Nonprofit News and Comment

IN MEMORIAM

“John W. Kluge, Founder of Metromedia, Dies at 95.” By Marilyn Berger. New York Times. September 8, 2010. John W. Kluge, who parlayed a small fortune from a Fritos franchise into a multibillion-dollar communications empire that made him one of the richest men in America, died on Tuesday night at a family home in Charlottesville, Va. He was 95. Mr. Kluge was the creator of Metromedia, the nation’s first major independent broadcasting entity, a conglomerate that grew to include seven television stations, 14 radio stations, outdoor advertising, the Harlem Globetrotters, the Ice Capades, radio paging and mobile telephones. An immigrant from Germany, Mr. Kluge (pronounced KLOOG-ee) came to the United States in 1922 and took his first job at the age of 10 as a payroll clerk for his stepfather in Detroit. He made his first million by the time he was 37. He made his first billion — it was actually almost two billion — in 1984, when he took Metromedia private in a $1.1 billion leveraged buyout and then liquidated the company, more than tripling his take. His philanthropy was prodigious. About a half-billion dollars went to Columbia alone, mainly for scholarships for needy and minority students. One gift, of $400 million, was to be given to the university by his estate when he died. Mr. Kluge also contributed to the restoration of Ellis Island and in 2000 gave $73 million to the Library of Congress, which established the Kluge Prize for the Study of Humanities.
Related story:
“A One-Man Empire, From TV to Laundry.” Wall Street Journal. September 9, 2010.

“Joan Cutler, 80, prolific fund-raiser, philanthropist.” By Bryan Marquard. Boston Globe. September 8, 2010. Joan Cutler had a phone list that fund-raisers coveted. Because her husband, Ted, was prominent in Boston’s business circles, she could scroll through numbers of the politically powerful and the region’s wealthiest families — those who form the foundation of charitable organizations statewide. The Cutlers themselves made numerous significant financial contributions to a host of causes, but Mrs. Cutler’s biggest donation was her persuasiveness. “For all that they gave, which was a lot, she multiplied that several times over,’’ said Irwin Chafetz, a philanthropist and business partner of Ted Cutler. “This woman was always calling. She was part of everything.’’ Mrs. Cutler, who worked behind the scenes for scores of organizations and lent her name to charitable concerns supporting medical research, the arts, and the impoverished, died Monday after suffering a heart attack while at her family’s home in Falmouth. She was 80 and had lived in Boston’s Back Bay. “Joan was a spectacular woman and a leader in Boston’s philanthropic community,’’ the mayor said. “From her tireless support of the arts to handing out turkeys for Thanksgiving meals, Joan’s dedication was incomparable and her work has helped make our city a brighter and more beautiful place to live.’’

IN MEMORIAM

“Angels in America.” By Frank Rich. Op-ed. New York Times. August 14, 2010. To appreciate how much and how unexpectedly our country can change, look no further than the life and times of Judith Dunnington Peabody, who died on July 25 at 80 in her apartment on Fifth Avenue in New York. The proper names in her biographical sketch suggest a stereotype from a bygone New Yorker cartoon: Miss Hewitt’s Classes, the Ethel Walker School, Bryn Mawr, the Junior League. She “was introduced to society,” as they said of debutantes back then, at the Piping Rock Club, Locust Valley, N.Y., in 1947. As the fashionable wife of Samuel P. Peabody in the decades to follow, she shared the society pages with Pat Buckley, Babe Paley and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. But to quote Tracy Lord, the socialite played by Katharine Hepburn in the classic high-society movie comedy “The Philadelphia Story,” “The time to make up your mind about people is never.” In 1985, Judith Peabody, a frequent contributor to the traditional good causes favored by those of her class, did the unthinkable by volunteering to work as a hands-on caregiver to AIDS patients and their loved ones. Those patients were then mostly gay men, and, as Guy Trebay recently wrote in The Times, they were “treated not with compassion but as bearers of plague.” There was no drug regimen to combat AIDS, and there were many panicky rumors about how its death sentence could be spread through casual contact. People of all types and political persuasions shunned dying gay men even as they treated healthy gay men and lesbians as, at best, second-class citizens. The Times did not put the mysterious disease on Page 1 until after the casualty rate exceeded 500 and didn’t start covering it in earnest until Rock Hudson died of AIDS three years after that. In 1985, the term “gay” itself was an untouchable for writers in this newspaper. Thanks to Peabody’s prominence, her example had a discernible effect in beating back ignorance and fear in New York. But 25 years ago, few could have imagined a larger narrative that might lead to full civil rights for gay Americans.

IN MEMORIAM

“Jim Bohlen, Led in Creation of Greenpeace, Dies at 84.” By William Grimes. New York Times. July 7, 2010. Jim Bohlen, whose snap decision to sail to Amchitka Island, Alaska, to protest an underground nuclear test led to the creation of the environmental organization Greenpeace, died Monday in Comox, British Columbia. He was 84 and lived in Courtenay, British Columbia. Today Greenpeace is an international organization with more than three million members that carries out environmental campaigns through its offices in 40 countries. Bohlen was a director of Greenpeace until retiring in 1993. His memoir, “Making Waves: The Origins and Future of Greenpeace,” was published by Black Rose Books in 2000.

IN MEMORIAM

“Longtime Director of Los Angeles Philharmonic Dies.” By David Mermelstein. Wall Street Journal. June 16, 2010. Ernest Fleischmann was an imperious arts administrator who set the Los Angeles Philharmonic on its road to international renown, and helped remake Los Angeles into something beyond just a movie capital. Mr. Fleischmann, who died Sunday at age 85, was a trained conductor who found his avocation leading orchestras behind the scenes. In 1969, Mr. Fleischmann began work with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, then a little-regarded, far-flung ensemble. His job involved not only managing the orchestra but also its summer home, the Hollywood Bowl, which had fallen on hard times. He reversed the Bowl’s decline by turning it into a picnickers’ paradise, replete with mass-appeal fireworks displays. But it was Mr. Fleischmann’s role as a musical impresario that constitutes his greatest legacy.
Related Story:
“E. Fleischmann, Impresario of Los Angeles, Dies at 85.” New York Times. June 15, 2010.

IN MEMORIAM

“Getty Trust CEO Wood Dies at 69.” By Kelly Crow. Wall Street Journal. June 12, 2010. The J. Paul Getty Trust, the world’s wealthiest arts organization, said its president and chief executive, James N. Wood, died Friday. Mr. Wood was 69 and died unexpectedly of natural causes, the trust said. The trust, which has an endowment of $4.5 billion and total assets of $7.8 billion, funds the Getty Museum in Los Angeles as well as the Getty Research Institute, the Conservation Institute and the Getty Foundation. Mr. Wood joined the Getty three years ago after serving as director of the Art Institute of Chicago for 24 years. During his tenure, the Getty acquired Paul Gauguin’s “Arii Matamoe (The Royal End)” and returned a group of looted antiquities to the Italian and Greek governments. Mr. Wood is also credited with persuading the Getty’s four divisions to collaborate more closely on projects. His death could have a destabilizing effect on the Getty, which is still trying to rebuild its endowment following the recession. The trust also needs to hire a new museum director following Michael Brand’s departure in January.
Related Stories:
“Getty Trust CEO James Wood dies at age 69.” San Francisco Chronicle. June 12, 2010.
“Former Art Institute president leaves inspiring legacy.” Chicago Tribune. June 12, 2010
“James N. Wood, President of the Getty Trust, Dies at 69.” New York Times. June 14, 2010.

IN MEMORIAM

“The Legacy Of Ex-IOC Chief Samaranch.” By Howard Berkes. All Things Considered/National Public Radio. April 21, 2010. The man credited with helping to save the Olympics from financial ruin has died at the age of 89. Juan Antonio Samaranch was president of the International Olympic Committee during an era of boycotts, near bankruptcy and scandal. NPR’s Howard Berkes looks back at one of the IOC’s most controversial leaders.

“M. Edgar Rosenblum, Who Grew the Long Wharf Theater, Dies at 78.” By Bruce Weber. New York Times. April 23, 2010. M. Edgar Rosenblum, an arts executive who helped steer the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven to prominence in the American theater landscape, developing work that traveled to Broadway and elsewhere and that won Pulitzer Prizes and Tony Awards along the way, died on Sunday in Woodstock, N.Y. He was 78. Mr. Rosenblum, who as the Long Wharf”s executive director was involved in virtually every aspect of its operations, came to the theater in 1970, when it was just five years old. There he forged an extraordinary 26-year partnership with the theater’s artistic director, Arvin Brown, one of the longest-tenured leadership tandems in the last half-century of regional theater. “Edgar was one of the most important executive directors in the country,” Mr. Brown said in an e-mail message on Wednesday. “He combined remarkable business acumen with a deep and emotional devotion to the art of the theater.” Together they raised the Long Wharf’s profile with numerous plays that moved to Broadway. Among them were “The Changing Room” by David Storey, which earned John Lithgow a Tony in 1973 for best featured actor, and “The Gin Game,” by D. L. Coburn, which won the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for drama and a Tony for Jessica Tandy. The Long Wharf’s annual budget was $400,000 when Mr. Rosenblum arrived in 1970; in 1996 it was $5.5 million. At the theater’s peak of popularity, in the 1980s, the number of subscribers reached 18,000.

IN MEMORIAM

“Mortimer D. Sackler, Arts Patron, Dies at 93.” By Bruce Weber. New York Times. March 31, 2010. Mortimer D. Sackler, a psychiatrist who was a co-owner of the pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma, makers of the controversial painkiller OxyContin, and whose lavish gifts to the Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Columbia University made him one of New York City’s most prominent benefactors, died March 24 in Gstaad, Switzerland. He was 93 and had homes in London, Gstaad and Antibes, France. A native New Yorker, he began his medical education in Scotland because, he said, quotas kept him, as a Jew, from being admitted to medical school in New York. He lived in Europe since the 1970s, and his philanthropy — often along with that of his older brother, Arthur, and his younger brother, Raymond — encompassed both Britain and the Continent. He was a major donor to Oxford University, Edinburgh University, Glasgow University, the Tate Gallery in London, the Royal College of Art, the Louvre, the Jewish Museum in Berlin and Salzburg University, among other institutions. In New York, the Sackler brothers were probably best known for the Sackler wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which houses the Temple of Dendur and whose construction they helped finance. Through his foundation, Mortimer Sackler financed the Sackler Center for Arts Education at the Guggenheim, and was a major contributor to the American Museum of Natural History.

IN MEMORIAM

“Ray Tye, life-saving philanthropist, dead at 87.” By Bryan Marquard. Boston Globe. March 11, 2010. Ray Tye was one of Boston’s biggest philanthropists, but he didn’t much care for the title, and he was even less interested in drawing public attention to his private donations. The chairman emeritus of United Liquors, who died of cancer in his Cambridge home yesterday at 87, gave away millions, often covering the medical expenses of people described in news stories as unable to afford life-saving care. “He always did this quietly,’’ said his wife, Eileen. “He never wanted his name chiseled into a hospital facade or put on a plaque.’’ And he agreed to be the public face of the Ray Tye Medical Aid Foundation, established in his honor by his wife and friends, only because it might prompt others to contribute to the good will he saw as his life’s work.

IN MEMORIAM

“Philanthropist, arts patron Evelyn Haas dies.” By Michael Cabanatuan. San Francisco Chronicle. February 4, 2010. Evelyn Haas, philanthropist, patron of the arts, matriarch of one of the Bay Area’s most prominent families and expert fly-fisherwoman, died Wednesday in San Francisco at age 92. Mrs. Haas, widow of Walter A. Haas Jr., led the family foundation, the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, which has contributed more than $364 million to hundreds of community and cultural organizations that make the Bay Area what it is. They include the San Francisco Symphony, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the restoration of Crissy Field and The Chronicle’s Season of Sharing Fund. The Haas family also owned the Oakland Athletics from 1980 to 1995, a period cherished, and missed, by many Bay Area baseball fans. “She didn’t like to talk about her philanthropy,” said Ira Hirschfield, president of the foundation. “What was really important to Evie was that it make a difference and touch people’s lives in tangible ways.

“Seymour B. Sarason, Leader in Community Psychology, Dies at 91.” By William Grimes. New York Times. February 8, 2010. Seymour B. Sarason, a psychologist whose groundbreaking work on social settings and their influence on individual problems helped establish the field of community psychology was author of more than 40 books on a wide variety of issues, including the treatment of the mentally ill and retarded, educational reform, teacher training and care for the aged. Sarason taught at Yale for more than 40 years. He was a founding member of Yale’s Program on Non-Profit Organizations, the first of the academic centers committed to the study of the nonprofit sector.
Related Story:
“Colleagues pay respects to innovative psychologist.” New Haven Register. February 1, 2010.

IN MEMORIAM

“Advocate For People With Mental Illnesses Dies.” By Joseph Shapiro. Morning Edition. National Public Radio. January 19, 2010. Judi Chamberlin, who died this weekend at age 65, was a civil rights hero from a civil rights movement you may have never heard of. She took her inspiration from the heroes of other civil rights movements to start something she liked to call Mad Pride — a movement for the rights and dignity of people with mental illness.

“Zilda Arns Neumann, Humanitarian.” No by-line. Wall Street Journal. January 23, 2010. A pioneer in children’s health care, Zilda Arns Neumann created a sprawling network of volunteers who monitor the health of millions of children in Brazil and 20 other nations. She died in the Haiti earthquake while on a mission to support local volunteers for the organization she founded, Pastoral da Criança, or the Child’s Pastoral. She was 75. Dona Zilda, as she became known in Brazil, founded Pastoral da Criança in 1983 in southern Brazil at the behest of her brother, Paulo Evaristo Arns, who at the time was cardinal of São Paolo. The organization has grown to include 260,000 volunteers, who teach mothers the importance of breastfeeding, monitor vaccinations, and distribute a recipe for home-made oral rehydration salts that Dr. Arns devised. At a festive “Day of Celebration,” held every month, children from the community come together to be weighed. The program costs about $1 per month per child and has cut child mortality in half in the communities in which it operates, Pastoral da Criança says. The Brazilian government twice nominated Dr. Arns for the Nobel Peace Prize. Originally a joint venture between the Roman Catholic Church and UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, Pastoral da Criança grew from a small program in rural southern Brazil to encompass more than two-thirds of the municipalities in the country. Today it is largely supported by the Brazilian government but run through the Catholic Church. Church auspices are critical to the organization’s success, because the church is more trusted and respected than the government.