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| Feature |
Urban Champions
Elizabeth Harris and Emily DeNitto
05/01/2007
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Richard Driehaus reinvigorates the Second City one
neighborhood at a time.
Richard Driehaus was a
middle-class kid growing up in the 1950s on Chicago’s South Side when his father
commissioned an architect to design a home for a small plot of land he owned
nearby. "I remember how exciting it was to look at the plans and imagine what it
would be like," Driehaus says.
 | | (Photograph by Richard Cahan.) |
The blueprints weren’t extravagant. But his father, a The blueprints weren’t extravagant. But his father, a
mechanical engineer who earned $10,700 a year, never could scrape together
enough money to build the home. The experience helped form the man Driehaus
would become: one aware of the potential beauty of urban environments—and one
determined to earn enough to keep his dreams from being deferred.
Driehaus has succeeded on both counts. The investment business
he founded in 1982, Driehaus Capital Management, has some $3.7 billion under
management; he also runs Driehaus Securities, a company started in 1979. In the
mid-1980s, he created the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation with seed capital of
$3.7 million. Today, the foundation holds nearly $70 million and has given away
close to $25 million; it distributes about $3 million a year. Two charitable
lead trusts grant another $3 million each year. Most of his philanthropy targets
the city he loves. "This is where I was born and raised," he says. "I can make
an impact here, an impact I could never have in, say, New York."
Driehaus has thrown himself into the New Millennium Park
project,
for example. Mayor Richard M. Daley conceived the idea to extend
Grant Park, along Lake Michigan’s shore, and enlisted leading businesspeople to
fund the project. The resulting 24.5 acres of parkland and cultural facilities
opened in 2004 to rave reviews.
‘‘ I can make an impact here, an impact I could never have in, say, New York.’’ |
To find a designer for the three-acre garden in the park,
Driehaus sponsored a competition at a cost of about $250,000. He also gave $1
million for photography exhibits in the park.
Most of Driehaus’ giving, however, focuses on
neighborhood-based initiatives where a relatively small amount of money can make
a large impact. He has given a combined $2.5 million to his alma maters, along
with dozens of smaller grants for economic development, such as his recent gift
of $25,000 for the Center for Economic Progress to fund a program to help the
working poor receive earned income tax credits. He also provided $1 million for
the renovation of Old St. Patrick’s, one of Chicago’s oldest churches. "Richard
wouldn’t say this, but he has become a major civic leader in the city, counted
on by many," Sunny Fischer, executive director of his foundation, says.
The MacArthur Fund, impressed by the foundation’s arts efforts,
gave $700,000 toward the cause, to be administered by the Driehaus Foundation.
MacArthur executives appreciated his support of smaller arts and culture groups
and theater and dance companies that often work in poor and underserved
communities.
Much of Driehaus’ strategy relies on integrating business
forces, government and public-interest groups. He remains frustrated that he
sometimes fails to find a way to bridge the three occasionally contentious
factions. His foundation created a contest to design two public schools for
severely handicapped students, but the city has
yet to break ground because
of budgetary and philosophical differences between city and state funders.
Driehaus has enjoyed more success with designs for public housing. Planners are
using elements of the foundation’s public housing design competition in a
project underway in the Roosevelt Square area.
Driehaus finds the greatest satisfaction in his philanthropic
work when all the city’s forces come together to surpass the power of its parts.
"Millennium Park was a great success in that sense," he says. "It’s an example
of how politicians can encourage growth and development in a way that puts the
city back on the map." Noting that his contest brought forward a design that
another donor implemented, and that the park itself inspired the development and
renovation of many surrounding buildings, Driehaus says the Millennium Park
project shows how the best efforts take on a life of their own. Harkening back
to the thoughts of the 17th-century British architect Christopher Wren, he
notes, "Architecture strives for the everlasting."
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