Vying for Corporate Support

Across the country, arts groups turn to sponsorships and other tactics to win donations from companies

For the same ticket price as a movie,

teenagers and their parents can attend a show at Centerstage, in Baltimore, and mingle with the actors over dinner beforehand.

Two years ago, M&T Bank, which has its headquarters in Buffalo, N.Y., but also has branches in Baltimore, doubled its annual contribution to the theater to sponsor a series that encouraged teenagers to bring their parents to the theater. The bank’s $40,000 gift last year has contributed to a 70-percent increase in the theater’s corporate support over the last five years, to $582,800.

“There’s a lot of whining about corporate funding: ‘It’s going away, it’s less, it’s over, and it’s time to move on to individuals,’” says Michael Ross, the nonprofit theater’s managing director. “I don’t know if there are huge increases to come, but I’m not giving up yet.”

Neither are many of his colleagues around the country. Despite a gloomy report last May from Americans for the Arts, in Washington (The Chronicle, May 17), that said corporate giving to arts groups had plummeted 65 percent from 2000 to 2005, many such groups trumpet their success wooing corporate dollars.

However, most assert it takes a lot more effort to get those gifts than it did in the past. And many challenges remain in extracting support from companies, including coping with corporate mergers, shifting priorities in corporate-giving policies, and more competition from an ever-increasing number of nonprofit groups.

“There is only one Fortune 500 company here, and an incredibly large amount of arts groups,” says Keith Stava, managing director of the Virginia Stage Company, in Norfolk. “We are all fishing out of the same small pool.”

Still, the theater has increased its corporate support by $50,000 this year. “We are having successes because we had room to go,” says Mr. Stava. “The corporate-giving environment is tightening up.”

Extra Effort

Other arts leaders say there is money to be had, but the focus needs to shift from asking for philanthropic support to selling the arts group as a place to put marketing dollars.

Five years ago, the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra, in Minnesota, switched from what the group’s executive director, Andrew Berryhill, calls “mercy philanthropy: Give us your money or something bad will happen to us,” to telling companies, “Listen, I have an audience you want, let’s talk about your advertising budget.”

All the symphony’s concerts are now sponsored by businesses, and the group has increased its corporate support fivefold, to more than $100,000, he says.

Still, the new approach has its shortcomings: With each concert spoken for, room to grow is scarce. Mr. Berryhill has pitched some companies on sponsoring preconcert talks, at which several hundred people usually turn up, but says he hasn’t “had a bite yet.”

Sponsorships have also helped the Savannah Music Festival, in Georgia, increase its corporate giving by $100,000 in the last year, but the group had to put in extra effort to capture those dollars, says Rob Gibson, the group’s artistic and executive director. “If someone sends me a $50,000 check, I send a thank-you note and take them to lunch — it’s not that hard,” he says.

But following last year’s $35,000 donation from a local Mercedes-Benz dealership, officials at the arts group arranged for a Mercedes car to be displayed at the festival, introduced the sponsor at concerts, and organized a raffle with prizes donated by the dealership.

“All that takes work,” says Mr. Gibson, who leads a staff of nine people. “If I had my druthers, I would rather not do that, but if that’s what it takes to get great music to people, it’s a no-brainer.”

At the Speed Art Museum, in Louisville, Ky., corporate sponsorships are also on the rise, while gifts to its corporate annual fund, which can be used for any museum expense, have dropped by nearly half in the past five years, to $75,000, says Peter Morrin, the museum’s director.

The trend concerns him. “We don’t want to build doughnuts,” says Mr. Morrin. “We don’t want to have terrific funding for shows and then have to close certain galleries during the day because we can’t keep them open.”

The situation at the museum mirrors what Americans for the Arts found in its May report, which examined studies that showed the amount of general support corporations provide to cultural groups, not money given for sponsorships of particular events.

The move toward sponsorships and away from general support will adversely affect small arts groups, says Gary P. Steuer, vice president of private-sector affairs at Americans for the Arts.

“There’s a widening gap between the haves and the have-nots,” he says. “Smaller organizations without powerful boards or large professional staffs are finding it harder and harder to successfully operate in this new corporate environment.”

Board Recruitment

To compete for dollars, some small arts groups are actively recruiting more people from the business world onto their boards.

Of the 25 board members at the Chicago Sinfonietta, an orchestra that places an emphasis on diversity of its musicians, 17 have connections to a company, up from about a dozen two years ago, says Jim Hirsch, the group’s executive director.

The effort has paid off: A board member and senior vice president at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois helped the group secure gifts for each of the past two years and has pledged its support for next year. The company had not previously been a donor to the music group.

At Dallas Black Dance Theatre, any corporation that gives at least $5,000 is offered a spot for one of its employees on the group’s 50-person board. “We do not want your money if we do not have your voice,” says Zenetta S. Drew, the theater’s executive director.

While pursuing corporate dollars has been successful — the dance group receives nearly one-third of its $1.1-million budget from corporations — the group won’t take every gift.

“We don’t do things that deal with liquor or communicate endorsement of something that would be a detriment to society,” says Ms. Drew. “We know how to say no.”

Other arts groups have been roundly criticized for how they showed their appreciation to corporations that made big gifts. For example, a critic at The New York Observer wrote that the Roundabout Theatre Company, in New York, was “selling out to the highest bidder” after the group named its facility the American Airlines Theatre. The company provided $8.5-million to renovate the space.

The Berkeley Repertory Theatre, in California, is having a more difficult time than officials had anticipated raising money from companies, says Sara Fousekis, the theater’s director of development.

Among the challenges: The theater’s liaison at Bank of America, who helped secure its $15,000 grant last year, recently moved on, leaving the theater uncertain about future gifts.

“The contacts are changing for us constantly at corporations,” says Ms. Fousekis. “The timeline for developing a relationship with a corporation is anywhere between three months and a year. If someone leaves, you may lose a whole year of funding.”

Shifting Priorities

Next year, more arts groups might be searching for support, as a major corporate supporter of the arts, Altria, in New York, shifts its giving approach.

Beginning this year, the company ceded more control over charitable contributions to its operating companies, Philip Morris USA, in Richmond, Va., and Philip Morris International, in Lausanne, Switzerland. Both companies make grants to arts groups, but not with Altria’s depth and scope.

Of the arts groups that received Altria support in 2006, only 60 percent will receive a grant in 2007, says Lisa Gonzalez, a company spokeswoman.

Altria informed its grantees about two-and-a-half years ago of the impending changes and has organized several events for grantees, including Harlem Stage and El Museo del Barrio, both in New York, to introduce groups to potential new corporate supporters. In 2006, Altria gave $7.7-million to arts groups.

Altria officials have not yet determined how much the company will give away next year, but already some groups are prepared to weather a change. At the Brooklyn Academy of Music, in New York, $375,000 — its largest corporate grant — came from Altria last year.

“What we have always tried to do is make sure we are putting together the broadest base of support possible, so we can deal with these types of challenges,” says Lynn M. Stirrup, the group’s vice president of planning and development. “We’ve had six-figure sponsors drop away before: AT&T used to be in the $250,000 zone.”

Last year the phone company donated $10,000 to the academy. “You can’t live and die on a single sponsor,” she says.

Despite the uncertainty about Altria’s support, Ms. Stirrup says she feels “O.K.” about the arts group’s success in winning corporate support, which increased last year by about $300,000, to $3.5-million. She credits the region’s improving economy, as well as several new fund-raising efforts.

The academy successfully solicited at least $100,000 last year from a new donor, the credit-card company Visa, to sponsor a patron lounge and the production of Edward Scissorhands. (Ms. Stirrup declined to provide the precise sum provided by Visa.)

And the real-estate boom in the Brooklyn Academy’s neighborhood prompted it to seek support from building companies that wanted to offer perks to potential home buyers.

The academy encouraged companies to buy memberships that allowed people to get discounted or free tickets to movies at its cinema or a waiver on ticket-handling fees to its performances. One company purchased more than $7,000 in memberships, and the academy plans to approach several others.

“We have high hopes we’ll be able to see some good return on this, and make some good connections with new people,” says Ms. Stirrup.

American Express

In addition to the giving changes at Altria, in January another longtime corporate supporter of the arts, American Express, in New York, moved its grant-making focus away from general support of the arts to cultural-heritage projects, says Timothy J. McClimon, president of the company’s foundation.

Among the new grantees: The Film Foundation, in Los Angeles, received $220,000 this year to screen some of its restored films at festivals in North America over the next two years.

“Some of our old grantees will not find it easy to compete under our new guidelines,” Mr. McClimon says. “However, there are an awful lot of other groups who will be in competition.”

In 2006, the company made nearly $30-million in grants for cultural-heritage, leadership-development, and community-service projects that involve its employees. Mr. McClimon does not anticipate the amount of such grants to decline.

While many arts groups continue to vie for corporate support — many leaders say the potential for growth is in law and accounting firms, where the arts provide entertainment value for clients — some groups in places with few corporate headquarters are focusing on cultivating individuals.

After seeing its largest supporter, MBNA Bank, now part of Bank of America, disappear two years ago, officials at the Farnsworth Art Museum, in Rockland, Me., are turning instead to individuals to pick up the pieces.

“Maine is a really hard place to get corporate sponsorship for anything,” says David Patrick Stuckey, the group’s director of advancement. “There are a lot of generous [individual] donors in Maine. It’s a matter of reinvigorating those connections.”

At the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, in New York, gifts from corporations have declined 10 percent, while gifts from individuals have grown by at least the same amount, says Nicki Inman, the group’s development director.

Corporations have rearranged their giving priorities, she says.

“The arts might have been number one, and now they are number three,” says Ms. Inman. “Our growth potential is purely in individual giving.”