Become a Founding Member of the Athenaeum.
At the Athenaeum Center for Thought and Culture, we are committed to thoughtfully and joyfully engaging the community, creating and promoting beauty in its diversity of forms, and inspiring people to seek answers to life’s deepest questions.
Our donors are visionaries, men and women who believe that this initiative will bear fruit over many decades to come, playing a central role in the artistic and civic life of Chicago and beyond.
The Athenaeum Center is committed to bringing more art and more beauty into the world because we think these things make human life richer. Beauty moves the whole human person, connects us with others who are sharing the experience, and brings us to greater knowledge of reality.
Beauty is the visible form of the good.
—JPII
Join the Founder’s Club
The Founder’s Club is a limited time, exclusive membership that will continue in perpetuity. The minimum donation to join the Founder’s Club is $5,000 and is only available during our inaugural period. The Athenaeum Center for Thought & Culture is a 501(3)c organization. All charitable contributions made are tax deductible.
As a founding member, you will play a pivotal role in building something beautiful for our community and the world.
Membership is open through 2025.
Benefits
scruton circle
$5,000
- Merchandise and concession discounts
- Exclusive Founder’s Club Events
- Founder recognition in perpetuity
Dante Circle
$10,000
- Merchandise and concession discounts
- Exclusive Founder’s Club Events
- Founder recognition in perpetuity
- Free drink tickets at ACTC events
- VIP invitations with artists
Sheen Circle
$25,000
- Merchandise and concession discounts
- Exclusive Founder’s Club Events
- Founder recognition in perpetuity
- Free drink tickets at ACTC events
- VIP invitations with artists
- Support for particular programming
How your support will make a difference
- Directly fund the curation of performances and events that will help people pursue the beautiful, the true, the good, and the interesting.
- Key Restoration & Renovation efforts: we believe that places matter and our space should reflect our mission of inviting people to encounter beauty.
- Improving accessibility
- Help support our operations
Beauty is vanishing from our world because we live as though it did not matter. —roger scruton
Join a community of people who are living as if it did.
Sheen Circle
Michael and Lois Harring
Charles and Ellen Mulaney
Noel and Michele Moore
St. Alphonsus Parish
Jim and Molly Perry
Michael Errin Rios
Ted and Sally Smith
Dante Circle
Erwin and Nancy Aulis
Sally Blount
Mike Cunningham
Ben and Erin Gilfillan
Kenneth and Barbara Kaufman
Mike and Lynda Mooney
Dennis and Laura Quaid
Christopher and Sandi Ryland Family
Peter and Carol Tomaselli
Mark and Rita Tresnowski
Linda Weaver
Scruton Circle
Anonymous (2)
Matthew Daniel Binder
Thomas C. Borders
Franz and Melia Berkemeier
Henry Berkemeier
Thomas Brusstar and Susan Hasegawa
David Cavicke
Joe and Maggie Carrozza
Alietia Caughron
John and Elizabeth Cusack
Thomas and Anne Donnelly
Patrick and Jenny Nicole Fisher
Matthew and Mary Eileen Gaudette
David and Susan Geiselhart
Mary Lou Gorno
Monica Herron
Jordan and Molly Hill
Fr. Rocky Hoffman
Gabrielle Jastrebski
Don and Dorsey Jastrebski
Brendan Jubulis
James J. and Mary F. Keil
Thomas and Emily Kelly
Claire Anastasia Kitz
Taylor and Marisa Luiso
Evan and Alex Lutomski
Neal and Susanne McNamara
John Paul and Lauren Mulhern
William and Melanie O’Hara
Matthew and Anna Paprocki
Neal and Jennifer Reenan
Mark and Eleanor Schneider
Brian and Lytle Smith
Joseph and Mary Clare Starshak
Dan Stokes
Kristofer Swanson
Matthew Tully
Christopher Villanueva
William and Meg Weicher
Richard and Eileen Weicher
Hunter and Timi Williams
