Nearly a century ago, someone picked up a pen and made a promise to Cincinnati.
Holding ArtsWave’s original 1927 pledge cards, Tim Spence could see those promises in the handwriting of people who helped build the arts community his own family enjoys today.
Now he is asking Cincinnati to make that promise again.
As chair of ArtsWave’s Second Century Campaign, the Chairman, CEO and President of Fifth Third Bancorp is leading an ambitious effort to grow ArtsWave’s endowment—and the lasting support it provides to arts organizations across the region. He has made a commitment of his own as an ArtsWave Visionary.
“We’re not running this campaign for 2027,” he says. “We’re running this campaign for the 2100s.”
For Tim, that future is rooted in something personal. With both parents working, he spent childhood afternoons in after-school arts programs and visited free museums. Those experiences expanded his sense of what was possible.
“The arts really opened up the world for me,” he says.
Years later, the arts helped draw his family to Cincinnati. They still help Fifth Third attract talent from much larger cities. And they bring generations of his family together: his children and father explored the Cincinnati Art Museum’s MAD Magazine exhibition side by side.
Tim’s banking experience gives him another reason to act. Arts organizations face rising costs, and annual giving can falter when the economy struggles. A stronger endowment provides ongoing support through those cycles, helping sustain today’s performances and programs while preserving resources for tomorrow.
“It doesn’t burn the seed corn for future generations,” he says.
Leading the campaign means inviting others to think beyond their own lifetimes, too. Through an endowment contribution or a planned gift, today’s donors can help shape the Cincinnati their grandchildren—and people they will never know—will call home.
“The challenge here is to think big and to decide who we want to be,” Tim says. “Now’s the moment to act.”