In Friday’s (3/8) Plain Dealer (Cleveland), Zachary Lewis writes, “The Cleveland Orchestra has received its largest gift yet from the George Gund Foundation. On Thursday, the group announced the receipt of a $3 million pledge, its most substantial gift to date from the foundation and one of the largest commitments by Gund to a cultural organization in Northeast Ohio. ‘It’s the Gund Foundation’s recognition of the way in which the Cleveland Orchestra is changing, the speed of change, and the success we’re enjoying in many of our initiatives,’ said Gary Hanson, executive director of the orchestra. Spread over six years, the $3 million pledge permanently endows the ‘George Gund Fund for Artistic Excellence.’ Such funds serve not to finance an individual program or project but rather to support the orchestra’s broader missions. The gift also adds momentum to the orchestra’s ‘Sound for the Centennial’ campaign, a long-term fundraising effort still in its quiet phase set to run through the group’s centennial in 2018. … Gund’s new pledge may be its largest to the orchestra, but it is far from the first. In fact, the foundation has been one of the group’s most loyal institutional supporters, giving millions since its establishment in 1952.”
Posted March 8, 2013
