The Lovett and Ruth Peters Foundation is a family foundation created by Lovett “Pete” Peters (1913-2010), a banker and investor. Peters had a strong interest in education reform and in 1988 created the Pioneer Institute, a free-market think tank.  The foundation is now run by Peters’s son, Daniel C. Peters, and donates to center-right political organizations and organizations supporting education reform.

The foundation will spend itself out by 2040, or 30 years after the death of Lovett Peters.

Lovett “Pete” Peters

Lovett “Pete” Peters was graduated from Yale University in 1936 and spent World War II working for the U.S. Army Air Forces helping finance aircraft production. He then worked for several oil and gas companies and Cabot Corporation, a chemical company.  Peters made his fortune as an investor in oil and gas enterprises. ¹

In 1988 he co-founded the Pioneer Institute, a free-market think tank in Massachusetts.  The fist co-director of the institute was Charlie Baker, later a Republican politician who ran for Governor of Massachusetts unsuccessfully in 2010 before being elected in 2014. ² Peters also served as a trustee of the Foundation for Economic Education. ³

In a 2000 interview with the Boston Globe, Peters said he was neither a conservative or a libertarian, but a “limited-government man.” He also said that he believed in term limits for foundations, and that he intended for the Lovett and Ruth Peters Foundation to spend itself out within 30 years of his death. ⁴

“I don’t believe in those long funds that stay forever,” Peters told the Globe. “They almost always get perverted into something heir founders didn’t want.” ⁵

Peters was a strong advocate of charter schools. In 2000 he made an offer to 22 public schools in Massachusetts whose fourth-grade students scored at the bottom of a statewide exam. If they converted to charter schools, and their students’ test scores didn’t rise to higher than the state average, they could return to being public schools and he’d donate $1 million to the school. ⁶

The Wall Street Journal, in an editorial, praised Peters’s proposal, stating that “the ferment for reform in American education is directly related to the willingness of people like Mr. Peters…to think about involving he private sector in management” of public schools.  No schools accepted Peters’s offers. ⁷

Daniel S. Peters

Since 2000, the Peters Foundation has been headed by Daniel S. Peters, son of Lovett Peters. Peters has served as chairman of the Philanthropy Roundtable and currently sits as a trustee of Hillsdale College, treasurer of Catholic Education Partners⁸, a trustee of Seton Education Partners,⁹ and a trustee of Ohio Excels, a group advocating school reform in Ohio. ¹⁰ In a 2009 interview with the Heritage Foundation publication The Insider, Peters stated his strong support for scholarships for private schools and stated that his foundation had provided almost 3,000 scholarships “in the greater Cincinnati area” providing part of the cost of tuition for private schools. ¹¹

Grantmaking

In 2018, the Lovett and Ruth Peters Foundation gave seven grants of $100,000 or more:  $250,000 to DonorsTrust, $125,000 to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, and $100,000 grants to Accelerate Great Schools, Columbus Partnership, Hillsdale College, Pioneer Institute, and Seton Education Partners. ¹²

1. J.M. Lawrence, “Lovett ‘Pete” Peters, Founder of Pioneer Institute, At 97,” Boston Globe, November 19, 2010.
2. Alex Beam, “Think Of That,” Boston Globe, September 2, 1988.
3. J.M. Lawrence, “Lovett ‘Pete” Peters, Founder of Pioneer Institute, At 97,” Boston Globe, November 19, 2010.
4. Joanna Weiss, “Affluence, Influence:  Pioneer Founder Wins Friends on Beacon Hill,” Boston Globe, April 30, 2000.
5. Joanna Weiss, “Affluence, Influence:  Pioneer Founder Wins Friends on Beacon Hill,” Boston Globe, April 30, 2000.
6. “The Schools Millionaire,” Wall Street Journal editorial, September 14, 2000.  See also Joanne Gordon, “Who Doesn’t Want To Be A Millionaire?,” Forbes, October 2, 2000.
7. “The Schools Millionaire,” Wall Street Journal editorial, September 14, 2000.  See also Joanne Gordon, “Who Doesn’t Want To Be A Millionaire?,” Forbes, October 2, 2000.
8. “Catholic Education Partners:  Daniel S. Peters,” https://catholicedpartners.org/daniel-peters (accessed March 3, 2021)
9. “Seton Education Partners:  Our Board,’ https://www.setonpartners.org/who-we-are/our-board/ (accessed March 3, 2021)
10. “Ohio Excels:  Daniel S. Peters,” https://ohioexcels.org/daniel-s-peters/ (accessed March 3, 2021).
11. “Dan Peters:  An Insider Interview,” The Insider, Spring 2009, https://web.archive.org/web/20130127062052/http://www.insideronline.org/archives/2009/spring/DanPeters.pdf (accessed March 3, 2021).
12. 2018 Lovett and Ruth Peters Foundation Form 990.