Patterson Foundation Receives $225 Million Bequest

by Tracy Chait (RSS feed)
Aug 5th 2008 at 10:02AM

The Patterson Foundation in Sarasota, Florida has just announced it has received a bequest of $225 million from the estate of Dorothy Clarke Patterson, who died last year. The significant gift makes the Patterson Foundation the 19th largest grant-maker in the state of Florida and the largest in Sarasota.

In addition to the major gift, the former Longboat Key resident left no instructions for how she wanted the bequest managed, providing a unique opportunity for the foundation to chart its own course. In the past, the foundation Patterson founded with $3 million following her husband's death in 1997 has donated to Sarasota groups including Habitat for Humanity and a local high school and food bank. Newly appointed foundation head Debra Jacobs (at right) will certainly be hard at work defining the mission of one woman's unrestricted largesse.

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