Colorado Ballet Receives $500,000 Matching Grant
All gifts made to Colorado Ballet through November 15 will triple their impact on the company’s Relief and Recovery Fundraising Campaign.
Anonymous donors hope their gift will inspire others to support Colorado Ballet during the pandemic.
DENVER, CO (October 6, 2020) – Colorado Ballet received a $500,000 matching grant for the company’s Relief & Recovery Fund that was launched after canceling all fall 2020 productions, including The Nutcracker, to help offset losses of nearly $4 million in revenue. A generous couple, who have requested to remain anonymous, will match all donations made to Colorado Ballet between October 1 and November 15 at a 2:1 ratio up to $250,000, tripling the impact of each dollar donated during this timeframe. If the organization is able to raise $250,000 by November 15, the total amount raised for Colorado Ballet’s Relief and Recovery efforts will become $750,000.
“This incredibly generous gift makes an enormous impact on Colorado Ballet and on our efforts to not only survive during this pandemic, but to come out on the other side of it and resume being the organization that we’ve become over the past 60 years,” said Artistic Director Gil Boggs. “We are extremely grateful for these supporters' generosity and dedication to Colorado Ballet. This matching gift has lifted the spirits of everyone at Colorado Ballet during these extraordinarily difficult times, and we will continue pushing forward with motivation in our mission in order to emerge from this crisis as a strong ballet company.”
This particular gift is amongst the largest single gifts received by Colorado Ballet, and the organization will make all efforts to garner support from the community during this time frame to reach $250,000 in donations.
Since the launch of the Relief & Recover Fund, the company has raised nearly $450,000 of the $3 million goal. If the company can reach its $250,000 goal between now and November 15, it will put their fundraising efforts at a total of approximately $1.2 million for the Relief and Recovery Fund.
Colorado Ballet’s anonymous donors hope their sizable gift will encourage others to give to the company’s Relief & Recovery fund as well to ensure that Colorado Ballet will continue thriving as an integral part of Denver’s performing arts community, both through the pandemic and beyond.
“We wanted to make a substantial gift to inspire and challenge others to give generously, to support this vital art form and to boost the morale of the company weathering an incredibly challenging time,” stated the anonymous donors. “The performing arts industry has been hit especially hard by the pandemic. As a non-profit organization that relies on charitable giving, we want to ensure that Colorado Ballet will be able to resume as a strong company when they are able to perform again.”
RELIEF AND RECOVERY FUND
With the cancellation of The Nutcracker and Ballet MasterWorks, as well as the postponement of Giselle to April 2021, Colorado Ballet is dependent upon fundraising as its primary source of income for the remainder of 2020. Considering this extreme need, they have launched a Relief and Recovery Fund. With a fundraising goal of $3 million, this fund will help to cover a significant portion of the loss of ticketed revenue, helping Colorado Ballet to emerge from this crisis as the strong company it has become over the past 60 years. Learn more about the company's fundraising efforts and how to make a gift by visiting the website.
ABOUT COLORADO BALLET
Presenting exceptional classical ballet and innovative contemporary dance through performances, training, education and community engagement, Colorado Ballet continues to inspire and grow an increasingly diverse audience base in Denver, Colorado. Established in 1961 by Lillian Covillo and Freidann Parker, Colorado Ballet is a non-profit organization celebrating 60 years of excellence.As a world-class professional company, Colorado Ballet presents 55 performances annually to sold-out audiences in the 2,000 seat Ellie Caulkins Opera House. The Company’s 32 professional dancers and 21 studio company dancers come from all over the world. Colorado Ballet’s The Armstrong Center for Dance, a 35,000 square foot building, boasts eight state-of-the-art professional dance studios and amenities for the professional Company. Under the direction of Artistic Director Gil Boggs, Colorado Ballet performs classical ballet masterpieces, full-length story ballets and its critically-acclaimed repertory production Ballet MasterWorks, featuring varied works from neoclassical ballets to world premieres. The Raydean Acevedo Colorado Ballet Academy serves over 1,200 students from toddlers to seniors each year. Colorado Ballet’s Education and Community Engagement programming serves under-resourced students, teachers, families, people with disabilities and lifelong learners, reaching more than 35,000 contacts in 300 schools and organizations annually. For more information please visit COLORADOBALLET.ORG.
