The Martha & John M. Rivers Performance Hall Foundation was established with the general purpose of improving the nonprofit and public performing arts venues, theaters, and halls in and around Charleston, South Carolina; and to aid, support, promote, develop, maintain and manage educational programs and performances focused on the arts.

foundation history

In partnership with the City of Charleston, the Foundation’s first effort was to help secure half the funding of the $142-million re-construction of the Charleston Gaillard Center and its world-class Martha & John M. Rivers Performance Hall.

As a parallel initiative, the Foundation designated a fund specifically contributed by donors whose objective was to ensure meaningful opportunities for children of the Lowcountry to be exposed to the performing arts through their education. This Future Founders initiative sought to curate performing arts programming that would be age-specific and effectively integrated with Lowcountry school district curricula and South Carolina Department of Education statewide standards.

On October 18, 2015, the Gaillard Center’s Grand Opening Gala and the Inaugural Concert of the Martha & John M. Rivers Performance Hall, featuring Yo-Yo Ma and the Charleston Symphony, celebrated the momentous campaign effort, thanks to the generosity of the Charleston community with support from across the region and the nation.

In 2021, the Foundation created the Rivers Endowment for the Performing Arts and Education (“Rivers Endowment”) to empower the community’s permanent protection of its initial investment in the facility, and to secure ongoing and everlasting support that promotes philanthropy within and around the Charleston Gaillard Center: specifically the Martha & John M. Rivers Performance Hall, its resident arts organizations, and the world-class artistic performances and educational programs made possible by its existence.