Cà d'Zan is a house concert venue in Cambridge, IL dedicated to bringing top quality live music to guests of all ages in a comfortable setting.
02/23/2025
It's happening!
After years of dreaming, planning, and working toward financial sustainability, we recently received our first payout from the Crossroads Cultural Connections Endowment Fund. This means that our work isn’t just thriving—it’s becoming self-sustaining, just as we envisioned!
When we started Crossroads Cultural Connections, one of our biggest goals was to create a way for this work to continue indefinitely. It's one thing to do what we do for the here and now, but, if it can't continue beyond the lifetime of those currently involved, would we really make a lasting impact? That’s why setting up an endowment fund was one of our very first steps. At the beginning of 2024, we set an ambitious goal of raising $100,000 for our endowment fund. We got off to an amazing start, raising over $90,000, but then life threw us an exciting curveball—we had the opportunity to purchase and make the Bishop Hill Creative Commons a permanent physical location for the organization. With major updates like new siding, a new furnace and central air, and interior renovations needed, we decided to put raising funds for the endowment on the backburner and shifted our focus to these projects.
A couple of weeks ago, we got some incredible news: the first annual payout from our endowment fund was available! The amount was $6,634.84 and we had the option to either take this full amount as a payout, take a portion of this as a payout and reinvest the remainder, or reinvest the entire amount back into the endowment fund. We chose to take $3,500 to directly fund the 11 school programs that we did this month and reinvest the remainder. To put things in perspective, in total we did 12 school programs in 2024, and only two months into 2025 we have already done 11!
With the funding from the endowment, we were able to reach over 2,300 students, teachers, and staff at Stark County Elementary School, Visitation Catholic School - Kewanee, IL, Orion CUSD #223, Cambridge Unit School District 227, Oak Grove School District #68, Wethersfield District #230, Galva Elementary, Galva JR/SR High School, and Bureau Valley High School. All at NO COST to the schools.
The programs featured Farmer Jason (of Jason and The Scorchers), Seán Dagher (a Quebec-based artist famous for his sea shanty recordings that are featured in Assassin's Creed Black flag), Morgan Myles (The Voice Season 22 runner-up), and Peterson Farm Bros (Popular for their farm-themed parody songs on YouTube).
This is just the beginning! This first payout helped us bring these incredible experiences to students, and it’s the first of many more to come. Every year, this fund will keep growing and providing reliable support, which will allow us to continue bringing world-class artists to our area for concerts and school programs FOREVER while simultaneously continuing to grow the capacity of the organization FOREVER.
This fund is our way of ensuring that generations to come will continue to experience the power of music, art, community, and culture. and we’re beyond grateful for every single one of you who has helped us get here.
If you'd like for this to be part of your legacy, I hope you'll consider donating and/or setting up a planned gift.
To donate by check:
Mail to Galesburg Community Foundation, 246 E. Main St., Suite 101, Galesburg, IL 61401 and write “Crossroads Cultural Connections Endowment” in the memo block.
For other donation options (real estate, securities, grain, life insurance, retirement assets, vehicles, etc.), including planned gifts, please call the Galesburg Community Foundation at (309) 344-8898 to arrange your gift.
The endowment fund is a long-term investment that provides steady, reliable funding year after year. Here’s how it works:
- 5% of the fund’s balance is eligible to be paid out annually.
- The remaining interest is reinvested towards the principal.
- Over time, the fund will keep growing while continuously supporting our mission.
To put it into perspective—if we hit our $100,000 goal and never added another dollar, assuming an 8% annual return, in 50 years the principal of the fund could grow to $250,000 while paying out nearly $500,000 over that time.
THANK YOU!!!
