The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts has received a $10 million commitment from David M. Rubenstein in support of civic engagement initiatives, Forbes reports.

The gift from the co-founder of private equity giant Carlyle Group, who gave $10 million in 2009 for the center's renovation project, will fund expanded programming in the David Rubenstein Atrium beyond free weekly performances and the continuation of activities begun during the COVID-19 pandemic, ranging from food drives to citizenship classes for prospective Americans.

Since the atrium opened to the public in 2009, it has put on nearly a thousand performances by artists from ninety-eight countries, attracting more than 3.5 million visitors. When the pandemic forced the city to largely shut down, the center pivoted to work with institutions such as the Food Bank for New York City and the Weeksville Heritage Center, which works to preserve the historic Black district of Weeksville in Brooklyn. The atrium also served as a polling place for the November 2020 election, hosted efforts to convince New Yorkers to complete the census, and held a naturalization ceremony for two hundred new citizens.

"Before COVID, 63 percent of the audiences and the performers in the space were people of color, so it was welcoming artists from all around New York and around the world," said Lincoln Center president and CEO Henry Timms. "And then COVID came along. We've done things in civic engagement that we've really never done before. As we come out of the pandemic, what we're really trying to do with the atrium and with this gift is a deeper commitment to the overlap of the arts and civic life."

"It turns out that after ten years, the atrium has worked out much better than anybody originally thought. Pre-COVID it was very popular, post-COVID it will no doubt be popular again," Rubenstein told Forbes. "People like it as a gathering area, but more significantly, the Lincoln Center wants to use it much more for things that are democracy-related, for citizenship ceremonies and for educating people about their rights....The events of the recent election and the post-election trauma [have] helped remind everybody, including me, about the sanctity of voting and the importance of having real democracy. Because [the Lincoln Center] gathers people together, it's also a very good place to educate people about the most important principles behind our democracy."

(Photo credit: Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts)