March 28, 2024

Women in leadership - Taking the reins

Profiles of nine women leaders who are taking leadership roles in their fields.

Amy Martinez | 10/27/2021

DELORES BARR WEAVER
Philanthropist Jacksonville

A mission to help the less fortunate.

It could easily be said that the leading philanthropist in Northeast Florida is Delores Barr Weaver, an original co-owner of the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars.

In the 1990s, she oversaw the creation of the franchise’s philanthropic arm, the Jaguars Foundation, setting its focus on disadvantaged children. Former Jacksonville Mayor John Peyton later credited the foundation’s StraightTalk sex-education program with a sharp reduction in the city’s teen pregnancy rate.

In 2012, she donated $50 million to establish the Delores Barr Weaver Fund at the Community Foundation for Northeast Florida. She’s since directed more than $100 million to local charities through the community foundation. Her philanthropic interests run the gamut from homeless military veterans and victims of domestic violence to health care and the arts.

A Jacksonville-based advocacy group for at-risk girls and young women bears her name: The Delores Barr Weaver Policy Center. In addition, Baptist Health Jacksonville named a 12-story building after her and her husband, Wayne, after the couple gave Baptist Health $10 million in 2012 to fund programs in adolescent and pediatric behavioral health — the largest donation in its history at the time.

Wayne Weaver once told the Florida Times-Union that his wife is “the philanthropist in the family. She does a lot more on her own,” he said, adding that she also gets “deeply involved. She wants to know what the outcomes are.”

At 83, Weaver continues to make philanthropic moves. She recently donated $5.5 million to help Habitat for Humanity of Jacksonville build 50 “tiny houses” of just under 600 square feet for local residents, and she endowed a fund to support black artists through Art Ventures, an initiative of The Community Foundation.

MEDIA MAVENS

  • As CEO of Neuhoff Communications, Beth Neuhoff oversees 20 radio stations and more than a dozen local websites in small and mid-sized markets in the Midwest. Neuhoff, a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, began her career selling local radio-station advertising to big brands and national ad agencies and later became executive vice president of the Midwest division of marketing firm Interep. She took the helm of her in-laws’ broadcast company in 2012 and lives in Jupiter.
  • As CEO of Beasley Broadcast Group, Caroline Beasley leads a publicly traded company with 62 radio stations in 15 markets across the U.S. Beasley, a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, started at her father’s broadcast company answering phones after college and became CFO in the 1990s. In 2017, she took over as CEO of the Naples-based company.

 

Read more in Florida Trend's November issue.
Select from the following options:

Tags: Trendsetters, Feature, Women in Leadership

Florida Business News

Florida News Releases

Florida Trend Video Pick

Bitter-to-swallow cocoa costs force chocolate shops to raise prices
Bitter-to-swallow cocoa costs force chocolate shops to raise prices

Central Floirda chocolate shops are left with a bitter taste as cocoa prices hit an all-time high earlier this week.

Video Picks | Viewpoints@FloridaTrend

Ballot Box

Should Congress ban the popular social media app TikTok in the U.S.?

  • Yes
  • No
  • Need more details
  • What is TikTok?
  • Other (Comment below)

See Results

Florida Trend Media Company
490 1st Ave S
St Petersburg, FL 33701
727.821.5800

© Copyright 2024 Trend Magazines Inc. All rights reserved.