The Roe Foundation

Organization details

Formal name: The Roe Foundation
Established / IRS recognition: April 1969
EIN: 23-7011541
Type: 501(c)(3) private non-operating foundation
Headquarters: Greenville, South Carolina, United States
Founders: Thomas Anderson Roe Jr. and Shirley Waddell Roe
2025 officers: Chair Amy R. Willcox; vice-chair Thomas L. Willcox; secretary Carl O. Helstrom
2025 IRS finances: $300,807 revenue; $816,181 expenses; $7,255,152 net assets
2025 itemized grant: $600,000 to Fidelity Charitable Trust; subsequent distribution destination not established

Identity, founding and legal status

The Roe Foundation is a Greenville, South Carolina, tax-exempt private, non-operating family foundation, recognized by the IRS since April 1969 under EIN 23-7011541. It was established by businessman Thomas Anderson Roe Jr. and his wife Shirley Waddell Roe. The foundation awards grants to free-market policy research organizations and to arts, education, faith-based and community institutions. The foundation is a grantmaker rather than a public-policy institute or electoral committee, and a grantee's work should not automatically be described as directed by the foundation. [1] [3] [4]

Thomas Roe chaired Builders Marts of America, a building-materials business, and personally supported the emergence of conservative state think tanks during the 1980s and 1990s. Shirley Roe continued the foundation's philanthropic role after his January 2000 death. The family foundation, the independent State Policy Network, and the Heritage Foundation have distinct corporate identities and IRS filings. [3] [4] [5]

The South Carolina Policy Council and State Policy Network

Tom Roe founded the South Carolina Policy Council in 1986 and supported Madison Group convenings that brought together similar state-based think tanks. That collaboration developed into State Policy Network (SPN), incorporated in 1992, with Roe serving as founding board chair. SPN now provides training, networking, grants and institutional support to independent state-policy nonprofits. Contemporary philanthropic histories describe Roe's financial and practical assistance in expanding the network; original SPN publications explicitly acknowledge his foundation's support. [3] [7] [11]

The Roe Foundation is a separate donor to SPN and the South Carolina Policy Council. The organization's 1992 Roe Award, and later Thomas Roe Legacy Society, use the founder's name but should not be mistaken for separate entities owning the private foundation. Foundation grants record transfers to grantees; they do not prove that SPN directed each state affiliate's policy decisions or that every member institute was legally controlled by the Roe family. [7] [13]

2020–2025 IRS grant recipients and exact amounts

Public IRS Form 990-PF Part XV grant data report 128 grants totaling $19,957,612 across the 2020–2025 tax years. The grant record identifies approximately $12,081,143 to State Policy Network in four dated grants, $2,025,000 to the Heritage Foundation in four grants, and $979,604 to South Carolina Policy Council in four grants. These are documented monetary transfers for a six-year period, not a projection of lifetime giving or an assertion that all funds financed electoral activity. [2] [12]

The individual SPN entries were $150,000 in 2020, $3,700,000 in 2021, $4,000,000 in 2022, and $4,231,143 in 2023. The Heritage Foundation entries in the same six-year data window totaled $2,025,000, including $700,000 in 2021 and 2023 and $500,000 in 2022. The funder's grant descriptions identify policy-education and general operating purposes; they do not identify specific legislative authors, elections or public officials as individual recipients. [2] [12]

Grants also went to local and other organizations, including Greenville Symphony Orchestra, Miracle Hill Ministries, St. Paul's Anglican Church, the James Madison Institute, Goldwater Institute, Texas Public Policy Foundation, Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty and the Foundation for Government Accountability. These grantees had different missions and tax classifications; grantmaking breadth should be recorded rather than reducing every payment to a political campaign. [2]

Financial statements and change in assets

In the foundation's FY2025 Form 990-PF (filed May 14, 2026), reported revenue was $300,807, total expenses $816,181, and net assets $7,255,152. Book-value total assets at year-end were $7,268,069 against $12,917 of liabilities. The form reported $600,000 in grants paid, with one itemized recipient: Fidelity Charitable Trust. A grant to a charitable intermediary is not a traceable payment to an ultimate policy institute; its subsequent destination is not established by this filing. Qualifying distributions and total expenses are distinct accounting categories. [1] [6]

The same IRS data show FY2020 net assets of approximately $25.0 million and FY2023 net assets of approximately $8.0 million, alongside larger grant totals in 2021–2023. A fall in reported net assets during that period is documented; it is not evidence by itself of insolvency, misappropriation or an unlawful transfer. Fair-market asset valuations may differ from year-end book values and must not be mixed without labels. [1] [6]

Trustees, officers and the 2025 family succession

Founder Thomas Roe died January 9, 2000. His widow Shirley Waddell Roe continued as the foundation's chair for many years; ProPublica's 2024 return still identifies her as chair. The South Carolina Policy Council reported that she died in July 2025. The 2025 Form 990-PF identifies Amy R. Willcox as chair, Thomas L. Willcox as vice-chair, and Carl O. Helstrom as secretary, with administrator Linda P. Rollins reported separately. A January 2000 South Carolina Senate resolution identifies Amy as the founder's daughter and Thomas Willcox as her spouse; the name is spelled Willcox on current returns, though older electronic transcriptions also show Wilcox. [1] [4] [5] [6]

Historical directories listed Heritage president Edwin Feulner as a Roe Foundation officer or board participant and Helstrom, later chairman of SPN, as a board participant. A 1999 published study also described Free Congress Foundation founder Paul Weyrich and SPN executive Byron Lamm on the board at that time. The 2012 U.S. government-published directory again listed Feulner, Helstrom, Sharp and Lamm among officers or directors. These are dated board overlaps, not names to place on the current 2025 board unless the current return establishes that role. [9] [10]

Relationship to Heritage Foundation and the Roe Institute

Thomas Roe served on the Heritage Foundation's board of trustees. The Roe Foundation's donor record shows direct grants to Heritage; the nonprofit's Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies continues to carry the founder's name. Heritage's April 16, 2026 announcement appointed John Gibbs to direct that institute, which works on domestic economic policy including regulation, housing, trade and financial markets. These are three separately documented links—trusteeship, philanthropy, and an institute bearing the family's name—and do not establish that the independent Roe Foundation manages the institute's staff or selects its policy agenda. [4] [8] [14]

The foundation's reported historical trusteeship and SPN-related board memberships provide an institutional bridge between national and state think tanks. The grant figures provide a verified flow of funding, while a policy-specific instruction or joint project must be established from separate meeting records, grant agreements, internal publications or correspondence. [2] [9]

Institutional record, unanswered questions and evidence boundaries

The available records establish an enduring structure: Roe-family philanthropic capital, an affiliated donor network of state policy nonprofits, documented grants to Heritage and SPN, and professional personnel overlapping SPN and Heritage leadership over several decades. A 1999 contemporaneous report examined how such networks coordinated personnel and research across states. That description is the publication's analysis; the legally demonstrated facts remain officers' identities, organizational charters, dates and payments. [2] [3] [9]

Open historical questions include original 1969 foundation charter and governance conditions; the complete record of grants before 2020; particular donor-restriction language; the ultimate recipients of payments routed through Fidelity Charitable; any direct financing of specific state legislative proposals; and exact start and end dates for individual historical board appointments. No evidence used here supports a claim that the foundation directly controlled state legislatures, political party committees or executive-branch agencies. [1] [2] [6]

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