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The fortune: Oscar G. Foellinger bought The News-Sentinel in 1922 (the Foellinger Foundation's own 2022 annual report). When Oscar died in 1936, his daughter Helene R. Foellinger (1910–1987) became publisher at twenty-five and ran the paper until 1980. The Allen County Genealogical Society's history puts the 1980 sale of the newspaper at almost $70 million.
The foundation: Helene and her mother, Esther A. Foellinger, created the Foellinger Foundation in 1958, and it was funded the way newspaper fortunes rarely are — steadily, in advance: by Helene's lifetime gifts, by both women's estates, and by contributions from the News Publishing Company until the paper was sold in 1980. Its scale is a matter of public filing. The foundation's federal Form 990-PF returns report assets at fair market value of $207,656,725 for tax year 2022, $234,746,601 for tax year 2023, and $252,344,709 for tax year 2024, with grants paid of $6,865,550 in tax year 2024. Fort Wayne Monthly's March 2022 survey of local philanthropy put the foundation's assets at $235 million to $245 million, in the same range as the filings.
What it left, beyond the grants: Helene Foellinger was a charter member and director of the Fort Wayne Park Foundation in 1974, and two of the city's signature places are her family's gifts — the Foellinger Theatre in Franke Park (1949) and the Foellinger-Freimann Botanical Conservatory (1983) — treated together in the legacy entry at the end of this part.
Sources:
- Foellinger Foundation, 2022 annual report — Oscar's 1922 purchase; the foundation's creation and funding.
- Foellinger Foundation, Forms 990-PF for tax years 2022, 2023, and 2024 (public filings, via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer data) — asset and grant figures.
- Allen County Genealogical Society — Helene Foellinger biography; the 1980 sale at almost $70 million.
- Fort Wayne Monthly, March 2022 — the $235–245 million asset range.
- Charitable Advisors foundation overview — $185.1 million market value at August 31, 2016, grants of about $8 million a year.