay Studio, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Historic Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Important Grant Details

The William Penn Foundation makes grants that mainly range between $5,000 and $500,000.

  • Grantmaking is mainly limited to the greater Philadelphia area, although a few national organizations have received funding.

  • Watershed conservation appears to be this funder’s largest area of giving, followed by education. Grants for arts and culture tend to be among its smallest.

  • This funder supports organizations of all sizes and seeks to fund projects that address more than one of its interest areas.

  • Penn accepts inquiries for its Creative Communities grants and reviews near the end of October, January and April of each year. Full proposals are accepted by invitation only, with due dates in April July and October. Detailed guidelines are provided on the foundation’s website.

  • The foundation is not currently accepting inquiries for its Great Learning and Watershed Protection programs but may begin accepting these again in the fall of 2024, after revising its strategy for these areas.

  • For additional information about this funder’s work, see its Our Programs in Action page.

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