The 500, Inc.'s name stems from its very first fundraising campaign in 1965. Setting out to raise $5,000 for the Dallas Civic Opera, founder Polly Lou Moore convinced 500 individuals to each donate $10. It took only three months to collect every dollar. Since then, The 500, Inc. has aided more than 40 of the area's visual-, theatrical-, and musical-arts organizations by raising more than $12 million in donations and countless hours of volunteer support—all helping to honor the legacy of those first 500 mustaches doodled over Alexander Hamilton’s portrait.