Saturday, March 5, 2016

DAVID GEFFEN HALL

“Placing a rich person's name on a building in return for a big donation is an established practice in the philanthropy playbook that can be a way to honor a loved one or encourage other donations. While mocked recently as
’Philanthro-me’ and ‘Egonomics’ by social commentators, money-for-naming transactions can be mutually beneficial. Benefactors get their name in history books - or at least on Google Maps - and recipients get cash infusions for pressing projects.
“For instance, New York's Lincoln Center received $100 million toward massive renovations for Avery Fisher Hall from [David] Geffen in a deal
t
hat renamed the venue to David Geffen Hall. But that happened onlyafter Lincoln Center paid $15 million to the family of Fisher, a philanthropist who died in 1994, to clear the way to the renaming.
     “Geffen
's gift was lauded as transformative by Lincoln Center administrators and elsewhere criticized as self-aggrandizing.”


Associated Press. Michael Hill, “The Rich Give, and Get Grief,” as printed in the Bloomsburg (PA) Press-Enterprise, pp: 25 and 28, January 27, 2016.