Philanthropist Richard A. Herman leaves fortune to local charity, symphony, opera Family Matters of Greater Washington is set to hold a splashy news conference Wednesday at the National Press Club to announce that Herman, who died in November at 100, left the organization 60 percent of his vast estate - $28 million, which the group says is one of the largest gifts ever to a local social service organization. And the Kennedy Center said Tuesday that Herman left $15 million to the National Symphony Orchestra and the Washington National Opera - the largest bequest in the institution's history. As news of Herman's gifts spread through the city's society and philanthropic communities, many expressed surprise at his generosity and the fact that so few people had heard of him. He had given money to arts institutions such as the Corcoran Gallery and the Phillips Collection but had rarely appeared at glitzy balls or social events. "He wasn't in the "Personalities" column, none of that stuff," said his cousin, Betsy Paull, 62, of Northwest Washington. He wasn't a bon vivant. He enjoyed life . . . but it was very low-profile. Paull, who helped oversee Herman's affairs in his last years, said he wrote his first check to Family Matters for $25 in 1967. Over the years, Paull had occasionally prodded him to add a few more zeros to his modest donation because she knew of the nonprofit group's work in helping teenage mothers and low-income seniors and sending disadvantaged kids to camp. But why - as someone who never had a family of his own or even displayed a special fondness for children - Herman chose to give such a large sum to Family Matters remains, like the man himself, a bit of a mystery. Family Matters administrators knew they were named as beneficiaries of the estate but were unaware of the extent of the gift until trust officials contacted them after Herman's death. I started crying. I dropped the phone, and I fell to my knees on the ground in my office," said Tonya Jackson Smallwood, president and chief executive of the group, which is headquartered downtown. She said she left the trust officer on the line for a good five minutes as she tried to compose herself. "I was crying in part because he had passed . . . and in part because I was aware he was leaving us something significant in his will," she said. The gift, which is more than twice the charity's annual budget of $12.5 million, will have a major impact on its efforts to help the city's neediest residents, Smallwood said. The Washington Post Co. is a longtime supporter of the organization's summer camp. The group also plans to establish an arts program for youths and seniors in Herman's name. Herman's roots in the community were probably deeper than those of many big donors, but his profile was considerably lower. For more than four decades, Herman led a life of modest anonymity in a two-bedroom co-op in the Watergate East building on Virginia Avenue.