Barbara's Thoughtful Blended Gift Ensures That Young Artists Continue to Delight Future Audiences

Blended Gift Provides Support Now and in the Future

As a San Francisco Symphony board member since 1979, Barbara Brookins-Schneider has played a major role in the Symphony's past and present. Through a blended gift, she'll also have a hand in the Symphony's future.

Barbara first contributed to the Symphony's funds in the early 1970s when a friend brought her to an event teaching volunteers how to cold call donors on behalf of the Symphony. Barbara went on to be the top volunteer fundraiser for the next five years and then joined the board.

As a board member, she continued to raise money, motivated by what the Symphony offered in return.

"I think when you're sitting in the Hall as a patron listening to the music, you have the opportunity to refresh and reflect," she says. "I find that very comforting, almost therapeutic."

Creating Lasting Support
Barbara decided in the late 1990s to leave the remainder of her estate to the Symphony. Symphony staff advised her to create a blended gift. She established and gave an immediate gift to a named fund within the Symphony's endowment and has directed her estate gift to that endowment fund. The Barbara Brookins Young Artists Fund provides resources for young artists to appear on the Symphony stage each year.

"The nice thing about a blended fund is that you have the ability to keep adding to it. It goes directly to your area of interest—to your passion where you want the money to be used," Barbara says.

Not only was creating the gift extraordinarily easy, but Barbara says she has also been impressed with the Symphony's management of the endowment, which is high praise from a former securities professional.
"They've done a wonderful job," she says. "The market has changed, and the endowment has learned from those changes and done very well."

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