Six Years With the Olga Iglesias Project, and Five More to Come
Six years ago, the Annette Urso Rickel Foundation made its first grant to the Olga Iglesias Project, a San Juan nonprofit that keeps Puerto Rico’s classical music legacy alive through paid opportunities for emerging singers and educational recitals in the island’s public schools. That first grant, in 2021, was $2,500. This spring the Foundation made its most ambitious commitment to OIP yet: $20,000 a year through 2030, a five-year pledge worth $100,000 and the first multi-year commitment in the partnership’s history.
The pledge turns a year-by-year relationship into a guaranteed horizon, and it lets OIP make multi-year commitments of its own: to its artists in residence, to the schools that host its recitals, and to the preservation of the Olga Iglesias collection. By the end of the decade, the Foundation’s total investment in OIP will reach $185,000.
| Year | Rickel Foundation grant |
|---|---|
| 2021 | $2,500 |
| 2022 | $7,500 |
| 2023 | $15,000 |
| 2024 | $40,000 |
| 2025 | $20,000 |
| 2026–2030 (multi-year pledge) | $100,000 |
| Total by 2030 | $185,000 |
A letter from Anthony C. Guzmán, Founder and Executive Director of the Olga Iglesias Project
Anthony Guzmán sent the following letter to the friends and supporters of the Olga Iglesias Project. We share it here in full.
Dear friends,
In 2021, the Olga Iglesias Project received its first grant. It was $2,500, from the Annette Urso Rickel Foundation.
It was not a lot of money. But it arrived at the exact moment when a newborn organization needs someone from the outside to look at what it is doing and say that it is worth something.
With that $2,500 we paid singers. That was it. That was the entire program.
The following year it was $7,500. Then $15,000. Then $40,000. Then $20,000.
And this year, the sixth, the Foundation did something that really moved me. It committed $20,000 a year through 2030. One hundred thousand dollars. A five-year horizon.
With their support, we stopped planning from January to December and started planning from decade to decade.
The 92 school visits I wrote to you about two weeks ago did not come out of nowhere. Behind that list, year after year, was the Rickel Foundation.
There is a detail about this partnership that I find beautiful too. The Rickel Foundation is not a music foundation. Its work is focused on STEAM education, where the arts sit at the same table as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. They have supported Lincoln Center and MoMA. And they see us as part of that same equation. For them, the A is not a “nice to have”.
The Rickel Foundation’s early support is what opened every other door. When the National Endowment for the Humanities, Fundación Ángel Ramos, and the Fundación Puertorriqueña de las Humanidades sat down to evaluate our proposals, we already had a track record. The Rickel Foundation laid down a true foundation for OIP to thrive.
To Jay Rickel-Finnegan and to The Board of Directors of the Annette Urso Rickel Foundation, thank you. Thank you for the six years behind us, and thank you for the five ahead.
With gratitude,
Anthony C. Guzmán
Founder and Executive Director, Olga Iglesias Project
“The Rickel Foundation’s early support is what opened every other door. When the National Endowment for the Humanities, Fundación Ángel Ramos, and the Fundación Puertorriqueña de las Humanidades sat down to evaluate our proposals, we already had a track record. The Rickel Foundation laid down a true foundation for OIP to thrive.”
Anthony C. Guzmán, Founder and Executive Director, Olga Iglesias Project
Read the full announcement of the five-year commitment on the Olga Iglesias Project’s website, or explore their work.