As Tipitina’s prepares to embark on a year of events to commemorate the iconic music venue’s 50th anniversary, its owners are rebranding the club’s charitable foundation to better reflect its mission of promoting New Orleans music, culture and heritage.
The Tip-It Foundation, as the nonprofit has been known for the past several years, will now be called by a more familiar name — the Tipitina’s Foundation.
The rebranding comes eight years after the Uptown club was purchased by members of the local funk band Galactic, who chose a different name for the nonprofit to avoid its association with a charity whose founder was accused of funneling its funds into his own businesses.
“We purposefully changed the name to Tip-It Foundation just to really set some distance between us and the previous Tipitina’s Foundation,” said Galactic bassist and Tipitina’s co-owner Rob Mercurio. “We tested the waters and decided that it was time to kind of relaunch it and go back to the Tipitina’s Foundation name, because of name recognition alone.”
Von Kurnatowski, a real estate investor and the third owner of the historic club at Napoleon Avenue and Tchoupitoulas Street, had established the foundation in 2003. Over the years, it donated thousands of instruments to marching bands, established music co-ops and funded an internship program through charitable contributions and profits from the club.
But the foundation collapsed around the time Von Kurnatowski sold the club to Galactic, amid questions over the developer’s use of its funds. Von Kurnatowski, who died in a 2019 hunting accident, was never charged with wrongdoing.
In the meantime, Galactic had established the Tip-It Foundation to carry on the mission of the earlier nonprofit. The band’s new foundation, operated as a donor-advised fund, was a completely separate legal entity from the original with its own assets.
Recently, the band’s attorney advised them that the original foundation had lapsed, clearing the way to reclaim the name.
Back to the roots
The change comes as Galactic members are focusing more on the nonprofit, which today is managed by the New York-based Music’s Promise. The band transferred the foundation’s $74,000 in assets to Music’s Promise in 2024. That led to more active programming, including a Stevie Wonder tribute concert that raised $30,000 for local nonprofits Youth Empowerment Project, MiNO Foundation and Roots of Music.
“When we first took over the business, taking over the foundation at the same time seemed kind of daunting. We really just wanted to focus on getting the business going.” Mercurio said. “I think that we feel like we’ve had enough time. The business is going well, and now it’s time to try to get the foundation going.”
Members of Galactic meet with Tipitina’s staffers on Monday, December 3, 2018, in an office at the club. The band closed on a deal to purchase the club three days earlier.
By CHRIS GRANGER | Staff photographer
The change, announced Sept. 4, comes ahead of Tipitina’s 50th anniversary year and coincides with a shift from more passive fundraising and grantmaking to more active programming.
That starts with an Oct. 2 benefit concert with teen piano phenom River Eckert and a cavalcade of guest stars.
Also, production has begun on a feature-length documentary about the venue’s first 50 years, which is expected to be released in October 2027.
And the foundation is launching a series of free monthly master classes pairing young musicians with experienced professionals, starting with Galactic next month, followed by Anders Osborne and George Porter Jr. later this year. Mercurio said the Sunday Youth Music Labs are especially meaningful to the band.
“It’s something similar to what the previous foundation was doing. Our drummer, Stanton (Moore), had gone to it as a child, and it had a big impact on him. The drummer and guitar player from the Revivalists met at one of our Sunday workshops,” Mercurio said. “We’ve all partaken in it as professional musicians.”