Herb Alpert Foundation

OVERVIEW: The Herb Alpert Foundation supports music, arts education and community organizations whose programs promote compassion and well-being.

IP TAKE: The Herb Alpert Foundation is highly selective in its grantmaking and tends to give to the same organizations year after year. Music education programs and venues that bear the Alpert name comprise a significant portion of its giving. Application is by invitation only, and this funder will not respond to unsolicited proposals. It will be difficult to gain Alpert’s attention, but innovative and equitable music education programs may stand a chance if they network or collaborate with the foundation’s more established grantees.

PROFILE: The Herb Alpert Foundation was established in 1988 by the legendary trumpet player and band leader Herb Alpert. His foundation “envisions a world where all young people are blessed with opportunities that allow them to reach their potential and lead productive and fulfilling lives.” It names three core giving areas in the arts: Arts Education, Focus on Jazz and Support to Professionals. The foundation also runs a Compassion and Well-being grantmaking program that funds human services for individuals and families in need.

Most of the Foundation's grantmaking takes the form of "seed monies to move innovative founders forward in their work, or as incremental support to a more established organization that is ready to take on activities at a new level of complexity or commitment." Grantmaking is national in scope, with a slight preference shown for organizations in California and New York.

Grants for Music and Arts Education

Taking a multi-thronged approach, the Herb Alpert Foundation invests in music and arts education projects across a variety of programs. Though heavily invested in Jazz, this funder makes a range of grants related to music and arts education.

  • The Herb Alpert Foundation’s Focus on Jazz program “aims to help educate children about the beauty of this uniquely American art form.” Areas of interest include jazz history, jazz education and appreciation, and “venues that keep the jazz audience growing.” Grantees include Los Angeles’s 18th Street Arts Center, the Jazz Education Network, the Thelonius Monk Institute of Jazz, the International Trumpet Guild and the radio station KJAZZ 88.1 of Long Beach, California.

  • The Support to Professionals program “provides unrestricted support to mid-career artists pushing the boundaries of their craft.”

    • Grantees for this program include the American Composers Orchestra and CalArt’s REDCAT, a multidisciplinary arts center located in the downtown area of Los Angeles.

    • A portion of funding from this program also goes to MusiCares and the Jazz Foundation, which “provide for human service needs of artists in the music industry.”

  • The foundation also funds the annual Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, “an unrestricted prize of $75,000 given annually to risk-taking mid-career artists working in the fields of dance, film/video, music, theatre and the visual arts.”

  • Grants for Arts Education aim to “ensure children of all backgrounds have early opportunities to encounter the arts in many forms and ways.” Support goes to programs at all levels of education and to community programs for vulnerable and at-risk children and youth.

    • Southern California is a clear geographic priority for this work.

    • Past arts education grantees include the Broad Stage of Santa Monica, the California Dance Institute, the Ghetto Film School and the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Composer Fellowship Program, among others.

Herb Alpert has also given back to the music community with a range of Legacy Gifts, which mainly consist of endowments for music schools around Southern California and beyond. These include Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA, the Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts, the Herb Alpert Music Center at Los Angeles City College and the Herb Alpert Center at the Harlem School of the Arts in New York City.

Grants for Housing, Economic Development and Humanitarian Relief

The Herb Alpert Foundation’s Compassion and Well-Being grantmaking works broadly to support “organizations that understand the importance of empathy and cooperation in our daily interactions with others and the positive effects inherent in restoring individuals’ and families’ abilities to stand independently.” The foundation names emergency relief and community development as priorities, as well as “the increasing need for compassion and respect for each others’ differences” and support for “individuals finding their sense of agency.”

Past grantees include the Library Foundation of Los Angeles, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Coalition for Engaged Education and California’s Chrysalis, a nonprofit “dedicated to creating a pathway to self-sufficiency for homeless and low-income individuals.”

Important Grant Details:

Grants are generally awarded in amounts of up $325,000, with named endowments receiving larger amounts on an ongoing basis.

  • According to its website, the foundation's grantees "run the gamut from small organizations working at the local level, perhaps in the earliest stages of their development, to larger and more mature organizations that may have a regional or even a national scope and perspective."

  • While the foundation shows some preference for organizations and institutions located in Los Angeles and Southern California, it distributes a degree of its funding nationally as well.

  • All grants are invitation only and the foundation does not respond to unsolicited proposals.

  • For additional information about the types of organizations this funder supports, see its grantees page.

The Herb Alpert Foundation does not provide a direct avenue for getting in touch, but its phone number is (818) 528-3545.

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