Obama Foundation gets $2.5 million grant for Obama Museum art collections

WASHINGTON — The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation pledged $2.5 million to the Obama Foundation for “inaugural art installations” in the Obama museum, as new fundraising strategies include seeking pledges from the estates of donors and earmarking gifts for specific projects.

A spokesman for the Prudential Foundation told the Chicago Sun-Times the organization pledged an additional $500,000 to support one of former President Barack Obama’s signature programs, My Brother’s Keeper. The initiative was launched in the White House to help young men and boys of color and the Prudential Foundation, as one of the founding donors, contributed $3 million between 2014 and 2018.

My Brother’s Keeper is now a part of the Obama Foundation.

The Obama Foundation, as part of its pending deal with the City of Chicago to allow construction in Jackson Park, also has retained all the naming rights for the center including signs on exhibits and signs on buildings outside, a fairly standard institutional fundraising tool.

The Chicago-based Obama Foundation on Tuesday released the names of its donors for the third quarter of 2019, taking in July, August and September.

In a less than transparent system, but better than nothing, the Obama Foundation only releases the names of contributors, the very rough range of the gifts, and no other information to the public.

The Mellon Foundation is listed as a $1 million plus donor, according to Obama Foundation list. In actuality, the donation is much more.

According to the Mellon Foundation, the money, pledged on Sept. 12, will be spread over 30 months and will “support the development of the Obama Presidential Center Museum collection and plans for the museum’s inaugural art installations.”

The president of the Mellon Foundation, Elizabeth Alexander, who is also a poet, in 2009 appeared at Obama’s first inauguration to read a poem she wrote, “Praise Song for the Day.”

In July, the Mellon Foundation was part of a consortium of foundations purchasing for $30 million the historic photo archives of Ebony and Jet magazines, which had been headquartered in Chicago.

The first donors who have included the Obama Foundation in their estate plans are Jay and Ryan Blahnik. Jay Blahnik is Apple’s senior director of fitness for health technologies. The Obama Foundation will get the gift when the last survivor dies. The Blahniks pledged somewhere between $100,001 and $250,000.

William Hurley, a tech entrepreneur and Vinton Cerf, a Google executive who Obama named to the National Science Board in 2016, and their spouses are listed as giving or pledging somewhere between $100,001 and $250,000

There is no date set for groundbreaking to build the Obama Presidential Center, a four-building complex proposed for Jackson Park with the museum housed in the tower structure. Construction has been pushed back through the years because planners did not anticipate the time it takes to conduct a federal review of the project.

The federal review is mandated because Jackson Park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 and because federal grants funded some park improvements.

OBAMAS IN CHICAGO SAME DAY AS TRUMP

Obama and former first lady Michelle return to Chicago on Oct. 28-29 for their foundation’s invitation-only third summit, overlapping a day with President Donald Trump. Trump is scheduled to be in Chicago on Oct. 28 for a fundraiser, potentially at Trump International Hotel and Tower, 401 N. Wabash Ave., though plans may change. Trump may also speak to a police chiefs group.