The Philanthropy 50 2009 Gift Profile: Louise Dieterle Nippert
February 7, 2010 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Louise Dieterle Nippert: $185-million
Beneficiary: Greenacres Foundation
Donor’s background: Mrs. Nippert’s fortune derives primarily from Procter & Gamble stock. Her late husband, Louis B. Nippert, was the great-grandson of James A. Gamble, a co-founder of the household- and personal-products company, in Cincinnati. She and Mr. Nippert were also principal owners of the Cincinnati Reds baseball team in the 1970s; Mrs. Nippert remains a minority owner of the team today.
Mrs. Nippert, 98, gave $185-million in stock to the Greenacres Foundation, in Cincinnati, which she and Mr. Nippert established in 1988, converting their estate and gardens into a cultural and environmental-education center. Mr. Nippert, a lawyer, died in 1992.
Of the total she gave to her foundation, Mrs. Nippert earmarked $100-million to endow the foundation’s programs, and $85-million to establish the Louise Dieterle Nippert Musical Arts Fund, which will support classical music in Cincinnati.
The fund will distribute money annually to three arts groups. The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra will receive 75 percent, approximately $3-million a year, so that it can maintain its size of approximately 90 musicians, and its full 52-week performing season. The Cincinnati Opera will receive 12 percent, about $500,000 a year; and the Cincinnati Ballet will receive 5 percent, roughly $200,000 a year from the fund. The annual payments to the ballet and opera companies are solely to ensure that both can afford to hire the orchestra for performances, and that the ballet company can continue to use the city’s Music Hall as its home theater.
The remaining 8 percent will support other arts groups in the Cincinnati area that promote classical music.
The Greenacres Foundation held $28.2-million in assets in 2008, according to its tax filings. This new infusion of money pushes the organization’s assets to more than $213-million.
Mrs. Nippert grew up in Cincinnati and graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1934. A trained singer, she studied voice and piano at the university’s College-Conservatory of Music, and performed with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in 1957.
—Maria Di Mento
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