Arts Center Announces Official Launch of $180 Million Campaign for NJPAC.

NEWARK, N.J. -- The New Jersey Performing Arts Center announced today the public launch of its $180 million Campaign for NJPAC to provide annual, endowment and capital support for Arts Center programming, education, development and community initiatives.

The announcement, made by Campaign Chair and NJPAC Co-Chair Arthur F. Ryan, Chairman and CEO of Prudential Financial, came at a special dinner for Arts Center friends and supporters prior to a Prudential Hall concert by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, performing with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.

Over $116 million toward the $180 million goal has been raised in the "quiet phase" of the Campaign, begun in 2004, according to Ryan. The Campaign's aim is to raise $100 million in endowment funds, $60 million in annual operating support, $6 million for a "Reserve Fund for Innovation and Sustainability," and $14 million for capital and technology enhancements.

"There is nothing more critical at this stage of the Arts Center's young life than the successful completion of The Campaign for NJPAC," said Ryan. "The goal of the Campaign is to sustain and enhance everything we have come to cherish about NJPAC and to provide the solid financial foundation to allow us all, together as New Jerseyans, to dream new dreams."

Major leadership gifts have already been received or pledged to the Campaign, including a major gift from The Chambers Family and The MCJ Foundation. Additional endowment gifts totaling $60 million have been received from Arthur F. and Patricia E. Ryan, The Prudential Foundation, Eric F. and Lore Ross, the Victoria Foundation, Josh and Judy Weston, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Joanne D. Corzine Foundation, the Jon S. Corzine Foundation, Automatic Data Processing, Inc., the Ford Foundation, The Wallace Foundation, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, The Jaqua Foundation, Roy and Diana Vagelos, AT&T, CIT, and Harrah's Entertainment, Inc./The Harrah's Foundation.

Unified gifts toward endowment and other NJPAC programming, arts education, artistic initiatives and community outreach activities have been received from Allen and Joan Bildner and the Bildner Family Foundation, Bank of America, Al and Katharine Merck, Leon and Toby Cooperman, Verizon, Wachovia, The Sagner Family Foundation and PSE&G. Additional major support has come from The Women's Association of NJPAC, The New Jersey State Council on the Arts and The New Jersey Cultural Trust.

"Together we have, against enormous odds and the weight of public opinion, created something of transcendent quality and national recognition," said NJPAC President and CEO Lawrence P. Goldman. "We are deeply grateful to all of those who have contributed to the Campaign so far. Their enduring faith will catapult the Campaign and inspire others to support what has impacted so profoundly on the cultural landscape of New Jersey."

"There is no shortage of generosity in New Jersey," said The Honorable Jon S. Corzine, Governor, The State of New Jersey. "Grand gestures and small acts of philanthropy happen here all the time. It will require both, the large and the modest, to allow NJPAC to build upon the great promise it has begun, so profoundly, to deliver to the world. I hope all New Jerseyans will be part of keeping that promise."

Leadership gifts to the Campaign have been directed to endow and/or support a variety of NJPAC initiatives including a Ticket Subsidy Fund, residencies and humanities programs, arts education, NJPAC's annual Kwanzaa Festival and Marketplace, the Wachovia Jazz for Teens and Early Learning through the Arts programs, an assortment of Prudential Hall and Victoria Theater performance series, and much more.

In the public phase of the Campaign, new gifts will be sought to support various components of the original NJPAC mission including funds for Community Engagement, Arts Education, Downtown Revitalization, Artistic Initiatives, and a fund to support more presentations of New Jersey artists at the Arts Center. Additionally, a "Keep NJPAC Like New" Fund may be supported to ensure that the Arts Center continues to be, as noted critic Clive Barnes dubbed it, "the nation's most glamorous theater."

Since it opened in 1997, over 3,000 performances have been presented on NJPAC's stages. It has the fourth largest arts education program in the nation, introducing children and their families to the joy of live performance, as well as in-school and community-based residencies and nationally-recognized arts training and scholarship programs.

NJPAC has recently embarked on the development of its 12-acre site as the centerpiece of a surrounding destination Cultural District. Two Center Street would be the first newly-constructed high-rise building in downtown Newark in four decades. A final selection of a development partner is scheduled for early 2007.

For press inquiries, please contact Jeffrey Norman at 973-297-5838 or [e-mail].