Support the Children’s Orchestra Society

No child has been turned away for money since 1962.

The only requirement for membership has always been a desire to learn music. Fees are set below what it actually costs to teach a child, and tuition and ticket sales cover only part of the year. Donors cover the rest. That gap is deliberate, and it has been there since 1962.

Give now

See all the ways to give

A student mid-performance · the reason any of this is funded

Where the money goes

A program built to be affordable, on purpose.

Tuition runs from $485 for musicianship classes to $1,400 for full orchestra membership. That is well under comparable programs, and under what the teaching actually costs. Underneath it sits a scholarship program for families who need one. Donations and grants make up the difference every year.

1962

Founded in New York City by Dr. Hiao-Tsiun Ma

$2,500

The entire capital COS was rebuilt on in 1984, with 18 students

673

Students whose outcomes COS tracked between 1984 and 2025

100%

Of those graduates went on to college, a quarter of them to Ivy League schools

Outcome figures are drawn from COS’s own tracking of 673 program participants between 1984 and 2025.

Direct your gift

Four ways to put a gift to work.

Each fund below protects the same promise from a different angle. If you would rather COS decide where the need is sharpest, pick the last one.

Scholarship Fund

Closes the gap between what a family can pay and what a seat actually costs, so a child’s place never depends on their parents’ finances.

Support scholarships

Tour & Performance Fund

Puts young musicians on real stages: Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, and in July 2025 a three-week tour across the Philippines and Taiwan.

Support touring

Endowment

The Million Dollar Endowment Fund exists so scholarships outlive any single good year. The principal stays invested and the income pays for access.

Support the endowment

Where it’s needed most

An unrestricted gift lets COS move money to whichever child, tour, or instrument repair needs it first.

Give to the general fund

However suits you

Give once, or give every month.

Monthly giving helps most, because COS can budget a season around money it knows is coming. Gifts also arrive as tributes, through employer matching, from donor-advised funds, and in wills.

One-time

Monthly

Tribute & memorial

Employer matching

Stock & securities

Donor-advised fund

IRA distribution

Bequest

See how each one works

TRANSFER DETAILS NEEDED

Stock, donor-advised fund, and IRA gifts cannot be explained on the Ways to Give page until COS supplies its EIN, brokerage firm, account and DTC numbers, and the exact legal name to use for bequests.

Institutional support

Foundations and businesses that keep the doors open.

COS operations are sustained in part by the Gail Alvarez Foundation, the Franklin Family Foundation, Kolstein Music Company, the Reginald Lewis Foundation, the P.L.U.S. Charitable Trust, the Syosset Woodbury Chamber of Commerce, and the Herbert Wolfe Foundation.

Meet the partners

Wide · full orchestra on stage, every seat filled

The next child through the door needs what every child before them needed.

A part written for them, a stand to sit at, and somebody who already paid the difference.

Give now

PHOTOGRAPHY NEEDED

This page carries no imagery yet. It needs three authentic COS photographs: a wide shot of a full rehearsal taken from behind the last stand, a close portrait of one student mid-phrase, and a donor or board member with students at a concert. No stock photography.

A student mid-performance · the reason any of this is funded