Michael Eisner's family foundation gives $1.25 million to CalArts
Former Walt Disney Co. chief executive Michael Eisner and his family's Eisner Foundation are giving $1.25 million to a program at California Institute of the Arts that brings arts instruction to Los Angeles schoolchildren.
The grant, to be paid in $250,000 installments over the coming five years, is the largest ever received by CalArts' Community Arts Partnership, university officials said, and is the first grant the Eisner Foundation has made to an arts institution.
The community arts program, launched 19 years ago, sends CalArts faculty, students and alumni into neighborhood schools and community centers to teach a wide range of courses in music, dance, theater and visual arts. Its current annual budget is $1.7 million. The Eisner Foundation grant is focused on "new media," which include film and video, animation and digital forms. Over the five years, $375,000 will fund new-media courses for youngsters in the Community Arts Partnership, and the rest will go for scholarships for CalArts students, including a $750,000 ongoing endowment.
The aim, Eisner said in a statement, is "advancing not only the youth of Los Angeles, but the long-term viability of new media itself."
The Eisner Foundation had assets of $143.5 million at the end of 2007, according to the last annual statement on Guidestar.org, and made $6.4 million in donations that year.
-- Mike Boehm
Photo: Michael Eisner. Credit: Stephen Brashear /Associated Press.
