Giving Compass' Take:

• Josh Groban sheds some light on the importance of arts education to him personally as well as it's relevance to his foundation. 

• How wide-reaching is celebrity-influenced philanthropy?

• Read about the need for transparency in foundations as philanthropy becomes more and more popular. 

Josh Groban—a musician, actor, and producer himself—is no stranger to evangelizing for the arts. In fact, on May 19th his Find Your Light Foundation, which supports arts education across the country, will hold its third annual gala to raise awareness and funds for dozens of groups Groban and his foundation support.

Here, the Tony- and Grammy-Award nominee shares how he found himself running a foundation, why it’s become so important to him, and the one thing he hopes he won’t have to do on that Tony Awards show stage.

What made you decide to start Find Your Light and run your own foundation instead of working with an already established charity?

It started with an unexpected donation from fans. I was doing a concert at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles, and some fans came to the front of the stage and stopped the show for a second. They had a jumbo check in their hands and said, “we’ve collected autographs of yours and put them on eBay and we want to give the money back to you to form a foundation.”

How did it then become Find Your Light?

Together we raised over $1 million, but a little bit was going to a lot of places so we were never making a huge impact in any one world. I realized that I had an arts-education background and that the arts saved my life and it was apparent this was my silver bullet; I made the conscious decision that I would still give to all those other organizations but that my foundation would have more focus.

Read the full interview about Find Your Light Foundation by Adam Rathe at Town & Country