Nashville, TN – The board of the IBMA Foundation (formerly the Foundation for Bluegrass Music) voted July 26 to move $50,000 of their undesignated funds into a new endowment managed by The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, based in Nashville. Income earned by this endowment will return to the IBMA Foundation in perpetuity to help fund grants for educational programs and events that support the future of bluegrass music by introducing the music to upcoming generations of musicians and fans.
The IBMA Foundation is a nonprofit charitable organization created by the International Bluegrass Music Association in 2007 to support bluegrass music-related educational, literary, artistic and historic preservation activities.
“The IBMA Foundation is delighted to be entering into partnership with the $400+ million Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee,” says IBMA Foundation Board Chair Fred Bartenstein. “They will bring to our new IBMA Foundation Endowment Fund considerable investment expertise as well as technical assistance, helping our donors to structure their bequests and other planned gifts. Together, we are helping bluegrass music to live forever!”
Founded in 1991, The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee exists to promote and facilitate giving in the 40 counties of Middle Tennessee and beyond. It does this by accepting gifts of any size from anyone at any time and by empowering individuals, families, companies, nonprofits and communities to respond to needs and opportunities that matter. The Community Foundation works with people who have great hearts, whether or not they have great wealth, to craft solutions that reflect their intentions and goals. For more information, call 615-321-4939 or visit www.cfmt.org.
The IBMA Foundation awards $15,000 in grants annually, including $3,000 in mini-grants to schools and festivals that help pay bands who present educational bluegrass music programs for children at schools and camps.
Foundation grants in 2018 have gone to the following impressive events and programs through which children in eight different states are learning about and how to play bluegrass music, in addition to one program that offers professional development training to emerging artists.
Black Swamp Arts Council, Tri State Youth Bluegrass Initiative (Archbold, Ohio)
Bluegrass Ambassadors with the Hanna Miners, Silver Sound Foundation (Carbon County, Wyoming)
Coda Mountain Academy Summer Music Festival (Fayetteville, West Virginia)
Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival (Fairbanks, Alaska)
Grey Fox Educational Fund, Grey Fox Bluegrass Academy for Kids (Oak Hill, New York)
Makers Guild of Maine, Vacationland Bluegrass Camp (Searsport, Maine)
Nashville School of Traditional Country Music (Nashville, Tennessee)
San Diego Folk Heritage, Julian Family Fiddle Camp (San Diego, California)
The Crooked Road: Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail, Professional Development Seminar for Musicians (Abingdon, Virginia)
The IBMA Foundation has awarded more than $63,000 in annual grants since 2011 to educational programs for children, scholarship funds and film documentaries based in Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wyoming and Germany.
Members of the IBMA Foundation Board include: Fred Bartenstein, Fred Bartenstein & Associates/University of Dayton (president/board chair); Alan Tompkins, Bluegrass Heritage Foundation (vice-chair); Ruth McLain, McLain Family Band/ Morehead State University (secretary); Wendy Tyner, Wintergrass/Acoustic Sound (treasurer); Tim Stafford, Blue Highway; Tom Kopp, professor emeritus/Miami University; Peter Salovey, Yale University; Peter D’Addario, St. Louis Cardinals; Sam Blumenthal, The Blumenthal Foundation; and ex-officio member Paul Schiminger, IBMA.
