RISD Receives Its Largest Gift Ever
$19.9 million gift from the Rayon Foundation Trust supports innovations in textiles.
The Rayon Foundation Trust gift contributed to RISD’s most successful fundraising year ever, with a total of $30.6 million raised during fiscal year 2018/19, which ended on June 30.
In 1944, with an initial gift of $100, Royal Little established the Rayon Foundation Trust to support the study of textiles at RISD. Since that time, the college has received over $7.3 million in quarterly distributions that have benefited RISD’s Textiles department. When the Trust was realized, its value had grown to $19.9 million and now stands as the largest single gift in RISD’s history. This cumulative $28 million investment represents one of the most generous gifts by an individual to an art and design school.
"This gift provides an enormous lift to our efforts to deliver a world-class art and design education to our students,” says President Rosanne Somerson 76 ID. His remarkable gift now makes it possible for RISD to offer “a truly unmatched program in Textiles,” Somerson adds. “These funds will support experimentation with new materials, technologies and methods to design and create fine art and the development of innovative fabrics that have applications for industry, science and improving people’s lives.”
