FROM THE COLUMBUS FOUNDATION

In an interview on CBS Sunday Morning a few months ago, Bruce Springsteen described his hope for his music and concerts to be “building a house of common values and shared narrative.” I think that fairly describes a unifying dimension of the hopes of those who run the nonprofit organizations in this impressive giving guide, as well as its editors. They are united in the belief that a measure of a life well lived is found in sharing whatever you have to give, to whomever you can, to advance humanity. To paraphrase author and journalist Liel Leibovitz, the people who make these organizations work are not counting the seconds to midnight—they are celebrating the mornings of opportunity, connection, and love that make progress possible.
We hope you will invite the efforts, ambitions, and commitment to service found in the short stories of these nonprofit organizations into your house, that you consider them, and find a way to celebrate them, whether quietly in your hearts or even more vividly through your support. They are a mosaic of the community of care that is central Ohio, ever-expanding in need while also expanding in promise.
For years, I ran the concerts at Blossom Music Center, the summer home of The Cleveland Orchestra, during the times when Tom Petty, the Doobie Brothers, Earth, Wind & Fire, Talking Heads, Linda Ronstadt, John Denver, Jimmy Buffett, and so many others were in their touring prime and whom we presented there to sold-out audiences of over 18,000 fans a night. Years after I left Blossom to work with John Glenn, Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys worked at Blossom as a parking lot attendant and had this to say about the scene there in those summer concert seasons: “Everybody who went to Blossom was just always so stoked. It was obviously something they waited a long time for, spent the money on, it had a festival feel to it, almost like somebody going to Disneyland or something. It was a good place to be.”
So, here we are in central Ohio today, a GREAT place to be and becoming something even greater. The investments you make in the work of nonprofits—from hospitals to universities, from food banks to homeless shelters—strengthen the full fabric of well-being for all in our community. We hope you join us in, as we say at The Columbus Foundation, putting your human spirit in motion through charitable giving. There are no lines at this Disneyland of giving opportunities that has a giving festival feel to it—just a dawning of a better morning for all, if you are stoked to help.

Douglas Kridler
President and C.E.O.
Doug Kridler is the fifth President of The Columbus Foundation, a community foundation serving the central Ohio region since 1943.
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