# Festus & Helen Stacy Foundation

Festus & Helen Stacy Foundation is an Endowment / Foundation based in Fort Lauderdale, United States.

## Overview

- **Organization type:** Endowment / Foundation
- **Headquarters:** Fort Lauderdale, United States
- **Region:** North America
- **Address:** Fort Lauderdale, FL, United States
- **Founded:** 1980
- **Assets under management:** Undisclosed
- **Website:** stacy.cc

## Regulatory record

- **Reports private funds:** No

## About

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.

## Sectors

- Education
- Community Development

## People

- 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

## 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.

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Last updated: 2026-07-06T00:33:24.515Z

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