Annenberg Foundation Shifts its Base

Over the last 50-plus years, the two have given nearly $500 million to Penn for its Annenberg School for Communication, its policy center and a variety of other initiatives, university officials estimate.

The giving began in 1958 when the couple founded the communications school at Penn.

They funded the program through five-year contracts until 1993, when they made the breathtaking $120 million endowment donation, which still is the largest gift in Penn's history. That gift provided permanent funding for the communications school and created the Annenberg Public Policy Center, the only major policy center focused on communications in the country.