News and Perspectives

The Foundation is pleased to announce it recently awarded 101 grants totaling $45 million in its five grantmaking programs, supporting efforts to expand access to resources and opportunities that promote a more vital and just city and region for all. Jump...

The Constitution requires a census, every ten years, to count all persons in the United States. This population count serves as the basis for sharing political power among the states, with the number of Congressional representatives assigned (or...

When we launched the William Penn Foundation’s new grantmaking programs last year, we set out to meet specific objectives within each program over the next ten years. This was a new practice for us. For the first time, we are holding ourselves accountable...

Two veteran educators on a strategy to address teacher vacancies in the Philadelphia.

When we think of flooding brought on by climate change, the recent deadly flooding in Pakistan or July’s catastrophic flash floods in Texas might come to mind. But the danger is also much closer to home. Intense floods have hit our region, as well...

Tacony Creek Park is emblematic of green spaces in Philadelphia, a portrait of the gap between grand visions and stark realities that has existed since the very beginning of William Penn’s “Green Country Town.” Famously, Penn established the city’s five...

On an unseasonably cool Saturday during one of this spring’s stretches of wet weather, Yazmine Acosta, a 14-year-old from South Philadelphia, greeted visitors at a lakeside dock at Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park, just across Broad Street from the Wells...

The Foundation is pleased to announce it recently awarded 79 grants totaling $31.6 million in its five grantmaking programs, supporting efforts to expand access to resources and opportunities that promote a more vital and just city and region for all...