The William Penn Foundation, the largest foundation devoted solely to giving in the Philadelphia region, is implementing a wide array of changes over the kind of projects and organizations it wants to fund and how groups can apply for funding, writes Peter Dobrin for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The shifts are being influenced in part by a generational turnover on the foundation’s board. The foundation was founded by the Haas family of Rohm & Haas Company and is gradually transferring leadership to the family’s fourth generation.

This generational handoff has been in the works for the last decade and roughly coincides with the foundation’s new 10-year strategic plan. While the new priorities were championed by the incoming generation, they were made in partnership with the one before it.

“Climate change feels like it is being raised up by millennials and Gen Z, and you’ll see that in our new plan, but it was supported very much by the third generation,” said Katherine H. Christiano, William Penn’s board chair.

The new priorities will expand William Penn’s environmental work, add a new democracy and civic initiatives program, and provide support for programs aimed at reducing barriers to workforce training and employment retention, among other changes.

Read more about the changes coming to William Penn Foundation in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

_____