A windfall of cash is making Detroit’s arts and culture scene a lot richer.
The Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation has announced a multiyear, $100 million commitment to 11 arts organizations in Detroit and the surrounding suburbs, creating a large endowment that will generate operating money for decades to come.
The list includes cultural name brands like the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Detroit Institute of Arts as well as small museums like the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn and the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills.
There’s also cash set aside for a one-time capital grant of $5 million to the Motown Museum for the ongoing expansion of its campus. For the museum, the gift is another notable step in its ongoing $55 million expansion campaign. Its fundraising total now stands at $37 million, and work is underway on the second of three construction phases at the Hitsville, U.S.A., complex.
In addition, the foundation is creating an annual $500,000 grant program that will award money to small and midsize arts and culture nonprofits.
Another Rust Belt city looking to reinvent itself, Buffalo, New York, will see the same $100 million investment in its arts scene, bringing the total Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation outlay to a whopping $200 million. The huge cash gifts are the latest but not the first investment benefiting both cities from the $1.2 billion endowment of the late Ralph Wilson, the namesake of the foundation, who died in…
