The Greater Columbus Arts Council (GCAC) set out to demonstrate the importance of endowment funding for the arts and to encourage donors to create and/or strengthen endowments held by arts organizations and community foundations. GCAC retained Benefactor Group to conduct benchmarking research—comparing Columbus with six other cities—and to develop a compelling case for building stronger arts endowments. The study was published in September 2005 and is being used to strengthen endowment-building strategies among local arts organizations. Benefactor was then engaged to assist with strategic planning and, more recently, has created a development plan and helped to restructure the organization.