Who Was Bella Worn?

Can you imagine growing up where the Marin Art & Garden Center is now? Isabella Worn did just that, and went on to become a floral and garden designer who worked on some of California’s most memorable projects of the early 20th century. She oversaw the planting of the gardens at Filoli in Woodside and for many years supervised their maintenance; she was also hired by William Randolph Hearst to work on his gardens at San Simeon.

Thomas Ross Perry, Vice President of the MAGC Board of Trustees, is a descendent of the Worn family himself, and his article on his great aunt Bella Worn was published in Eden, the Journal of the California Garden & Landscape History Society. Download a copy of his article here, and get to know more about the CGLHS, an interdisciplinary group that celebrates the beauty and diversity of California’s historic gardens and landscapes. You may recall that the organization held its annual meeting here at Marin Art and Garden Center a few years ago.

 

 

Bella in the garden

More to explore

IRS Guidelines for Gifts from Donor Advised Funds to Support MAGC Events

Thank you for your interest in giving to the Marin Art & Garden Center events from your Donor Advised Fund (DAF) or Family Foundation.

We sincerely appreciate your generosity and support!

To ensure your gift follows the current IRS guidelines for DAF/Family Foundation support of an event, we would like to share the below guidelines with you.

  • Raffle tickets, tickets to galas and other special events, auction items, and benefits conferred in connection with a DAF/foundation grant are not permitted.
    • IRS has specifically ruled that fair market value associated with fundraising events cannot be separated, a practice known as “bifurcation.”
      • For example, with Edible Garden, if the price of the ticket is $200 and the FMV fair market value (non-tax-deductible amount) is designated to be $50, the donor must pay from sources other than her DAF/foundation for the full value of the ticket ($200) and not just for the non-tax-deductible amount ($50).
    • We recommend you confer with your financial advisor to confirm if any of these examples of how donors may still use their DAF to support an event would work for you:
      • A donor could sponsor the event, and not attend, and pay fully out of the DAF/foundation.
      • A donor could sponsor the event using DAF/foundation funds and attend by purchasing an individual ticket through non-DAF/foundation funds.
      • A donor could sponsor the event, join the event as a guest of another donor/table guest, and pay fully out of the DAF/foundation.
      • A donor could sponsor the event and host the afforded number of people at their chosen level as long as they pay for the seats at the lowest ticket price ($200 for Edible Garden) outside of their DAF.
        • As an example, a $1,500 sponsor that covers 2 guests, could pay for their sponsorship with $400 from a different source of funds, and then give an additional gift of $1,100 out of their DAF.

 

Please email Tod Thorpe, Director of Development at tod.thorpe@maringarden.org to discuss your gift to Marin Art and Garden Center