Leon Levine Foundation to triple grant-making to $100M/year
Foundation's assets swell to $2B after the death of businessman Leon Levine, enable more giving
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The Leon Levine Foundation plans to dramatically increase spending on education, health, human services and Jewish values, CEO says
The Leon Levine Foundation, which on Tuesday announced a dramatic increase in its charitable giving, has supported efforts including (clockwise from upper left) the Levine Cancer Institute, Levine Children’s Hospital, the Levine Scholars Program at UNC Charlotte and the Sandra and Leon Levine JCC at Shalom Park. (Photos courtesy of the Leon Levine Foundation)
by Tony Mecia
The Leon Levine Foundation, one of the largest foundations in the Carolinas, said Tuesday that it is tripling the amount of grants it is making annually to around $100M.
The dramatic increase in grants could bolster the work of charities in Charlotte and throughout North and South Carolina in areas such as education, health, human services and Jewish values.
Tom Lawrence, CEO of the Leon Levine Foundation, said in an interview that the increase in giving would ensure that Levine’s “legacy and his work and his resources are going to go to help our neighbors who need it the most for decades to come.”
Levine was the founder of Family Dollar, which he started on Central Avenue in Charlotte in the 1950s. It became a Fortune 500 company headquartered in Matthews. He retired from the business in 2003 and passed away in April 2023 at age 85.
Levine told the Charlotte Business Journal in 2009 that he planned to “leave the bulk of his wealth to the foundation at his death, a bequest he says could make the foundation at least several times its current size.”
That is now happening: Lawrence said that since Levine’s death, the foundation’s assets have swelled to $2B, nearly triple what they were in 2023. That is allowing the foundation to make more grants. The foundation also intends to wrap up its work and close within the next 50 years, in accordance with Levine’s wishes, which means it can give more money away instead of hanging onto it in perpetuity.
“We’ll look at that additional spend as, ‘How are ways that we can help create permanency for some of the big initiatives that are having a dramatic and outsized impact for underserved and Jewish Carolinians that only philanthropy can have?’” Lawrence said.
The Leon Levine Foundation is the third-largest foundation by assets in North and South Carolina, behind the Duke Endowment and Foundation for the Carolinas, according to the most recent public filings.
Asked for advice for charities, Lawrence said the foundation is “excited to work with nonprofits across the Carolinas that align with our mission” and is “really looking for those partners that have these bold, innovative, proven ideas of how we can create systemic impact in our mission areas.”
The foundation’s money in the past has gone toward a number of big initiatives in Charlotte, including Atrium Health’s Levine Children’s Hospital and Levine Cancer Institute, the Levine Museum of the New South, the Levine Scholars program at UNC Charlotte and the Levine Center for the Arts uptown.
Tony Mecia is executive editor of The Charlotte Ledger: tony@cltledger.com
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