The Ernest L. and Ruth W. Finley Foundation is awarding a $500,000 grant to Santa Rosa Symphony in support of the "For the Love of Music" Transformation Campaign. The grant is in memory of Evert B. Person, the late publisher of the Press Democrat, and a prominent philantropist who died in 2011 at age 96. The Finleys were founders of the newspaper, Person was their son-in-law.
The campaign is a three-year, $4 million drive to assist the 86-year-old orchestra's move and future operation in the Green Music Center. With the Finley grant, a $1 million gift from Donald and Maureen Green, and numerous major individual and corporate contributions, the drive — ending in June 2015 — is only about $350,000 away from its goal.