| BEGINNINGS |
The A. J. Fletcher Foundation was established through the generosity of the late Alfred Johnston Fletcher (1887-1979). Mr. Fletcher’s original objective was to provide annual operating support for Grass Roots Opera, one of his numerous civic and artistic endeavors. Created in 1948, Grass Roots Opera had evolved into The National Opera Company by the early 1970’s. The change in name was meant to reflect the Company’s wider scope of operations, as well as the growing interests of the A.J. Fletcher Foundation.
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 Alfred Johnston Fletcher 1887 - 1979 |
| GROWING RESOURCES EXPANDED INTERESTS |
During the mid-1980's, the Foundation was a major beneficiary of the sale of Southern Life Insurance Company, an organization Mr. Fletcher had helped to form. With significant new resources, the Foundation increased funding for the Opera Company and at the same time broadened its support into a wider range of charitable endeavors. These new areas reflected the concerns of the Foundation board and its president, James F. Goodmon, and they included human services, illiteracy and the health and well being of children. Another dimension of the Foundation’s community involvement occurred in 1997 with the purchase and renovation of downtown Raleigh’s historic Briggs Hardware Building. Completed in 1874, the building was the city’s tallest for many years, and by the 1990’s it had become Raleigh’s oldest extant commercial structure. Deteriorating and facing possible demolition, the Briggs Building seemed an unlikely candidate for a nonprofit business center. Nevertheless, through a unique equity partnership with Preservation North Carolina, the Foundation acquired and completely reconstructed this important community landmark. In the process, it created a home for itself and several nonprofit organizations, including Preservation North Carolina, the Raleigh City Museum and North Carolina Special Olympics. In addition to providing high quality, reasonably priced office space for nonprofits, the Briggs Building project contributed to the steady turn-around in the fortunes of downtown Raleigh. Inspired by the success of the project and the fulfillment of several key missions, the Foundation in 2000 purchased the 1911 Boylan-Pearce department store building adjacent to Briggs. It is our intention to complete renovations by the spring of 2002 and to make office or retail space available to other nonprofit organizations. |
 Briggs Hardware Completed: 1874
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| COMMITTMENT TO A STRONG SECTOR | One of the Foundation’s chief objectives over the past 15 years has been to help insure the strength of the nonprofit sector in North Carolina. Accordingly, the Foundation has made a series of grants to organizations in diverse fields of activity to strengthen their internal operations. These grants have been used for:
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| TECHNOLOGY AND PHILANTHROPY | In 1996 the Foundation’s board of directors committed significant resources to establish the A. J. Fletcher Foundation web site. The site (http://www.ajf.org) serves as an ongoing “annual report” with news, funding guidelines, reports on grantees, foundation history, and information on the board and staff. With the creation of its own web site, the Foundation soon began to offer technological assistance to the nonprofit sector with web design services to selected agencies at no charge. In 1999 the Foundation extended its commitment to electronic communications even further by launching a philanthropic news site, Philanthropy Journal. Located at http://www.philathropyjournal.org, the site offers news on organizations across North Carolina and throughout the world, as well as pages for job postings and announcements. In addition, Philanthropy Journal publishes a weekly e-mail bulletin with links to news stories and editorials. |
 Todd Cohen, Editor: PhilanthropyJournal |
| FAR-REACHING CHANGES | On September 21, 2001, Foundation President Jim Goodmon and North Carolina School of the Arts Chancellor Wade Hobgood signed a historic document establishing the A. J. Fletcher Opera Institute at the NCSA’s Winston-Salem campus. The Foundation’s commitment will underwrite operating expenses of the Institute at the level of $500,000 per year for 10 years, and will establish an endowment with an additional $500,000 per year during the same 10-year period. The NC School of the Arts will make a dollar-for-dollar matching contribution to both annual operations and endowment. Hence, the Institute will have an operating budget of at least $1,000,000 per year, and by 2011 should have a permanent endowment with a minimum of $10,000,000 in assets. Twelve Fletcher “fellows” will be selected each year for graduate and post-graduate degrees:
Each year Fletcher fellows will perform in fully staged productions of new and established operatic works and participate in touring and educational outreach programs. The Institute is expected to quickly become one of the nation’s leading centers for the training of professional singers and the production of opera. Along with the new A. J. Fletcher Opera Theater in downtown Raleigh, the Institute is also intended to be a perpetual embodiment of Mr. Fletcher’s goals for opera and music education.
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| TODAY AND TOMORROW | With Mr. Fletcher’s vision for opera firmly and perpetually established, the A. J. Fletcher Foundation looks to the future with confidence and commitment to the changing issues facing North Carolina. Over the past 20 years, the Foundation has contributed some $35 million to over 300 North Carolina organizations; in 2001 alone, over $2,250,000 has been paid on existing pledges. The Foundation’s board of directors will dedicate the last half of 2001 and the first six months of 2002 to a thorough and thoughtful review of the state’s most pressing issues. While the Foundation will continue to fund its numerous multi-year commitments during that period, the board will not review or approve any new requests until it has developed a plan for the best ways to respond to key issues. In the interim, a complete list and description of existing commitments can be found on the Foundation’s web site by clicking Current Commitments. |
