Key Takeaways
- Natalie Cole’s legacy continues to thrive through her charitable foundation, which has donated over $1 million recently.
- Collaboration between the Natalie Cole Foundation and the Nat King Cole Foundation supports scholarships and various charities.
- Unique structure of the Natalie Cole Foundation ensures that 100% of funds go directly to charitable causes.
- Impact on arts education is significant, with initiatives aimed at providing music education to underserved children.
When Natalie Cole released Unforgettable … with Love in 1991, it became her most successful album to date. The covers project, featuring standards recorded by her late father, Nat King Cole, cemented Cole’s own legacy in the R&B/pop/jazz arena, going seven-times platinum and winning the Grammy Award for album of the year. It also spun off the father/daughter title track duet “Unforgettable,” which won three Grammys, including record of the year.
Thirty-five years later, Natalie Cole’s musical legacy is still having an unforgettable impact in other ways, by sustaining the Cole family’s commitment to giving back and paying it forward. The singer-songwriter’s foundation has donated more than $1 million during the last two years, funding scholarships and various charitable causes across the country and globally, including a community center in Costa Rica.
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Cole is once again duetting with her dad on the charitable front as well. Earlier this year, the Natalie Cole Foundation and the Nat King Cole Foundation joined forces to support certain scholarships and charities. Among those recipients are the Harlem School of the Arts, Berklee College of Music, Grammy Camp and Vienna Philharmonic Academy.
The younger Cole’s foundation stems from her death in 2015, as she dictated in her trust that her entire estate be transitioned into the nonprofit. As a result, every dollar from her estate earned through music royalties, SAG royalties, book royalties and other avenues goes to supporting the foundation’s charitable causes — a unique arrangement in the music industry, according to the foundation’s CEO, Howard Grossman.
“Unlike any foundation that is entertainment-derived that we know of — other than maybe the Louis Armstrong Foundation, which only services New Orleans — we are the only foundation of our type where 100% of the money goes to charity,” says Grossman.
Business management veteran Grossman (who retired last year as partner of Gelfand, Rennert & Feldman) was Natalie Cole’s business manager from the late ‘80s until her death. Appointed by Cole as executor of her estate, he became sole trustee after her son Robert Yancy died in 2017. As CEO of the Natalie Cole Foundation, which he set up, Grossman works in tandem with a board of directors to select the charities and organizations the foundation will support. Those board members include its CFO, Eduardo Pabellon (also with Gelfand, Rennert & Feldman); Seth Berg, co-manager of Frank Sinatra Enterprises, who also manages Natalie’s entertainment legacy (her recordings, videos, concerts, name, image and likeness) and Natalie’s former manager, Barbara Rose, and music attorney Michael Crain.
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“Our mission statement is to give to charities where we can make a profound difference,” says Grossman. “And we also gravitate to the arts because of Natalie’s involvement in the arts.”
Grossman cites the Bhatia Family Village in Los Angeles as one example of making a difference. Dedicated to serving adults 18+, the center — with a donation from the foundation — was able to build an assisted living facility for autistic individuals who have aged out of government assistance programs.
“If you’re on the spectrum,” says Grossman, “once you turn 18, you fall off the grid in terms of government help. This is what I mean by making a difference.”
Grossman further points out that the Natalie Cole Foundation has contributed funds to the TM23 Foundation to help build soccer fields for underprivileged kids in the Los Angeles area. Under the moniker Tommy’s Field — named for preteen soccer player Tommy Mark, who died unexpectedly in 2018 — the multipurpose sports fields are created to be safe spaces for local children and those with special needs. Two of the fields are in operation now; a third is currently being built.
The foundation also contributes to the David Foster Foundation. It was Foster, a musical collaborator and close friend of Natalie, who produced the Unforgettable album. Beyond the aforementioned Harlem School of the Arts and Grammy Camp, the foundation’s arts and education endeavors include teaming with the Playing for Change Foundation to fund a community center in Cahuita, Costa Rica. Recognized by the United Nations for its impact in aiding underserved children, the center teaches lessons in musical instruments, dance and voice and provides an after-school program.
Children being deprived of arts education in schools and programs owing to local and federal budget cuts is what spurred two more of Nat King Cole’s daughters — Natalie’s twin sisters, Casey and Timolin Cole — to establish Nat King Cole Generation Hope in 2008. Since its launch, the nonprofit organization has funded multiple music education programs in South Florida (where Casey and Timolin are based) and Chicago.
“We thought it would be an important and wonderful way to keep our father’s memory alive,” says Timolin. “Casey and I were never in the forefront. We’re not the singers or performers. So we like to be on this side of the aisle. We’ve proudly provided music education to thousands of children, carrying forward our father’s legacy of hope, harmony and opportunity.”
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“Нашата мисия е да дарим на благотворителни организации там където можем да направим дълбока разлика,” казва Гросман. “И ние също се стремим към изкуствата заради участието на Нейтли в изкуствата.”
Гросман цитира Бхатия Фамили Вилидж в Лос Анджелис като един пример за правене на разлика. Посветен на обслужването на възрастни над осемнадесет години центърът — с дарение от фондацията — успя да построи асистирана жилищна сграда за аутистични лица които са преминали на правителствени помощи програми.
“Ако сте на спектъра,” казва Гросман: “след като навършите осемнадесет години падате от мрежата по отношение на правителствена помощ. Това е какво имам предвид под правене на разлика.”
Гросман допълнително посочва че фондацията Нейтли Кол е допринесла средства за фондацията TM23 за изграждане на футболни игрища за деца от неимущи семейства в района на Лос Анджелис. Под името Полето на Томми — наречено на предучилищния футболист Томми Марк който почина неочаквано през две хиляди и осемнадесета година — многофункционалните спортни игрища са създадени да бъдат безопасни пространства за местните деца и тези с специални нужди. Две от игрищата вече работят; трето в момента се строи.
Фондацията също така допринася за фондацията Дейвид Фостър. Той беше Фостър музикален сътрудник и близък приятел на Нейтли който продуцира албума Unforgettable . Освен споменатото училище по изкуствата Харлем и Грами лагер фондацията в изкуствата и образованието включва сътрудничество с фондацията Playing for Change за финансиране на общностен център в Кахуита Коста Рика. Признат от Организацията на обединените нации за въздействието си при подпомагане на деца в неравностойно положение центърът предлага уроци по музикални инструменти танци и глас и предлага програма след училище.
Децата лишени от образование по изкуства в училищата и програмите поради местни и федерални бюджетни съкращения е това което подтикна две от дъщерите на Нат Кинг Кол — близначките сестри на Нейтли Кейси и Тимолин Кол — да основат надежда за поколението Нейтли Кол през две хиляди и осем година. От старта си неправителствената организация е финансирала множество програми за музикално образование в Южна Флорида (където Кейси и Тимолин са базирани) и Чикаго.
“Мислехме че ще бъде важен и чудесен начин да запазим паметта на баща си жива,” казва Тимолин. “Кейси и аз никога не бяхме напред в предната линия. Ние не сме певците или изпълнителите. Затова ни харесва да бъдем от тази страна на коридора. С гордост сме предоставили музикално образование на хиляди деца носейки напред наследството на баща ни надежда хармония и възможности.”
