The MacDowell Colony, Inc. (MacDowell) is a nonprofit corporation founded in 1907, which owns and operates an artist-in-residence program on its 450-acre tract in Peterborough. Its certificate of incorporation calls for MacDowell to promote fine arts; to encourage study, research and production of art; and to use the property as a “place for work and companionship of students in all the arts….” MacDowell maintains facilities on the property for the artists in the program, who are chosen on the basis of talent by panels of distinguished professionals. In 2005, 246 artists, including one New Hampshire resident, were selected from 1765 applicants.
MacDowell annually received a charitable exemption for the property until 2005, when the town denied the exemption on the ground that MacDowell is not a public charity meeting the requirements of RSA 72:23, V and RSA 72:23-l. RSA 72:23-l defines a charitable organization as one obliged “to perform some service of public good or welfare advancing the spiritual, physical, intellectual, social or economic well-being of the general public or a substantial and indefinite segment of the general public that includes residents of the state of New Hampshire…[.]”
The town argued that the select group of artists did not represent a substantial and indefinite segment of the general public and had too few New Hampshire residents. The Supreme Court, however, accepted MacDowell’s argument that promotion of the arts is a charitable purpose; that the artist-in-residence program promotes the arts; and that the general public is therefore benefited by the program. “The relevant inquiry is not whether the public … benefits from the organization’s property, but whether the public … benefits from the organization’s performance of its stated purpose.”
The town also claimed that MacDowell had no charitable obligation because it maintains complete discretion over who it admits to the program. The Court rejected this argument, as well, ruling that MacDowell’s charter requires it to promote the arts, and it has done so for a century through the artist-in-residence program.