The University of Arizona Poetry Center and the Poetry Center's volunteer Development Council are thrilled to announce that we have met a major fundraising milestone: we have now surpassed $1million in the Center's Programs Endowment, a key goal in the Center's 2020 Strategic Plan. The Programs Endowment will permanently offset a portion of the annual programmatic expenses of the Center. The milestone was celebrated on November 5th at the Poetry Center’s annual Walt Whitman Circle Gala, where the Center also named the historic Poets Cottage after former director Lois Shelton.
As a public/private partnership between the University of Arizona, Tucson, and the broader national literary community, the Poetry Center is a leading literary hub in the American Southwest. Created by generous supporters who believe in the work of the Poetry Center, the Programs Endowment meets a critical need: it provides reliable revenue that diversifies the funding sources we use to underwrite Poetry Center activities. The Programs Endowment will allow us to animate our mission in exciting ways. Most of all, the endowment is an investment from our community of supporters in poets and poetry, in arts education, and in the future of the Poetry Center.
The recent campaign to name the Poetry Center Poets Cottage for former director Lois Shelton was an important step that helped us reach the $1million goal in the Programs Endowment, and so our celebrations this fall are double. The Lois Shelton Poets Cottage is our guest house for visiting poets, a signature hospitality in the literary world. Shelton, director of the Center for two decades in the 1970s and 1980s, helped further establish the Center as a critical space for poets and poetry. An accomplished singer and actress as well as a visionary leader, Shelton continued to put the Center and its growing library at the forefront of peer institutions nationwide, and worked tirelessly to bring financial stability to the Center, ensuring its future viability.
The endowment is invested as part of holdings maintained by the University of Arizona Foundation. Follow the link in red to learn more about how you can support the Poetry Center’s Programs Endowment and the Poetry Center's planned giving program, and permanently support the work of the Poetry Center.
With sincere and enduring gratitude we wish to thank all of our supporters, whose gifts demonstrate their care and support for poets, poetry, and the future of the University of Arizona Poetry Center. We thrive as a public/private partnership between the University of Arizona and the broader literary community, and we are so grateful for your continued support.
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