From humble roots, Weavers' legacy still growing 5 years after sale of Jacksonville Jaguars

When J. Wayne Weaver and Delores Barr Weaver married almost 62 years ago, their goal was to make $10,000 a year between the two of them and live in a $35,000 house.

He was 20, she was 18. Neither went to college. He learned the shoe business from the ground up. She worked for seven years, until the first of two children arrived, then maintained the household as they moved from their native Georgia, to St. Louis and Connecticut.

They have always been equal partners.

Together they met that first goal and over the next few decades blew it to smithereens, as Wayne Weaver rose to CEO of Nine West and later ran other shoe companies. In 1993 they invested in Jacksonville’s long-held NFL dreams as the first majority owner of the Jaguars, moving to a then-$10 million riverfront San Jose home.

In 2016, with the Weavers having sold the team for $770 million, Forbes magazine estimated their net worth at $870 million.

But they are modest about their wealth, more likely to be seen walking in Riverside or on the downtown bridges or hanging out at one of the nonprofits they help fund than riding in a limo. Five years after Shad Khan officially took ownership of the Jaguars, the Weavers separately talked with the Times-Union about their lives in Jacksonville and their ongoing philanthropy.

Together they have improved the lives of countless people in their adopted hometown and surrounding counties. They donated about $15 million to community causes through the Jaguars Foundation. Since 2007, they have given an estimated $135 million to The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida, where the Delores Barr Weaver Fund was established in 2012 with an initial value of $50 million.

About $100 million of that money has been given out in grants and to create endowments that will continue in perpetuity, according to foundation spokeswoman Susan Datz Edelman.

The Weavers’ individual and joint gifts have benefited everything from the arts, schools and hospitals to the homeless, seniors and the zoo.

“I always believed that … people who have the wherewithal have a responsibility to make a difference,” said Delores Weaver, 80.

Their vision “is to do what we can to help Jacksonville grow its full potential,” said Wayne Weaver, 82. “I think we’re on the cusp of breaking through becoming one of the great middle-market cities in the country.”

Not just writing big checks

Nina Waters met the Weavers during their Jaguars tenure when she was executive director of the PACE Center for Girls in Jacksonville. She is now president of the Community Foundation, which manages multiple Weaver funds and helps the couple evaluate potential grant recipients.

“My reaction to both was that they were extremely committed to Jacksonville,” she said. “For all of the good that having an NFL team has done for our community, it pales in comparison to what the Weavers’ philanthropy has done to grow the philanthropic spirit in our region. They have established permanent endowments for 33 nonprofit organizations.”

But they have done far more than write big checks, she said.

“Perhaps their biggest gift to our community is the time that they give taking on tough issues,” she said. “They are not afraid to speak up and roll up their sleeves to tackle some of our most pressing problems … improving educational outcomes for public school students, reducing teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection rates, reducing homelessness, job training and improving challenged neighborhoods, to name just a few.”

Lawanda Ravoira is president and CEO of the Delores Barr Weaver Policy Center, which was established in late 2012 by a $6.6 million grant from its namesake. The Jacksonville-based center has become a national leader in advocating for the rights of at-risk girls and young women.

Weaver has not just funded the cause, but “set the standard for extraordinary leadership for women and girls in our community through her philanthropy certainly, but also through her willingness to champion causes that ‘level the playing field’ for the girls and young women who are most marginalized in our community,” Ravoira said.

“She is not afraid to stir the pot in order to create needed change. She cares deeply for the girls we are privileged to work alongside,” she said.

The Weavers’ biggest fans range from a young woman who was once one of those struggling girls to a hospital CEO.

Alyssa Beck, a human trafficking survivor, is training and advocacy specialist at the policy center.

“Two years ago, I stepped foot into the policy center as a lost girl, but because of the love, compassion and empathy I was surrounded with, today I stand side by side with my fellow co-workers and friends as an equal in this amazing but challenging work,” Beck said. “Without the love of Mrs. Weaver, the Delores Barr Weaver Policy Center wouldn’t be possible.”

Hugh Greene is president and CEO of Baptist Health, where the Weavers’ $10 million donation for children’s behavioral health programs in 2012 was at the time the largest cash gift in Baptist history. In recognition, Baptist named the new 11-story tower at its downtown campus after the Weavers.

“I have tremendous respect for Wayne and Delores Weaver and their phenomenal legacy of philanthropy that has been transformative for our community,” Greene said. “We can all learn from how they are so intentional and focused in their giving.”

Focused with a plan

That intentional and focused strategy began with the Jaguars Foundation.

When the Weavers first joined the effort to bring the NFL to Jacksonville, before the team was even a certainty, Delores Weaver was already planning its philanthropic arm.

“I said the first thing when we get a team — not if — will be a foundation and the focus will be on disadvantaged children,” Weaver said. Given the volume of funding applications the foundation would likely receive, she said, “It had to be focused.”

Among other things, the Delores Weaver-led foundation launched a teen sex-education program called StraightTalk to help prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Former Mayor John Peyton cited that initiative as one that had particularly strong impact, cutting the teen pregnancy rate in half.

“She moved the needle on teen pregnancy [prevention] in the community,” Peyton said. “Their generosity has really influenced many organizations and … has increased since they sold the team. Their giving is very deliberate and thoughtful. They are often involved in a variety of things that they investigated, studied or are close to their hearts.

“That makes it even more meaningful,” he said.

Neither of the Weavers make donations on a whim.

Wayne Weaver remembered when city leaders were working to fund $40 million in 2012 incentives to convince successful teachers and principals to work at three dozen of Duval County’s most challenging schools. The city leaders asked him to donate.

“I asked what’s the plan. They had none. I told them to come back when they did,” he said. “We’re both passionate about education.”

Once such a plan is well underway, Weaver said he tends to move on to the next challenge. His wife tends to keep watching, he said.

“One thing I admire about her philanthropy is she gets deeply involved. She wants to know what the outcomes are,” he said. “She’s the philanthropist in the family. She does a lot more on her own.”

Some potential grant recipients, including Greene, approach the Weavers or the Community Foundation. Sometimes the Weavers find them on their own. Many Weaver grants are structured as challenge grants, with a pledge to donate a certain amount if the community raises a matching amount. That strategy stems from the Weavers’ early years.

“For all these years when we couldn’t afford to do anything, no one ever asked us to get involved,” even to make a small donation, Delores Weaver said. “That’s why we do challenge grants, so others can help, too. They’re really special to me. I like to leverage my dollar.”

The philanthropy that is perhaps most dear to her is one in Massachusetts — the Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Basic Cancer Research established at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The Weavers founded the program with a $1.5 million grant in 1987 in honor of her mother, who died of cancer at age 47 when Delores Weaver was 20.

“That was our first really large grant … a large amount of money to us,” she said. “She was way too young. I never really got over that.”

The Weavers later funded a $50,000 challenge grant to Dana-Farber to organize Boston Marathon teams that would raise funds for the Barr Program. The first group had 19 runners. Now the group has about 350 and raises about $5 million a year.

Sherry Magill, president of the Jacksonville-based Jessie Ball duPont Fund, compares the Weavers to the duPonts, another wealthy family that supported schools, children’s programs, art museums and other charities.

“Their impact has been extraordinary,” Magill said. “I look at them as people who made an extraordinary fortune, almost like the duPonts, who care so much about the people where they live, the place they call home … that they give back.”

Jessie Ball duPont said such philanthropy “wasn’t charity, it’s a social obligation,” Magill said. “They strike me as people who share that.”

Magill shares the Weavers’ penchant for matching grants.

“I am a big believer in leveraging money; it is a strategic and dramatic approach,” she said. “ ‘I’ll do this, if you do that, we’re in this together.’ You’re able to do more for the well-being of … everyone.”

And it gives more people “an opportunity to participate in great work,” she said.

Jacksonville is home

In late 2011, when the Weavers announced they were selling the Jaguars after 17 years as owners, nonprofit and other organizations that had benefited from their philanthropy collectively gasped. They feared the couple would relocate, taking their money and their passionate community involvement with them.

“I did worry,” Waters said.

In fact, the Weavers never pondered leaving. By the time they sold the team, they said, Jacksonville had become home.

“When we came in 1993, this community … so wanted football, so wanted the NFL and been working for it so long,” Delores Weaver said. “Everybody so welcoming to us, we did take that personally. We had made a commitment to Jacksonville.”

They not only stayed put, but ramped up their philanthropy.

“Their giving to the community has increased since selling the team — both in giving their treasure but more importantly, in giving their time,” Waters said.

Among the smaller nonprofits that have received Weaver funds to help more people are the Clara White Mission, FreshMinistries and the Sanctuary on 8th Street, all in Jacksonville.

Last year, Delores Weaver donated about $319,000 to help the mission finish renovating a century-old building into apartments for once-homeless veterans, said mission CEO Ju’Coby Pittman. In addition, she has supported programs for homeless and low-income people over the years.

“Mrs. Weaver … understands the community and the importance of investing in human capital, while being a champion for social change,” Pittman said. “She is truly a remarkable servant leader.”

At FreshMinistries, the Weavers most recently provided a matching grant to renovate a community outreach building, “which prompted an outpouring of additional community support,” said spokeswoman Theresa Johnson.

“The building is used for our youth enrichment programs, serving hundreds of core-city teenagers each year,” as well as a job-training program for unemployed adults, a computer lab and a program that connects individuals with social services, agencies and job opportunities, she said.

Vicky Watkins, executive director of the Sanctuary on 8th Street, said a Weaver grant “revived” the nonprofit’s youth programs in 2002.

“The impact the Weavers have had on the Northeast Florida community is tremendous,” she said. “The Weavers believed in supporting local charities, and not just the larger, well-known agencies. Their impact is almost impossible to quantify, when you think about the many, many lives that their giving has impacted. We are a stronger, healthier city because of the Weavers.”

Khan, their successor as Jaguars owner, said of the Weavers: “When I was exploring the purchase of the Jaguars, it was pretty evident to me early on that Wayne and Delores had made their mark in Jacksonville as philanthropists every bit as much as they had as owners of the Jaguars. That’s high praise in my book, and of course that continues today. They raised the bar for all of us.”

Neither Weaver is big on legacy.

“It doesn’t really much matter to me. It will matter to our ancestors,” said Wayne Weaver.

“I’ll leave that to the historians,” said his wife.

Then she remembered that modest first goal — to make $10,000 a year between the two of them and live in a $35,000 house.

“I’m amazed that we even have a legacy,” she said.

Beth Reese Cravey: (904) 359-4109