In 1972, as Vice Chair of the Board of Mercantile-Safe Deposit & Trust Company, Robert H. Levi already had a long history of investing his time and concern for Baltimore into civic pursuits, when he turned his attention to establishing a permanent philanthropic resource for Baltimore. Bob had a vision of bringing the then-nascent idea of a community foundation to Baltimore. Bob and his wife Ryda gave generously throughout the 1970s to help launch the model here, including creating the Ryda H. and Robert H. Levi Fund for the Performing Arts in 1979.
In May 1983, the Levis committed $500,000 to launch the Campaign for Philanthropy of the Community Foundation. Their pledge was conditioned upon the foundation having a net worth of $10 million before 1989, a goal which it met and surpassed. At the time, $10 million was generally considered the amount a community foundation needed to raise to accelerate growth and charitable giving.
Bob and Ryda’s daughter, Sandra Levi Gerstung, carries on the philanthropic legacy of her parents, along with her brothers. Sandi grew up in a home where her parents’ philanthropic efforts were just a part of life—the idea of taking responsibility for the community in which you live was simply natural to all the Levis.
Sandi herself served on the Baltimore Community Foundation Board of Trustees from 1994-2011. She recalls her time on the board fondly, when she served on the Committee for Arts & Culture among others. Sandi appreciated the community foundation providing staff resources to help donors determine how to make the most impact with their giving within their areas of interest.
At the time her father helped to launch the community foundation, Sandi recalls him telling her, “This is how Baltimore will be doing philanthropy.” She recalls him and other “visionaries for the city of Baltimore like Herbert Katzenberg”—another early champion of the community foundation model in Baltimore—determined to break down barriers and establish a permanent philanthropic endowment for the city, one that could adapt with the times to meet changing needs that, in some cases, could not possibly have been foreseen half a century ago.
As Sandi reminisced with BCF staff about her father’s legacy and BCF’s growth over the years, she issued a gentle challenge to us. The Baltimore Community Foundation must always continue to evolve and adapt, ready to inspire the next generation of leaders to invest in Baltimore, using this infrastructure that those early visionaries created and left as a legacy for us.
Sandi herself carries out this calling through her support for the arts, but recognizes that donors come to philanthropy with many different areas of interest and expertise. She would like to see more support for arts organizations of all sizes, from large performance venues to smaller more intimate theaters, and especially arts education for children, so that we continue to have vibrant museums, symphonies, and theaters in our city fifty years from now. Thinking about what we can do now that will reverberate positively decades from now—it’s a Levi family legacy.
