Support for the arts

The Miriam Rosenthal Foundation for the Arts is making $75,000 in additional grants to local arts organizations to aid them in meeting critical needs during the next several weeks as they create new ways to engage the artists and the community. The foundation previously announced a gift to the community in excess of $300,000 to enable eight of Dayton’s arts organizations to create and present the opening concerts of the 2021 arts season.

Sharing in the foundation’s new support package are the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, Human Race Theatre Company, Muse Machine, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Dayton Ballet and Dayton Opera.

The Rosenthal Foundation (fka Miriam Rosenthal Trust Fund) was created by the community in 1965. Until the early 1980s, it was the board’s practice to support the arts by allocating its income where the needs were greatest. Since that time, grants have been made for specific purposes as identified by the arts organizations. Some of these grants have involved risk-taking by the foundation and by the arts.

Richard McCauley, foundation chairman, noted that in making the recent grants, “the Board has elected to return to its roots – this one time – and distribute to select arts organizations unrestricted gifts that we hope will be used to sustain the arts through the months ahead.”

“It will be up to each organization to decide how best to utilize these funds – whether to try new ways to engage the artists and the community, to retain valuable employees, or, simply, to ‘pay the bills’ as Miriam would often say,” added McCauley.

More information about the Miriam Rosenthal Foundation for the Arts – the community’s arts endowment – including its 56-year history and the many projects it has supported in the Dayton area — may be found at MiriamRosenthalFoundation.org. CONTRIBUTED