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Festus & Helen Stacy Foundation
The Festus & Helen Stacy Foundation was established in 1980 in Fort Lauderdale by Festus Stacy and his wife Helen. Stacy built his fortune through APenn and...
Festus & Helen Stacy Foundation
The Festus & Helen Stacy Foundation was established in 1980 in Fort Lauderdale by Festus Stacy and his wife Helen. Stacy built his fortune through APenn and Penn-Champ Oil, a pair of manufacturing and energy companies that operated in the mid-Atlantic and Appalachian basin. Control of the foundation passed to daughter Virlee Stepelton and her husband Douglas, who serves as president and primary investment officer, with two third-generation family members now holding vice-president and director roles. The foundation does not follow a conventional asset-class allocation model. Its corpus is held in a mix of publicly traded securities and a single commercial property on North Federal Highway in Fort Lauderdale, while grantmaking runs through three tightly scoped program areas: Evangelism/Church Planting, Leadership Development, and Holistic Ministries. All grantees are Christian organizations deploying capital predominantly outside the United States. The foundation reports no direct private-equity commitments, no fund-of-funds relationships, and no co-investment vehicles — it operates as a liquid, donor-directed endowment with a narrow religious mandate. Team size is undisclosed. The board comprises four trustees drawn entirely from the Stacy-Stepelson family line. Douglas Stepelton is the only named principal with an external professional track record — he previously served as president of the Broward-Gold Coast chapter of the Florida Association of Mortgage Brokers. The foundation maintains a secondary philanthropic vehicle, the Festus & Helen Stacy Foundation II, though no public filings differentiate its grantmaking scope or separate investment pool. A notable domestic grantee is Westminster Academy, a Christian school in Fort Lauderdale where the foundation funded the athletic complex renovation. Structurally, the foundation is unusual in that it permits itself no program-related investments, no recoverable grants, and no venture-philanthropy structures — every dollar deployed is a pure charitable expenditure. The investment policy prioritizes yield and liquidity over long-term illiquidity premiums, a posture consistent with the foundation's role as a current-distribution engine rather than an intergenerational endowment builder. Governance remains tightly held; no independent trustees, investment committee, or external OCIO has been disclosed.
General information
Firm type
Endowment / Foundation
Year founded
1980
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
Fort Lauderdale
Corporate office
Fort Lauderdale, FL, United States
Principals
Douglas A. Stepelton
President and Trustee
Virlee S. Stepelton
Secretary/Treasurer and Trustee
Sean D. Stepelton
Vice President and Director
Brett S. Stepelton
Vice President and Director
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who controls grantmaking decisions at the Stacy Foundation?
Grantmaking authority rests with the four-member board of trustees, all family members. Douglas Stepelton serves as president and primary decision-maker, with his wife Virlee as secretary/treasurer and two grandsons of the founders as vice presidents. No external grant committee or program-officer layer is publicly documented.
Does the foundation make investments outside its Christian program focus?
No. All publicly recorded grantmaking runs through three channels: Evangelism/Church Planting, Leadership Development, and Holistic Ministries. Every grantee is a Christian organization, and the foundation has never reported a grant to a secular recipient. The foundation does not carry program-related investments or recoverable grants.
What assets does the Stacy Foundation hold beyond its grantmaking corpus?
Public records identify two asset categories: a publicly traded securities portfolio managed from Fort Lauderdale and the Stacy Foundation Building, a commercial property at 5110 North Federal Highway. No private-equity commitments, real-asset funds, or hedge-fund allocations have been reported.
How is the foundation related to the Stacy family's operating businesses?
The foundation is a separate entity funded by proceeds from APenn and Penn-Champ Oil, the manufacturing and energy companies Festus Stacy founded. The operating businesses are not held inside the foundation and no current operating-company ownership is reported by the foundation. There is no public record of the foundation holding founder's stock or partnership interests in ongoing business entities.
Does the foundation accept unsolicited grant proposals?
The foundation's public posture suggests a curated grantee list derived from the family's personal church and missionary relationships. No open call for proposals, online submission portal, or published application cycle has been identified in its public record. Prospective grantees are likely recommended through the network of ministries the Stepelton family directly supports.
What is the distinct funding mandate of the Festus & Helen Stacy Foundation II?
The foundation maintains a secondary vehicle under the 'II' designation, but no separate investment policy, grantee list, or Form 990 filing has been publicly identified that distinguishes its activity from the primary foundation. It may serve an administrative or geographic-separation function, but its precise mandate and corpus are not publicly disclosed.
Has the foundation reported any intention to transition beyond the Stepelton family board?
No succession plan or plan to add independent trustees has been made public. With two third-generation members already serving as vice presidents and directors, governance succession appears to follow a direct-line family model. The foundation's small-scale, religiously defined mission makes a transition to professional staff or an external investment committee unlikely absent a major donor-advised restructuring.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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