Marcia Thompson, 94, Ford Foundation Officer Who Helped Change The Way Arts Orgs Are Run And Financed

“The National Arts Stabilization Fund, a consortium of private and corporate philanthropies … , grew out of her collaboration, beginning in the late 1950s, with a Ford vice president, W. McNeil Lowry, to create incentives for symphonies, ballet companies, theaters and other arts groups to liquidate their deficits and build working capital reserves. The model’s disciplined, businesslike approach inspired Congress to subsidize the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities.”