Chamber Music Maryland (CMM) has been selected as the Community Foundation of Howard County’s 2025 recipient of the Jean Moon Legacy Builder Award. The award will be presented to Chamber Music Maryland at the Foundation’s Annual Dinner & Celebration of Philanthropy on the evening of Tuesday, December 9. The event will be held in the Cameo Ballroom at Turf Valley Resort in Ellicott City, and will begin at 6 p.m.
The Jean Moon Legacy Builder Award promotes and celebrates efforts to strategically grow an endowed fund at the Community Foundation of Howard County. The award is named after Jean F. Moon, former chair of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees and co-founder of the Women’s Giving Circle of Howard County. A champion for endowments and building self-sustainability through philanthropy, Jean built a legacy of unwavering commitment and support to her community. The award includes a $2,500 grant from the Foundation to the endowed fund recipient.
Chamber Music Maryland is a Maryland-based concert presenter offering professional, world-class chamber music concerts, children’s programs, community outreach, master classes, and pre-concert lectures and discussions. Since its founding in 1972 as the Candlelight Concert Society, Chamber Music Maryland has presented the finest in chamber music. It is now ranked among the best professional series in the United States. Based in Columbia, Maryland, CMM has grown into a nationally recognized cultural institution.
The Community Foundation salutes Chamber Music Maryland for its continued effort to successfully grow its endowment. In 2022, Chamber Music Maryland established its endowment at the Community Foundation, and the organization has consistently promoted and encouraged gifts to its endowment ever since. Elsa Ponce, a long-time patron of CMM, set the table for Chamber Music Maryland to create its endowed fund with a sizable bequest to the arts nonprofit upon her passing in 2020. CMM is one of 30 local nonprofits that maintain endowment funds through the Community Foundation. These endowments invest a pool of assets for long-term sustainability and help an organization support its mission in perpetuity.
“We are pleased to recognize Chamber Music Maryland with the Jean Moon Legacy Builder Award for its steady efforts to secure its future and viability,” said Dan Flynn, the Community Foundation of Howard County’s director of development, marketing and communication. “It’s been a pleasure working with the CMM board and team to build its endowment fund at the Foundation.”
About Jean Moon
Jean F. Moon and her husband Bob Moon came to Columbia to work and raise a family in Jim Rouse’s new city. Bob was an architect for the Rouse Company. Jean was a reporter for the Columbia Flier. She rose to editor of the paper, and soon was a partner and general manager of all of the Flier’s parent company, Patuxent Publishing.
In the mid-1990s Jean went off on her own. As a consultant, lobbyist and behind-the-scenes strategist, she began a second career that includes working for more than 75 Howard County businesses, organizations and nonprofits. As a nonprofit consultant, she has helped raise vital funds that provide critical services to Howard County residents.
In addition to raising a family and taking care of her business, she always found time for her other passions – mostly the arts and giving back to her community. She co-founded HoCoPoLitSo in 1974 with two friends, Ellen Kennedy and Prudence Barry. She was a co-creator of the Columbia Festival of the Arts. Jean thought that if there was something worth doing this community would allow for it, and that Howard County fostered a culture that allowed for these opportunities to create life-enriching experiences.
She joined the board of the Community Foundation, and she served as chair of the Board of Trustees from 1989-90. As Board chair, she championed endowed funds and began the Foundation’s planned giving program. In 2002, she was one of the pioneering women who created the Women’s Giving Circle of Howard County under the umbrella of the Community Foundation. The giving circle utilizes shared values and collective giving to maximize philanthropic impact. Now nationally-recognized and one the Foundation’s largest and most active funds, the Women’s Giving Circle has made a consequential difference in the lives of women and girls in Howard County for more than 22 years. Now that’s a legacy.
Jean has also walked the walk with her own personal philanthropy. She and Bob created the Robert & Jean Moon Fund decades ago. It’s an unrestricted, endowed fund that will provide funds for the Foundation, and in turn for the community, in perpetuity. As a promoter and staunch believer of planned giving programs, she structured a gift that will provide long-term resources for both the Women’s Giving Circle endowment and the Robert & Jean Moon Fund endowment, further investing in our community for the long haul.
A true legacy.