Earlier this year, LightHouse was honored to receive a donation of $3.3 million from the E. Matilda Ziegler Foundation to support three LightHouse programs: Little Learners, Enchanted Hills Camp and MAD Lab.

In 1907, Electa Matilda Ziegler took an interest in the education of the blind after her son became blind as a child. That year, she established a monthly Braille magazine for the blind and in 1929, she founded the Ziegler Foundation.

We had a wonderful conversation with Kelson Brighton, who is the great-great-granddaughter of Matilda Ziegler, to gain more background knowledge about the Ziegler Foundation and why they chose LightHouse for this transformational gift.

What attracted you to donating to LightHouse?

“In looking at which organizations to fund, we look at where we potentially have the most impact, and a bit of geographic stretch. The Ziegler Foundation was founded in New York State and has been focused on that region. In our effort to support more direct program work, we wanted to make sure we had a geographic reach outside the northeast.

“When we research organizations to fund, we look at how they use funding. We were really impressed by the way that LightHouse uses funding in its programming, and also the transparency. For us that was really exciting, because we wanted to make sure that we were supporting an organization that we felt really confident would steward the funds in a way that was as impactful and effective as possible.”

For many years, the Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind was the nucleus of the Ziegler Foundation. The magazine offered fiction, scientific articles, current events, instruction in handiwork, and occasionally, raised-line maps.

Jerry Kuns, a longtime volunteer, supporter, and donor at LightHouse, wrote about his experience reading the magazine.

“I was introduced to the Ziegler Magazine by a blind electrical engineer in the early 1970s. We spent many an evening reading and discussing content and wondering why it was so difficult for visually impaired people to be accepted in the mainstream of society. We enjoyed sharing our passion for reading together well into the 90s and introducing others to the remarkable zine. Of special interest were articles on what other blind people were doing for employment, which stimulated opportunities for other blind people to explore.”

By the 1990s, the Ziegler Foundation had shifted its focus to funding research, although the magazine remained in publication until 2014, providing more than 100 years of reading material for the blind, and sparking conversations between blind people worldwide. 

Kelson also elaborated on the future of the Ziegler Foundation.

We’ve heard the Ziegler Foundation will be closing its doors. What is the legacy the foundation would like to leave?

“The short answer is yes; we’re closing our doors. When the foundation started, the goal was to address an issue with accessibility for blind people to publications, to reading material and to information about events going on in the world.

“In the late 1990s, our focus shifted to funding research. At the same time, the Ziegler family had an acute awareness of the many incredible organizations like LightHouse, doing direct service work that impacts people’s lives.“

“So, in order to be the most impactful, the Ziegler Foundation turned to supporting organizations doing the amazing work directly with blind people. That’s the realization that happened for us: we could collaborate in that way and pass on a legacy. By donating to organizations like LightHouse, we’re able to reach folks in a way we could not have done alone.

“As the Ziegler Foundation wraps things up, it’s this idea of continuing the work of supporting blind people that’s most important. That is what we think about as we go through the process of donating to LightHouse and other organizations. Our donations are a testament to the work that we see happening across the country and in areas that need it the most.”

The $3.3 million gift the Ziegler Foundation has donated supports the following LightHouse programs:

• $1.1 million for Little Learners, our early intervention program to help children from birth to age three, who are blind, DeafBlind, or who have brain-based blindness.
• $1.1 million for Enchanted Hills Camp (EHC), our camp and retreat in Napa, CA, which among its activities, hosts blind and low vision campers from all over the world.
• $1.1 million for our Media and Accessible Design Lab (MAD Lab) which produces Braille signage, tactile maps, and media in a variety of alternate formats.

Hats off to the E. Matilda Ziegler Foundation for more than a century of amazing work to enrich the lives of blind people. All of us at LightHouse are deeply grateful for this truly transformational gift!