This document profiles several wealthy philanthropists who are major donors to arts and cultural organizations in New York City. It discusses their significant donations in recent years, which have helped support institutions during economic downturns when other funding sources declined. The philanthropists featured include Michael Bloomberg, David Koch, Ann Ziff, Sandy and Joan Weill, Shelby White, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

1. THE CULTURE CLUB
Don Randel
President
Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation
The $5.4 billion-
asset Mellon
foundation gave
more than $21
million to local
arts groups in
2010, up from
$15 million in
2009. Don
Randel, a musicologist and former
president of the University of Chicago
who took the helm in 2006, expects
those numbers to keep climbing.
Major recipients last year included
the New York Shakespeare Festival
($2 million), the Pierpont Morgan
Library (nearly $1.8 million) and
Dance Theatre of Harlem ($600,000)
But the smaller grants paint a rich
picture, too, including gifts to the little-
known Nikolais-Louis Foundation for
Dance ($40,000) and the politically
charged Tectonic Theater Project
($50,000).
“Arts organizations have been
under very severe pressure during the
downturn,” said Mr. Randel, 70. “So
the need has been especially great—
especially with the many arts
organizations that always operate
within the edge of their resources.”
Sandy and Joan Weill
Chairman, Carnegie Hall
Chairwoman, Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation
For decades, they’ve been one of the city’s most prominent power couples in
the arts. Sandy Weill, the 78-year-old former head of Citigroup, has led
Carnegie Hall’s board since 1991. His wife, Joan, 77, has been chairwoman
of the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation since 2000.
Their commitment hasn’t waned in recent years, even as the value of
Citigroup shares plunged during the financial crisis. In 2008, the couple co-
chaired a $50 million endowment campaign for Ailey’s 50th anniversary,kicking
it off with a $15 million donation of their own. And in the past 18 months,
they donated $52 million to cultural organizations, mainly in New York.
In January, for instance, the Weills gave $25 million to Carnegie Hall to
help renovate its studio towers and create a
61,000-square-foot music education
wing.The expansion will allow the
storied concert hall to grow education
programs that currently engage more
than 170,000 people a year, including
thousands of New York City
public school kids.
Now that the Weills are
spending more time in
California, cultural groups
there get to share the bounty. A
recent $12 million gift to the
Green Music Center at
Sonoma State University, Ms.
Weill noted in an email, could
help the venue become a “West
Coast equivalent to
Tanglewood.”
“We have been involved with
the arts for several decades not just
financially, but with our time,” she
said.“We are passionate about the arts
because we believe they can help
bridge cultural divides that
unfortunately exist throughout the
world.”
Shelby White
Founding trustee
Leon Levy Foundation
The city’s cultural treasures outside Manhattan often get overlooked by big donors. Luckily for
Brooklyn, there’s native daughter Shelby White, the widow of Wall Street financier and
philanthropist Leon Levy.
Through the Leon Levy Foundation, which has $500 million in assets, Ms. White in
March pledged $7.5 million to help restore the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. It was the largest
contribution by a living donor in the garden’s 100-year history. In 2009, the foundation gave
$3.25 million to the Brooklyn Public Library, and in 2008, it donated $10 million to Prospect Park.
“I grew up in Brooklyn during the borough’s ‘golden age,’ played field hockey in Prospect Park, studied at the
Brooklyn Public Library and strolled around the Brooklyn Botanic Garden,” Ms. White said in an email.“I’m thrilled
that the Leon Levy Foundation has been part of so many aspects of Brooklyn’s 21st-century re-emergence. Now, if we
could only bring back the Dodgers!”
An author and antiquities collector, she also has committed $400 million over the past five years to universities and
Manhattan cultural institutions that range from the Lower East Side Tenement Museum to the New York Philharmonic.
16 | Crain’s New York Business | July 25, 2011
Ann Ziff
Chairman
The Metropolitan Opera
Ann Ziff is a jewelry designer and the owner of boutique Tamsen Z. But the widow of
former Ziff Davis head William Ziff Jr. may be best known for the gem of a gesture
she made last year when she pledged $30 million to The Metropolitan Opera. It’s the
largest gift from an individual in the Met’s rich 128-year history and—another
rarity—one that can be used for whatever its management team wants.
The contribution coincided with Ms. Ziff’s ascendancy on the Met’s prestigious
board, with its 41 high-powered managing directors. (The 64-year-old became co-
chairman in May 2010 and sole chairman in May 2011.) She also recently helped fund
Robert Lepage’s new production of Wagner’s four-opera Ring cycle, which debuted at
the Met last September to sold-out houses, despite mixed reviews for the first two
productions.
A clearly busy Ms. Ziff sits on the boards of the American Museum of Natural
History, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the World
Science Festival, among others. But her ties to the Met run especially deep: Her
mother, Harriet Henders, was an opera singer who made her U.S. debut at the old Met
opera house in 1939.
Who’s who when it comes to the most important private funders
of New York City’s unparalleled cultural offerings? The list would be long.
But it would have to include these power patrons of the arts.
Donations to arts and cultural nonprofits suffered with the recession, as
funding dried up for music, opera, dance, and other performing and visual
arts, and many philanthropists shifted their charitable efforts toward more
basic human needs, like hunger or health. Arts giving nationwide fell by
around 2% last year, according to Giving USA, and in New York, the
megamillion-dollar gifts that came to exemplify the boom years proved
harder for arts executives to mine.
Still, a number of major donors, like David Koch, a co-owner of Koch
Industries, and Ann Ziff, the widowed matriarch of the publishing clan,
have made big contributions to local arts and cultural groups over the past
few years. And some philanthropic institutions, including the Ford
Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, actually have
increased their recent giving.
In this first-of-its-kind compilation of New York City’s most important
arts donors, Crain’s New York Business presents the people who gave some of
the largest gifts of 2010 and the first half of 2011, as well as leading
corporate and foundation supporters that have stepped up where others
have pulled back. As one company’s philanthropy chief explained,“The arts
make cities vibrant places to live.” And to do business.
—miriam kreinin souccar and jermaine taylor
christopher duggan
illustrationsbylouisabertman
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2. Michael Bloomberg
Mayor, New York City
Founder, Bloomberg LP
Founder, Bloomberg Family Foundation
Fortunately for the city’s cultural institutions, the richest person in New York loves the
arts. Make that really loves the arts: Michael Bloomberg gave away $279.2 million last
year to 970 arts, social service and public affairs groups, placing him second on the
Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual list of top givers in the U.S.
He also donated nearly $200 million over the past decade to local arts and
social services through an arm’s-length arrangement that’s run by the Carnegie
Corporation of New York. His highly profitable financial media company is also a
big arts sponsor: Bloomberg LP spent $300,000 to sponsor the Brooklyn Academy of
Music’s recent spring season and underwrote New York City Center’s Fall for Dance
festival last year.
This year, his $2.2 billion-asset Bloomberg Family Foundation takes over the arts
patronage, as Mr. Bloomberg, 69, consolidates his charitable efforts during his final
term as mayor. His stated goal: giving away most of his fortune before he dies. In
February, his foundation invited 250 small cultural groups in the five boroughs to
apply for a share of $32 million to be disbursed over two years.
There’s a danger that New York’s culture industry has grown too reliant on the
mayor’s generosity. For instance, arts executives have little incentive to speak out
during debates over city funding cuts to nonprofits.
Even so, some observers hope Mr. Bloomberg’s foundation support for the
arts will only grow, especially once he leaves office.
“It could rival Bill Gates’ and Warren Buffett’s [shared philanthropic vehicle],”
said Will Maitland Weiss, executive director of the Arts & Business Council. “Only
instead of trying to eradicate malaria in Africa, our hope is that the Bloomberg
foundation becomes the No. 1 private foundation for the arts.”
David Koch
Co-owner
Koch Industries Inc.
Billionaire David Koch made a high-society splash back in 2008 with his $100 million
gift to renovate Lincoln Center’s New York State Theater.The longtime home of the
New York City Ballet and, until recently, the New York City Opera is now named after
him. His cultural largesse hasn’t slowed since. Over the past three years—on top of the
State Theater gift—Mr. Koch has lavished some $130 million on local arts
institutions.
Last year, he pledged $60 million over six years to the Metropolitan Museum of
Art to renovate its outdoor fountains. He has written checks worth a total of $630,000
to the struggling City Opera since 2009. And when the American Ballet Theatre came
knocking last year with the news it did not have the money to present The Nutcracker
for the holidays, he quickly handed over $2.5 million.
Although the politically ultraconservative Mr. Koch has gotten bad press lately in
liberal New York for his support of the Tea Party movement, his generosity to local
arts groups—especially the big, prestigious ones—could not be more welcome.The
71-year-old said he spends a lot of time personally reviewing stacks of proposals from
various cultural groups, looking for projects that he feels passionate about.
“My gift to the American Museum of Natural History, for example, stems from
visits I made there with my father and brothers when I was a boy,” Mr. Koch said,
explaining a $20 million gift in 2006 for the museum’s dinosaur wing.“No fundraising
appeal can match that feeling of a personal connection. In my mind, I am always
walking beside my father, and now my son, when I enter that museum.”
July 25, 2011 | Crain’s New York Business | 17
Ronald
Stanton
Chairman
Transammonia Inc.
Ronald Stanton’s biggest gifts have
gone to schools, hospitals and
Jewish causes. But the founder of
one of the city’s largest privately held
companies—Transammonia, which
generated an estimated $8 billion in
revenues last year from its fertilizer
and petrochemical businesses—is
also a major donor to the arts.
Look no further than the fact
that the
Museum of
Modern Art
recently
bestowed its
prestigious
David
Rockefeller
Award on Mr.
Stanton.
The 83-
year-old’s
cultural generosity lately includes
$25 million for Lincoln Center’s
$1.2 billion redevelopment
campaign. He’s also given
$7 million to the Brooklyn Academy
of Music over the past five years for
a variety of uses.
One of those uses: funding the re-
creation of the French opera Atys,
which will be presented in
September to launch BAM’s 150th
anniversary season. The
philanthropist reportedly told the
opera’s musical director, William
Christie, that seeing Atys the first
time “changed my life.”
Tim McClimon
President
American Express
Foundation
The American Folk Art Museum,
Lincoln Center and the New York
Philharmonic are a few of the cultural
organizations that shared in
$8.4 million donated across the U.S.
last year by AmEx’s philanthropic
arm, headed by Tim McClimon.
The foundation has sponsored
the Brooklyn Academy of Music for
over 25 years, giving $1.6 million
and backingevents such as the 2010
inaugural
Opera Festival
and the 2011
Next Wave
Festival. The
Alvin Ailey
Dance
Foundation
was awarded
$200,000
earlier this
year by AmEx’s
Members Project Initiative, through
which cardholders vote on charities
that receive corporate funding.
“Our mission is to bring to life the
value of good corporate citizenship
by supporting visionary nonprofits,”
Mr. McClimon said in a statement.
“Through the arts, creativity prospers,
diversity is celebrated and local
businesses thrive.”
Luis Ubinas
President
Ford Foundation
Local arts institutions used to complain that
Manhattan’s mighty Ford Foundation paid little
attention to its neighbors. Not anymore. Since Luis
Ubinas became president of the second-largest
foundation in America, it has become one of the city’s
biggest cultural supporters.This year, the $11 billion-
asset Ford Foundation is on track to give away
$15 million to New York arts organizations, triple the
amount it donated three years ago.
Its grants and programs reach a range of organizations, from smaller groups like El
Museo del Barrio to establishment players like The Metropolitan Opera. A few
months ago, the foundation gave $3 million to help complete the interior of the new
Museum for African Art going up on East 110th Street. It also is transforming P.S.
109, an abandoned school in East Harlem, into a building that will house artist
residences and performance space—part of a $100 million foundation effort to
develop arts spaces around the country.
Mr. Ubinas said he was moved by the recession to step up grants to local arts
organizations, but also driven by a wealth of exciting proposals that recently come
across his desk.“We’re going to leave a legacy of a substantially reinforced New York
City arts environment, despite this recession,” he vowed.
The 48-year-old, who grew up near Yankee Stadium, has something of a soft spot
for what the arts can do for the average New Yorker.“I didn’t grow up in the most
affluent place in the world,” he recalled,“but I was able to see rehearsals at the
Philharmonic for free, and sit in the cavernous Met Museum for free when it was
almost empty back in the 1970s and see that art as if it were mine.”
TO GET TO MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, or at least his money, cultural groups need
the green light from his two power brokers in the arts.
The newest face is Anita Contini, the former director
for memorial, cultural and civic programs at the Lower
Manhattan Development Corp. She was hired last year as a
consultant to the Bloomberg Family Foundation to oversee
an initiative to seed $32 million over the next two years to
small arts groups throughout the city. Some believe it’s an
attempt to distance City Hall from any politically tricky
charitable decision-making.
Most powerful of all is Patricia Harris, chief executive of the foundation and
first deputy mayor. Ms. Harris’ ties to Mr. Bloomberg date back to 1994, when
she was hired to manage his media company’s philanthropy,
public relations and governmental affairs division. (Before he
became mayor, Mr. Bloomberg sat on some 20 cultural and civic
boards, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Jewish
Museum.) Ms. Harris, 56, remains his top adviser for arts
philanthropy. Her dual role in his administration and his
foundation has drawn criticism, yet she is widely seen in the
cultural community as an advocate for the little guys in the arts world.
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3. THE CULTURE CLUB
18 | Crain’s New York Business | July 25, 2011
Joseph and Diana DiMenna
Co-founder, Zweig-DiMenna Associates
Co-director, DiMenna Foundation
With the fortune generated by his $2 billion hedge fund, Joseph DiMenna and his
wife, Diana, are carving their names into cultural buildings all over town—and not just
at the high-profile institutions favored by so many wealthy patrons.“We’re big fans of
the little engine that could,” Ms. DiMenna said.
Last year, the couple donated $5 million to the New-York Historical Society to
build a children’s museum as part of the renovation of the society’s landmark
headquarters.
In 2008, they gave $5 million to the Orchestra of St. Luke’s to construct the
DiMenna Center for Classical Music, the orchestra’s first permanent home and the
city’s first rehearsal and recording facility dedicated to classical music. It opened in
March.
The DiMennas—he’s 52; she’s 47—have been big boosters of the arts for many
years, allocating nearly $20 million since 2006 to a range of organizations, from Jazz at
Lincoln Center to the Noguchi Museum in Queens. But their two recent naming gifts
were the first of that caliber.
“The Historical Society and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s are both organizations
that have done an enormous amount on their own with not much notoriety and not
much backing,” Ms. DiMenna said.“In terms of big investments, we like to look for
nascent ideas, things that we have the ability to participate in.The idea of [just]
writing a check isn’t that interesting to us.”
Jeff Barker
President, NewYork City
Bank of America
Bank of America’s $3 million in contributions to local cultural
organizations in 2010 make it one of New
York’s top corporate donors to the arts.
The nation’s largest commercial bank
supports a number of institutions, including
The Metropolitan Opera and the Brooklyn
Academy of Music. It seems most proud of its
long-term commitments: For instance, BofA
has just started a five-year project to help the
Whitney Museum of American Art move from
its longtime Upper East Side base to the new
home it’s building in the meatpacking district.
Under Jeff Barker, 58, the bank has also been
the lead sponsor of The Public Theater’s
Shakespeare in the Park program for the past several years.
“The fact that 100,000 people can see Shakespeare for free in New
York City is what we’re all about,” Mr. Barker said.
Jonathan and Lizzie Tisch
Chief executive, Loews Hotels
Chair, Friends of the Costume Institute
Jonathan and Lizzie Tisch started off 2011 with a bang: In January, they made the
largest single publicly acknowledged gift that’s been
awarded to a New York cultural institution so far
this year.
Their donation of $10 million will enable the
Metropolitan Museum of Art to create a new
4,200-square-foot exhibition space within its
Costume Institute.
According to Mr.Tisch, 57, the impetus
came from his wife, Lizzie, 39, who
heads the volunteer group
Friends of the Costume
Institute.
“My wife is a strong
believer that fashion is an
art form that needs to be
recognized as such,”he said.
Emily Rafferty,
president of the Met,
noted that the Tisches
are more than mere
benefactors.
“Their involvement,”
she said,“is very much
hands-on.”
Alessandra
DiGiusto
Chief administrative
officer and director
Deutsche Bank
Americas Foundation
The German financial services giant
has given $6.6 million to 42 arts and
community organizations throughout
New York City since 2002. It plans to
dole out more than $1 million over
the next two years to help arts groups
here take advantage of emerging
technologies.
The Deutsche Bank Americas
Foundation, run by Alessandra
DiGiusto, is also providing
sustainability grants to 13
organizations.They include the Bronx
Museum of the Arts, Harlem Stage
and the Queens Museum of Art.
“The arts make cities vibrant
places to live,” said Ms. DiGiusto,
whose father, an art professor and
sculptor, introduced her to museums
around the world when she was
growing up.“We’re building long-
term relationships with these
organizations.”
Bruce Kovner
Founder and chairman
Caxton Associates
Although the billionaire hedge funder likes to
keep his gifts anonymous, arts insiders at the most
prestigious institutions know Bruce Kovner well.
Mr. Kovner, 66, donated $25 million a few
years back to help renovate Lincoln Center, and
he is a major funder of both The Juilliard School
and The Metropolitan Opera, where he is
chairman and a board member, respectively. His
contributions go far beyond the financial, however.
“His absolute first and foremost contribution has
been his vision and his leadership,”said Joseph Polisi,
president of Juilliard.
Instead of simply doling out money to put his name on a wing, Mr.
Kovner works with arts executives to figure out what they need. He recently
gave the Brooklyn Academy of Music $5 million to help the organization
expand its operations and find new fundraising streams.
Emily Fisher Landau
Trustee, Whitney Museum of American Art
Founder, Fisher Landau Center for Art
Emily Fisher Landau turns 91 next month—and she’s still buying contemporary art to add to
the staggeringly prolific 1,200-work collection she started in the 1960s. She demurs when
asked about her favorites.“I’ll say Rauschenberg and Warhol. I don’t want to mention any
living artists, because I don’t want to offend anybody.”
The widow of real estate mogul Martin Fisher and clothing manufacturer Sheldon Landau, Ms. Fisher Landau last
year donated 367 of her treasures to the Whitney Museum of American Art, including seminal examples of artwork by
Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and many others.The gift, valued at $50 million to $75 million, is
seen as a huge boost to the Whitney’s holdings.
Ms. Fisher Landau has been on the Whitney’s board for more than 30 years. She used to be a trustee at the
Museum of Modern Art and The Metropolitan Opera, as well. In 1991, she opened the Fisher Landau Center for Art
in a former parachute harness factory in Long Island City, Queens, where she shows pieces from her collection to the
public.“I went to every museum in Europe that was built and owned by a woman to research that endeavor,” she said.
Long known for nurturing the careers of emerging artists—she wanted to go to art school when she was young but
couldn’t because of the Depression—Ms. Fisher Landau in recent years has sponsored an annual show at the Queens
center for students graduating from Columbia University’s M.F.A. program in visual art.
Laurie Tisch (left), the 60-year-old daughter of the late Preston Robert Tisch—former co-
chairman of Loews Corp.—and the sister of Jonathan Tisch, is the founding chairman of the
Center for Arts in Education and recently launched a foundation to support educational and
cultural opportunities for poor New Yorkers. She gave Lincoln Center $10 million in 2007 to
create a public lawn, and recently joined its executive committee. ……
Stephen Schwarzman (right), 64, co-founder of private equity firm
The Blackstone Group, donated $100 million to the New York Public
Library in 2008—the largest gift in the library’s history—in return for naming rights to the
Bryant Park flagship. He’s also a trustee of the Asia Society and the Frick Collection. ......
Leonard Lauder, chairman emeritus of Estée Lauder Cos., gave $130 million to the
Whitney Museum of American Art in 2008 to boost its endowment, with the stipulation that
it never sell its landmark, Marcel Breuer-designed Madison Avenue home. Mr. Lauder, 78, has
since backed the Whitney’s move in 2015 to new digs downtown by the High Line. But he
helped broker a deal to keep the Upper East Side property in the Whitney family by renting
the 1960s-era cube to the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a satellite exhibit space. ......
Mercedes Bass (left), 67, gave $25 million to The Metropolitan Opera in 2005 and more
recently led a $100 million fundraising drive there—during the depths of the recession. ......
David Rockefeller, 96, gave $100 million to the Museum of Modern Art’s endowment
in 2005, part of his plan to give away much of his estimated $2.4 billion net worth.
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