Bigelow Foundation Supports Major Arts Groups' Capital, Endowment Needs

The F. R. Bigelow Foundation, St. Paul, funded the capital and endowment campaigns of several major Twin Cities arts and cultural organizations as part of its August 2004 grant awards.

The foundation awarded grants of $350,000 each to the Minnesota Opera Company and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra Society. The grant to the opera will help finance the" Opera at the Ordway" Campaign, a $20 million fundraising campaign to help maintain the organization's artistic quality and supplement its annual earned income. The grant to the orchestra will help finance the Fund for Artistic and Institutional Advancement, which is part of the organization's current endowment campaign. The Fund will serve as a five-year bridge to move the orchestra toward financial robustness while maintaining artistic quality.

Twin Cities Public Television, Inc. received a $200,000 grant from Bigelow to help finance the Digital Master Control Traffic and Automation Project. Because of a federally mandated transition to digital transmission, TPT must rebuild its entire infrastructure by 2006. This grant will help fund traffic and digital master control facilities that will dramatically expand TPT's innovative digital services while improving the cost-effective delivery of its digital channels.

Overall the board of trustees of the F. R. Bigelow Foundation approved 19 grants totaling $1,699,718 at its August 2004 meeting. For a complete list of grants, visit the foundation's Web site (select "News").

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