In 2024, the trust’s program called the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund launched a special focus on historic Black sites stewarded by direct descendants of prominent Black figures, the Descendants and Family Stewardship Initiative. In 2024, the first grant of that initiative was directed to the Coltrane house in Philadelphia, for $200,000.
“It’s an important investment, but it’s a modest investment. What we really get from them is their expertise,” said Kathleen Hennessy, Ravi’s wife and vice president of Friends of the Coltrane House, a support organization for the John and Alice Coltrane Home in Deer Park, New York.
“They lend expertise around restoration at which they are pretty much the gold standard,” she said. “They lend support around capacity building, too, which can be a huge obstacle for groups when they’re trying to do this kind of work.”