If Kit Moncrief needed models for her life of philanthropy and good deeds, she didn’t need to look very far.
Her grandmother was one of the original supporters in the founding of the Lena Pope Home. Moncrief’s mother, Gloria Lupton Tennison, carried on, introducing her daughter to Lena Pope and causes like Cook Children’s hospital. Her father, Harry Tennison, was a stalwart conservationist who introduced his daughter to a love of the land and animals.
Moncrief picked up her family’s legacy long ago, with a life spent advancing higher education, conservation, healthcare and the arts.
“I know how blessed I’ve been,” Moncrief said. “I just really want to cure cancer, I want to save all the animals, educate everybody. I want to do everything I can.”
Her deeds have earned many accolades over the years. On May 14, she’ll receive her latest when the Exchange Club of Fort Worth Texas honors Moncrief with its prestigious annual Golden Deeds Award — a prize the club has bestowed annually for more than 100 years. Fort Worth Star-Telegram publisher Amon G. Carter was the first recipient.
When the club dispatched Golden Deeds committee members John Goff, Billy Rosenthal and Kelly Thompson to notify her of the award, Moncrief initially thought they had something else in mind.
“I thought they were going to ask for money,” she said. “They said, ‘You’re the honoree.’ I said, ‘What?’”
Kit Moncrief, pictured in her Fort Worth home, is recipient of the 2026 Exchange Club of Fort Worth Texas Golden Deeds Award. (Johnathan Johnson | Fort Worth Report)
Moncrief’s awareness of her family’s philanthropy began at a young age when she joined her mother to hand out presents at the Lena Pope Home. She learned that not everyone receives gifts like she did.
And Moncrief saw that her mother’s philanthropic interests extended well beyond there.
“She was so involved in the church and Sunday school and the Junior League and Jewel Charity,” benefiting Cook Children’s, Moncrief said. Her mother was a former Jewel Charity Ball president.
“All those things, I just watched,” Moncrief said. “I just thought that’s what everybody was supposed to do, is help everybody, that if you were blessed to have a lot, that you should give back.”
Her father was active in the Fort Worth Zoological Association, benefiting the internationally recognized Fort Worth Zoo. He took his daughter to Africa when she was a youth, an experience she’s continued regularly.
“I’d go to all the zoo openings and learn,” she said. “He started all these young hunting and fishing groups. He’d take kids out to explore and learn about nature. And I went with him all the time. I love animals and being outside.”
Today, she is co-chair of the Zoological Association. She’s also a rancher — her family owns one in Parker County, and Moncrief owns and operates Moncrief Quarter Horses.
Moncrief is a past president and current vice president of the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Foundation; an executive committee member of the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo; president of the National Cowgirl Museum & Hall of Fame; and board member of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
Hope, a pug mix, became the inspiration in 2013 for Kit Moncrief’s co-founding of The Saving Hope Foundation animal welfare and rescue organization. (Johnathan Johnson | Fort Worth Report)
In 2013, she co-founded The Saving Hope Foundation in Fort Worth for animal welfare and rescue, after an abandoned dog was found, its muzzle taped shut, near death in 100-degree heat on her ranch. Saving Hope collaborates with the city of Fort Worth and Humane Society of North Texas to offer free spay and neuter services in 15 lower-income neighborhoods, as well as animal vaccines and wellness exams.
The foundation estimates the clinic has performed 33,000 spay and neuter surgeries. It estimates that altering one male and one female dog prevents more than 67,000 unwanted births over six years. “There’s a lot of animals who need help,” Moncrief said.
Hope, the foundation’s namesake, still patrols Moncrief’s home today at age 14, bearing physical scars from her trauma.
“She’s alive and well — and still the boss,” Moncrief said.
Moncrief’s support of Texas Christian University — she’s a Southern Methodist University graduate — is a nod to her grandfather Charles Lupton, a major TCU supporter, and her mother, who served on the Fort Worth university’s executive committee. When she married her husband, Charlie, he also was a TCU board member at the time.
Moncrief now chairs the university’s board of trustees — becoming its first woman chair in 2023 — and has served on the board for 18 years and its executive committee for more than a decade.
The board has overseen TCU’s transformation over two decades into a school with nationally prominent programs, a $1 billion capital campaign and major increases in the quality and number of enrollment applications. Donors have funded more scholarships with the growth, Moncrief said.
“The demand for TCU is so high,” she said. “If you want to go to TCU, and you have the grades, you can go, because we have scholarships for anybody that qualifies.”
Kit Moncrief in her home in Fort Worth on May, 07 2026. She is being awarded the Exchange Club of Fort Worth”s prestigious annual Golden Deeds award. (Johnathan Johnson | Fort Worth Report)
The university also founded and obtained accreditation for its Burnett School of Medicine at TCU. Benefactors have chipped in to substantially defray the costs of tuition.
“We’re turning out 60 doctors a year,” Moncrief said. “We get the best and the brightest, and then they can go be what other kind of doctor they want to be because they don’t have this large debt.”
Moncrief has also championed healthcare through the Moncrief family’s interests in UT Southwestern’s continued expansion into Fort Worth. Moncrief is a director and vice chair of the Moncrief Cancer Foundation. Her mother and husband died of cancer, and Moncrief is an advocate for research and innovation. She serves on the board of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, the UT Southwestern Moncrief Cancer Institute in Fort Worth, Laura W. Bush Institute for Women’s Health and Southwestern Medical Foundation.
UT Southwestern’s ongoing construction of a new radiation oncology center in Fort Worth will mean a significant expansion of cancer services in the city for adults and children, Moncrief said.
When her husband was sick with cancer, they drove every day to Dallas for radiation, Moncrief said.
“After being involved with cancer, we should have the best cancer treatment we can possibly have,” she said.
UT Southwestern also plans to lease the hospital in Clearfork now operated by Texas Health Resources, Moncrief said.
The National Cowgirl Museum & Hall of Fame is at the center of Moncrief’s support of the arts.
She also serves on the boards for the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. She previously served as vice president of the Texas Ballet Theater, chair of the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin and governor’s appointee for Humanities Texas. She is a past board member for the Van Cliburn Foundation and the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. Moncrief is also a director of the TJ Brown & CA Lupton Foundation, which funds nonprofit organizations in Fort Worth in the arts, education, animal welfare, healthcare and social services.
The Cowgirl Hall of Fame honors women in the industry, from the artist Georgia O’Keeffe to the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
“It’s people, women who have changed the world, and many of them on horseback, but some of them never rode a horse,” she said. “It’s kind of the spirit of do-it-yourself and amazing women who have never been recognized in this way. There’s no other museum like it. It’s really international, because we have honorees from Europe, too.”
Moncrief does not serve on the museum’s selection committee, which features academics from across the nation.
“They choose who will be in the Hall of Fame,” she said. “It makes it better. This way, it’s the people who should get in.”
Moncrief has worked to pass along her passions for giving back to her children and grandchildren. She has three daughters and two stepdaughters.
“My kids are involved,” she said. “They’re all on boards, helping.”
She views the passing down of philanthropic passion through generations as something to be expected.
“And I think it comes naturally, and, hopefully, by example,” Moncrief said. “Mine came by example. And I hope it rubs off on a lot of people, because everybody has time to do something.”
Scott Nishimura is a senior editor for local government accountability and a Fort Worth City Hall reporter at the Fort Worth Report. Reach him at scott.nishimura@fortworthreport.org.
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://fortworthreport.org/2026/05/10/fort-worth-philanthropist-kit-moncrief-receives-exchange-clubs-annual-golden-deeds-award/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://fortworthreport.org”>Fort Worth Report</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/cropped-favicon.png?resize=150%2C150&quality=80&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>
<img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https://fortworthreport.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=531378&ga4=2820184429″ style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https://fortworthreport.org/2026/05/10/fort-worth-philanthropist-kit-moncrief-receives-exchange-clubs-annual-golden-deeds-award/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } </script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”//cdn.parsely.com/keys/fortworthreport.org/p.js”></script>