Corporate and Foundation Giving
To learn more, please call Rem Cabrera at 312.661.1028 ext. 732.
We invite you to join us as we celebrate and commemorate the life and achievements of the human mind. We exult in bringing together Chicagoans from all walks of life who are interested in thinking—and talking—about ideas. Our annual Festival enlarges upon the philosophy that “ideas matter” through the presentation of more than 100 public programs every fall.
In the spring, we produce our family festival, Stages, Sights and Sounds, now presented as its own stand-alone marker on the cultural landscape. The fact that our roster of children’s programs could no longer be effectively scheduled during the annual fall festival is testament to the success and growth of our family programs. Many of us have had direct experience with how the arts can impact developmental growth and how they’ve helped level the learning field across socio-economic boundaries. We are convinced that exposure to events of creativity and imagination, particularly in the realm of the arts and humanities, broadens a child’s perspective of what is possible to conceive, create, achieve and be, especially when that child comes from disadvantaged circumstances.
Every successful nonprofit cultural organization shares one characteristic: vibrancy. It cannot afford to be static; it must evolve as its audience and its audience’s needs evolve.
The 2008 fall festival enjoyed a 13% increase in ticket sales over 2007. We saw the highest level of advance ticket purchases in our history. By the festival’s conclusion, nearly half of our programs were sold out or had more than a 75% capacity. Of our audience of more than 60,000 (including exhibit attendance), nearly 14,000 were students and teachers who participated at no charge. As most of our programs are nominally priced so that admission will never be an impediment to attendance, our earned revenue accounts for only 8% of our annual budget.
The remaining 92% must be raised from individuals, government agencies, corporations and foundations. Institutional support of our mission is crucial to our ability to better serve the varied communities of Chicago. We are deeply grateful for the past and ongoing support of our philanthropic colleagues.
