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1972 — the foundation created
The gift: The English-Bonter-Mitchell Foundation was created in 1972 by three friends — Mary Tower English, Louise Bonter and Elizabeth (Betty) Mitchell — who pooled their giving into a single foundation honoring Dr. Calvin English, a co-founder of the Lincoln National Life Insurance Company and the husband, father and friend the three women shared between them. As with the Foellinger founding fourteen years earlier, the founding gifts' combined size was not announced as a figure in the record reached; what the women built is documented by what it became. The foundation is trustee-administered by PNC Bank from Pittsburgh, and it is the largest Fort Wayne foundation most residents have never heard of, precisely because its givers chose a memorial rather than a marquee.
What it built: A permanent grantmaker of the first rank. The foundation's 2024 return reports assets of 167,460,930 dollars and 6,351,165 dollars paid across 109 grants, 89 of them in Fort Wayne — a single year's giving larger than most Fort Wayne fortunes. Its grants surface throughout this section: 300,000 dollars pledged in 2024 toward Purdue Fort Wayne's business-school renovation is one documented instance of the founding gift still at work fifty-two years on.
Sources:
- The English-Bonter-Mitchell Foundation's Form 990-PF (tax year 2024) and foundation directories, as compiled in the Nonprofits leg of this history.
- Purdue University Fort Wayne news release (March 2024) — the foundation's 300,000-dollar renovation pledge.