Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation

The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation was created in 1982 when President Ronald Reagan asked Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca to lead a private-sector campaign to raise money for the restoration and preservation of both the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Americans responded by donating hundreds of millions of dollars to remodel the monuments ahead of their centennials. To this day, all funding for foundation projects comes from the public, not the government.

With the help of its public partner, the National Park Service, the foundation restored the Statue of Liberty — a late-19th-century gift from France to commemorate its friendly relationship with the United States — in time for the 1986 unveiling celebration. Opened to the public in 1990, Ellis Island (the country's largest immigration station in the late 20th century and early 21st century) underwent a restoration project that included the addition of the Ellis Island Immigration Museum.

The foundation also raised $100 million to build the 26,000-square-foot Statue of Liberty Museum, which opened in 2019. This building doubles the original museum's capacity, better accommodating the 4 million-plus visitors who pass through Liberty Island each year to commune with this national treasure and symbol of hope around the world.

The Annenberg Foundation has supported Lady Liberty and Ellis island through a series of grants that began in 2003. In 2016, Annenberg Foundation vice president/director and GRoW founder Gregory Annenberg Weingarten received the Ellis Island Foundation's Family Heritage Award for his preservation efforts over the years. "America's openness, its boundless hope and possibility, is a fire that lights up the whole world — from the most oppressed and war-torn countries to the most progressive and advanced ones," said Gregory. "They look to us for our ideals, and those ideals are embodied by Ellis Island."