Civic & Cultural Programs

The Foundation’s grants in this area are based on the recognition that communities need beauty, and that all people should have access to cultural experiences.

Recent grants include:

• Friends of the Observatory, a volunteer organization working to renovate and expand the famed, circa-1935, Griffith Park Observatory near Mt. Hollywood in the hills above the Los Feliz neighborhood. Housing a science museum, telescope and major planetarium, this facility — location for famous scenes of actor James Dean’s classic movie Rebel Without a Cause — is the destination for more than two million visitors each year, including daily field trips by generations of school children. The Foundation is providing $1 million toward the historically sensitive restoration and expansion of the space.
  
  
• Founded in 1991, A Noise Within (ANW) is a highly respected classical theater company offering a full season of award-winning productions.  For more than a decade, ANW has performed over 100 classics – the works of popular European writers such as Shakespeare, Moliere and Chekhov, as well as those of great American writers including Inge, Hellman and Williams.  The company has played to and educated tens of thousands of patrons and students at its home stage in Glendale, on regional tours, and in school and community organizations.  ANW enjoys critical and audience acclaim and has garnered countless awards for excellence.  A recent Foundation grant provided general support.
  
  
• Grand Performances, a free, outdoor performing arts series at California Plaza in downtown Los Angeles that aims to build arts audiences and inclusive communities. Audiences represent the “face of Los Angeles” and typically include a nearly equal mix of Anglos, African-Americans, Latinos and Asian/Pacific Islanders. A Foundation grant supported recent dance performances, which included Korean, Indian and Senegalese dance troupes.
  
  
• National Audubon Society, a national organization that works to protect wildlife habitat and to connect people to nature. The conservation group is building a nature center on an uninterrupted tract of wild land adjacent to several impoverished neighborhoods in Northeast and East Los Angeles. Plans include a 7,500-square-foot center with an outdoor amphitheater, gardens and nature trails, as well as an indoor art gallery, library, and multipurpose room for use by community groups. A Foundation grant supports costs of constructing the center, which aims to help some of the city’s most underserved children and families to experience, understand and care for the natural world.