Donor Impact Stories

Looking to raise a large amount of money to help restore the original Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts campus and build a new state-of-the-art facility adjacent to the 1922 building—without spending resources on staff and infrastructure to manage those funds—the Arts Magnet Advisory Board partnered with Communities Foundation of Texas (CFT) when they launched a capital campaign. “Many of our donors had funds at CFT that made it easy for them to support our fundraising effort with the confidence that the structure and security of CFT were behind the project,” said Lisa Lawrence Holland, executive director of the advisory board of Arts Magnet. The unprecedented public/private partnership with the Dallas Independent School District for the Arts Magnet Building Campaign successfully raised more than $34 million for the $55 million project. Today the Arts Magnet board maintains funds at CFT. “If you do not have sufficient assets to create a stand-alone endowment, CFT provides the structure to access the benefits of a very large investment portfolio.”