Time is ticking as Dogwood Festival seeks $179K more to survive in 2026
With three weeks until a self-imposed deadline, the Dogwood Festival is well short of its goal of $250,000 to survive.
Organizers said the free, three-day fine arts festival at Piedmont Park has been running annual deficits since the COVID-19 pandemic forced them to cancel the 2020 event. Since then, costs across the board have gone up sharply while the event’s primary source of income ― corporate sponsorship money ― has gone down.
Brian Hill, the festival’s executive director, said the nonprofit organization has exhausted its reserve funds, leading to this precarious situation. Without more financial support, the April 2026 event, which has drawn 200,000 people a year in the past, will not happen.
As of mid-afternoon Thursday, the Dogwood Festival has raised $71,149.20 from 267 donors. That means it remains nearly $180,000 shy of its fundraising goal.
Hill said the festival is chasing several corporate, foundation and individual leads.
“I stay positive,” he said. “I believe we can save it. I believe the people of Atlanta will come through.”
The Dogwood Festival identified unspecified but sizable donations from philanthropist Deen Day Sanders and The Rich’s Foundation, a nonprofit group that emanated from the now-defunct Rich’s department stores, which were dissolved by Macy’s in 2005.
Hill is also in talks with the City of Atlanta to allow the Dogwood Festival to begin charging a nominal fee next year after being free for decades. The free model, Hill said, has become more challenging as more corporate money has moved to digital marketing.
“We don’t want to have to do this (save-the-festival fundraising) again,” he said.
The original Dogwood Festival debuted in 1936 with help from Walter Rich, founder of the Rich’s department store, but went dormant in the 1940s.
Some version of the festival has been running continuously since it was revived in 1968. Piedmont Park became its sole home in the early 1990s except for drought-ridden 2008, when it temporarily decamped to the Lenox Square mall parking lot.
Hill said the Nov. 1 deadline is necessary so the festival can tell the 250 art vendors whether to commit to the April event.
According to the 990 financial form it files annually to the federal government, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2024, the festival generated $903,466 in revenues with expenses of $977,109, resulting in a deficit of $73,643.
About the Author
Rodney Ho writes about entertainment for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution including TV, radio, film, comedy and all things in between. A native New Yorker, he has covered education at The Virginian-Pilot, small business for The Wall Street Journal and a host of beats at the AJC over 20-plus years. He loves tennis, pop culture & seeing live events.
