In a City of Ailing Banks, a Family Fund Steps In to Fill a Giving Void

Leon and Sandra Levine don’t need help paying their tabs in restaurants.

Mr. Levine is the founder of Family Dollar, the national convenience-store chain with headquarters in suburban Charlotte, N.C. The couple’s biggest money problem these days is figuring out which charitable causes to help with the more than $300-million in assets in their family’s foundation. But that apparently didn’t stop another couple from bestowing a little charity of their own recently when they met Sandra Levine in a Charlotte restaurant. As Mr. Levine tells it, the couple thanked his wife for all the foundation has done recently to help struggling charities in the recession-battered city.

Later, when Mrs. Levine tried to pay the bill, the cashier told her it had already been handled.

“Wasn’t that nice?” Mr. Levine says, smiling.

‘Quite Stunning’

Most people around Charlotte, a city suffering double-digit unemployment rates, would say that’s not nearly as nice as what the Levines have done in the past year or so. One of the nation’s biggest banking centers, Charlotte has been hit hard by the financial crisis and the recession. Some 55,000 jobs have disappeared since 2008. The Charlotte Observer reported that 2009 first-quarter wages paid to financial-industry workers dropped by $650-million over the same period for the preceding year.

The loss of wages and jobs has caused individuals and corporations to give less, and with falling revenues, charities faced huge budget gaps last winter, even as demand for human services skyrocketed. In the year that followed, the Leon Levine Foundation responded with four $1-million gifts and tens of thousands of dollars worth of smaller donations.

The family’s foundation, which gave $10-million during its budget year ending in June 2008, hasn’t yet finished its books for the budget year that ended June 2009. However, it expects that its giving will have jumped more than 30 percent in 2009.

With some of the money saving the day for desperate organizations, leaders in Charlotte’s philanthropic circles have been heaping praise on the soft-spoken couple. Some even go so far as to say the Levines have stepped into shoes normally filled by the so-called rich uncles of Charlotte philanthropy—Bank of America and Wachovia. Both banks maintained headquarters in the city, but last year Wachovia was purchased by Wells Fargo and moved to San Francisco.

“It’s really quite stunning,” says Laura Meyer, executive vice president of the Foundation for the Carolinas, of the Levines’ generosity. “They just always seem to magically be at the table whenever there’s a need.”

The couple say they have felt compelled to step up. “Unfortunately there’s a lot of people who don’t have a job,” Mr. Levine says. “It hurts us when people can’t supply food or housing for themselves and their families. That’s where we want to be able to help.”

A Giving Spree

Mr. Levine, a native of rural Wadesboro, N.C., who grew up working in his family’s retail store, started Family Dollar in 1959, offering most household necessities for under $2. Today the chain has more than 6,000 stores nationwide. In 2005 Forbes magazine estimated his net worth at $1-billion, the most recent figure available.

He created his foundation in 1980. Initially his approach was hardly systematic: The list of charities he picked to help filled just half of a page. But after he retired in 2003, he threw himself into the foundation’s work, calling it his second career.

He sold large chunks of his Family Dollar stock and gave the proceeds to the foundation. Its assets more than doubled, from about $150-million in 2004 to $343-million in June 2008, the most recent figure available. Mr. Levine says the foundation has lost money in the recession, but its ability to give hasn’t been badly dented. The board consists of the Levines and Tom Lawrence, the foundation’s executive director. They make grant decisions after scrutinizing the boards and books of charities seeking help. The Levine foundation usually follows a four-pronged giving strategy, focusing on education, health care, human services, and religion.

Mr. Levine says he feels lucky to have amassed his fortune and feels a strong drive to give back to organizations that help others. Once the recession hit, he and his foundation went on a giving spree.

Moore Place, a project raising money to house the chronically homeless, received $500,000. Hope Haven, which houses and treats homeless addicts, received $50,000. Pat’s Place, a center for sexually abused children, also received $50,000 to help meet operating costs. The Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, fighting for its financial life, received $25,000.

“That’s part of the giving philosophy,” says Mr. Lawrence, “to be aware of conditions economically in the community and be able to react quickly to where the need is.”

Homeless Children

The foundation made its first and perhaps biggest recession-related donation last winter. Alarmed at reports that charities’ financial troubles might hamper their ability to help more than 2,000 homeless children, the Levines donated $1-million to help start the Critical Need Response Fund. The effort eventually raised nearly $3-million to help homeless shelters and other frontline organizations in Charlotte survive.

Crisis Assistance Ministry, a charity that helps low-income families meet housing and utility costs, received about $500,000 through the Levines and the critical-need fund. Local nonprofit leaders estimate the gift prevented evictions or utility disconnections for about 1,440 families.

“It was critical,” says Carol Hardison, director of Crisis Assistance. “The need was there. It was certainly a bright spot in the midst of a period of shock and gloom.”

Million-Dollar Gifts

In August the Levines came to the aid of the United Way of Central Carolinas, hobbled by both the recession and bad publicity surrounding a $2-million supplemental pension given to its former president, Gloria Pace King. (The pension deal was later canceled and Ms. King was ousted.) Donations for the United Way’s 2008 fund drive fell by $15-million, forcing big cuts in the money it could provide to the 90 or so organizations it supports every year.

The United Way found itself facing similarly bleak prospects this year. But the Levines gave the 2009 campaign a desperately needed shot of adrenalin by announcing a matching grant of $1-million. Donations still lag prerecession levels, officials say. But the Levine donation gave the United Way chapter’s new executive director, Jane McIntyre, a vote of confidence and a key victory in what she sees as a long fight to regain public confidence.

“It gave a whole new energy around the campaign,” says Ms. McIntyre. “I think they’ve just raised the bar for philanthropy in this community.”

The couple’s $1-million donations didn’t stop there. With many experts saying Charlotte’s philanthropic scene has been changed for good by the banking crisis, the Levines stepped in to help charities reinvent themselves for the years ahead. The couple gave another $1-million to help the Foundation for the Carolinas set up an innovation fund that will offer grants to help with mergers, collaboration efforts, and other long-term restructuring projects.

And the week before Christmas, the Levines made headlines again by announcing yet another $1-million gift, this one aimed at reviving the Critical Need Response Fund for another winter.

“I think both the cultural community and the human-service community realize that a new approach is going to have to be found with what has happened to the two ‘uncles,’” Mrs. Levine says, referring to the banks. “That help is going to have to come from foundations like ours and from individual donors.”

Philanthropic leaders say the Levines have provided the blueprint. Their emergency aid has been critical to charities, Ms. Meyer says, but “they also understand the sea change needed in the nonprofit community to help them change and grow. That’s an intellectual leap that goes beyond traditional single-purpose giving.”

Still Active

Mr. Levine, whose three adult children do not serve on the family foundation board, has stipulated in his will that a large portion of the couple’s wealth will go to their foundation after they die.

But the vigorous 72-year-old is still enjoying seeing the fruits of his gifts. He often takes an active role in deciding which organizations to help. Sometimes he will get on the phone after reading in the newspaper about a charity’s plight.

“People often say to me, ‘There are a lot of people who are in a position to do this and they don’t,’” says Mrs. Levine, 67. “So my pride in him is that he is in the group that feels they want to make a difference and give back.”

The big banks certainly haven’t disappeared from the Charlotte philanthropic scene. Bank of America recently gave $1-million to seven charities helping citizens suffering from the recession. And Wells Fargo recently surprised leaders of 15 local nonprofit organizations by announcing donations totaling $6 million.

More would be fine with Mr. Levine.

“We hope the banks get back up to speed real quick,” he says with a chuckle. “We’d like as much help as possible.”