Guided by Our Values: Our History & Legacy

About The Patterson Foundation (TPF): The Patterson Foundation strengthens people, organizations, and communities in ways that foster wide participation around shared quality-of-life aspirations.TPF strengthens people, organizations, and communities through more than 20 active philanthropic initiatives. While each initiative is unique in nature, scope, and endeavors, they are all guided by a commitment to fostering wide participation among people, businesses, nonprofits, government, and the media around shared aspirations.

TPF was formed by Dorothy Patterson in 1997, and it was founded on the wealth she inherited upon the death of her husband, James Patterson, in 1992. The source of the gift and the family wealth can be traced back through four generations of the Patterson family to Joseph Medill. Medill was one of the founding partners of the Tribune Company back in 1847.

James J. (“Jimmy”) Patterson and Dorothy Clarke Patterson met while attending elementary school in Ossining, New York. They married in June of 1944, immediately after Jimmy graduated from West Point. Jimmy Patterson rose to the rank of Army Captain during service in Europe and Japan. In 1949, he joined the Daily News of New York, the newspaper co-founded in 1919 by his father, Joseph M. Patterson, and his father’s cousin, Col. Robert R.McCormick. Jimmy and Dorothy retired to Longboat Key in the 1960s and became generous benefactors to the Sarasota community.

Mr. Patterson died in 1992. Mrs.Patterson continued their philanthropic support, and as the Tribune Company prospered and her wealth grew, she decided to create a private charitable foundation in 1997. Mrs. Patterson left the Foundation with a broad mandate to do good and do it well. Although Mrs. Patterson passed away in September 2007, her legacy will live on in the Foundation that she created.