The San Antonio-based Genevieve and Ward Orsinger Foundation has announced the completion of a five-year spend-down plan and has ended its grantmaking activities.

According to the San Antonio Report, the foundation awarded grants totaling nearly $3.5 million in 2023, seven times greater than its annual distribution before the foundation began efforts to “to give away its last dollar before December 31.” Established in 1997 by Genevieve Orsinger, who died in 2004, the foundation awarded $21.6 million over 26 years to nonprofits in south central Texas, including SAMMinistries, the Cibolo Nature Center, Children’s Bereavement Center of South Texas, Communities in Schools, Healy-Murphy Child Development Center, and Respite Care of San Antonio, and provided the land for San Antonio’s Orsinger Park.

“[Genevieve] always wanted to help people who wanted to help themselves get better,” said retiring foundation president Linda McDavitt—Orsinger’s niece—who noted that the foundation’s mission was to “give people the tools to become educated, healthy, and self-reliant.”

“As a family member, [McDavitt] felt a duty and an obligation to maintain the integrity of Genevieve’s vision,” said foundation board member Michael Bacon. “This is the right way to honor [the Orsinger] legacy in a way that fits with their vision….A wonderful, generous gesture Genevieve made is finally coming to an end. But it’s been a great ride.”

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