Tag: Nonprofits

Philanthropy

Kosair’s 40-year affiliation with Norton-run children’s hospital ends bitterly

Kosair Children's Hospital logoUnder a new settlement of a suit it brought against Norton Healthcare in 2014, the Kosair Charities foundation will make a multimillion-dollar payment to Norton, and lose naming rights to Kosair Children’s Hospital downtown. Still, Kosair’s payment will only a fraction of the $117 million it had pledged to Norton over 20 years, according to The Courier-Journal.

Kosair and Norton teamed up in the late 1970s as long-term care for children became more complex. In 1981, Kosair merged its 58-year-old children’s hospital with Norton’s, creating Kosair Children’s Hospital. Kosair then expanded its support of children’s health care to what is now more than 90 agencies statewide.

In the year ended Sept. 30, 2015, it donated $6 million to dozens of charities, according to the group’s IRS tax return for the year. The single-biggest grant went to Kosair Children’s Hospital: $3.6 million. On the surface, the vast majority of its grants went to charities with a clear health-care focus. A handful of unexpected recipients stand out, including the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts ($10,000) and Kentucky Friends of the NRA Foundation ($7,500). More about Kosair Charities.

Updated 4:55 p.m.: The return’s Schedule O says the NRA grant was for gun safety lessons for children. (And thanks to a Facebook friend for pointing that out.)

Philanthropy

Fund for the Arts raises $9 million, but campaign illustrates risk of shifting Louisville economy

The Fund for the Arts said it received $8.7 million in contributions during its fundraising campaign ended last month, up slightly from last year’s $8.6 million. The money will be distributed to more than 100 charities, schools and other nonprofits to support arts programs, according to The Courier-Journal.

Fund for the Arts logoBut in announcing the figures, the 67-year-old organization warned Louisville’s economy has made it harder to raise more money, especially when big contributions from companies such as GE Appliances and Humana may be threatened by ownership changes.

The Humana Foundation is one of the fund’s biggest supporters. Of the $8.3 million it gave to charity in 2014, $366,000 went to the arts fund, according to the foundation’s most recent IRS tax return. Only six other charities got more:

With $179 million, the Humana Foundation is the fourth-largest foundation in Louisville, according to Boulevard’s database of richest nonprofits. While it’s legally separate from the company, their leadership overlaps. The foundation’s five directors are Humana CEO Bruce Broussard; General Counsel Christopher Todoroff; board member David A. Jones Jr.; his father, company co-founder David A. Jones Sr., and Chairman Michael McCallister, a retired Humana CEO and former chairman.

Michael McCallister
McCallister

It’s unclear whether Aetna would change any of those officers — and the foundation’s giving, too — assuming the Hartford insurer completes its $37 billion purchase of Humana. That deal is subject to final regulatory approval, a hurdle that’s recently grown higher within the Department of Justice’s antitrust division.

Related: As GE Foundation gets new chief, its Louisville ties are less certain after Haier deal.

Latest Headlines

Monty 1978-2016 | ‘He never bit anyone in his 35 years here at the zoo, which is rare!’

Louisville Zoo officials were forced to euthanize Monty, a popular 38-year-old male Burmese python after he was recently diagnosed with cancer.

The giant snake hadn’t been eating well and was losing weight after developing lymphoma, an immune system cancer, according to a zoo statement. The veterinary and HerpAquarium teams decided the most humane course was to euthanize the python on Tuesday.

In death, he is now globally famous. News of his demise was reported as far away as Continue reading “Monty 1978-2016 | ‘He never bit anyone in his 35 years here at the zoo, which is rare!’” →

Latest Headlines

Kentucky Opera names Dallas’ Derrer as new general director, in 2nd recent hire among big local cultural groups
Madame Butterly
The 2016-17 season starts with the classic Madame Butterly.

Ian Derrer, artistic administrator at Dallas Opera for the past two years, started his career at New York City Opera in 2004, after receiving his masters degrees in opera production, voice and performing arts management from Northwestern University and Brooklyn College, and a bachelor’s of music in voice performance from the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University.

Kentucky Opera announced his appointment yesterday, effective Sept. 1. Derrer, 41, will oversee a 64-year-old organization with a $2.4 million budget. He succeeds David Roth, who died unexpectedly last July.

Ian Derrer
Derrer

In 2006, Derrer moved to Chicago’s Lyric Opera, starting as rehearsal administrator and moving up to production director and head of the rehearsal department. In all, Derrer spent eight seasons there, with one summer as rehearsal director at Santa Fe Opera.

As artistic administrator at Dallas, Derrer oversees budgets for the orchestra, chorus, and principal artists as well as members of the artistic staff, orchestra librarian, orchestra manager, chorus secretary, and scheduling department. The company was founded in 1957, five years after Louisville’s. Its budget is considerably larger, however: $14.2 million for the year ended in June 2014, according to its most recent annual IRS tax return.

Dallas Opera CEO Keith Cerny praised Derrer’s work, telling The Courier-Journal that he “guided important artistic and patron relationships, in addition to serving as advisor to both the music director and me.”

Louisville’s 2016-17 season of three productions starts Sept. 23 at the Brown Theatre with Puccini’s Madame Butterfly. Dallas Opera’s upcoming five-production season also includes Butterfly.

Shifting artistic leadership

Derrer’s is at least the second appointment this year Continue reading “Kentucky Opera names Dallas’ Derrer as new general director, in 2nd recent hire among big local cultural groups” →

Snapshot

Ali Center presser

10:40 a.m., the Muhammad Ali Center. CEO Donald Lassere is visible on a TV cameraman’s video monitor as he tells a press conference the UPS Foundation has donated $500,000 to the museum honoring the Louisville native.

The gift will fund the center’s education initiatives, including UCrew, Generation Ali, its Character Education Program “Creating Our Future,” and the Muhammad Ali Center Council of Students. More about the Ali Center.

The UPS Foundation is the charitable arm of the shipping giant, which has 22,000 workers in Louisville — the city’s single-biggest employer. More about UPS and about its foundation.

Mayor Greg Fischer was there, too. But one of the most important people present — maybe the most important — wasn’t publicly acknowledged at all: Brown-Forman heiress Ina Brown Bond, one of the Ali Center’s main movers.

Diversions

Today’s free admission promotion at the Louisville Zoo: coincidence, or wink-wink gay pride weekend joke?

Zoo admission is free today — if your name’s Dorothy — to celebrate its oldest resident, “Dot,” the Aldabra tortoise; she’s turning 80 today.

At least, that’s the official explanation, according to WDRB. But amid this weekend’s gay pride festivities, Boulevard observes that “friend of Dorothy” has long been playful code for being gay.

Photo, top: a still from the terrifying scene where the Wicked Witch uses her broom to skywrite a demand that Emerald City turn over a terrified Dorothy Gale in 1939’s classic Wizard of Oz.