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Business & The Arts-Part 2
A special BNH community forum examines areas of convergence and conflict between New Haven's cultural and corporate communities
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Business New Haven
6/9/2003
By: BNH
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Patricia Sweet, vice president, Regional Water Authority: I'm not your typical corporate person who has worked her way up through one corporation after another.
I started with a non-profit organization so I know how hard it is to be an executive director. I did that for 17 years and then went on to the private sectors but at the same time, I was president of a community foundation. At that point, we were trying to figure out our priorities for the foundation and we conducted a major arts study and that really helped open my eyes.
I come from an arts-related family. My mother was a painter, my sister is an actress, my daughter is a writer, my nephew is a movie producer and I spent a lot of time wishing I were all of them. I have a great appreciation of the arts even though I am not artistic.
I [would like to relate] some of the ways I've been involved from the corporate world with helping arts organizations. [This may] create thought processes and help those involved in trying to find funding for the arts to think about ways you may not have thought about in the past.
When I was in Waterbury, I left real estate to work for a bank [in] corporate contributions. Our one theater in Waterbury was Seven Angels Theater. It is a very small operation and was struggling to stay alive.
The banks in Waterbury got together and looked at the requests for funding. Seven Angels came in and asked for $10,000 to lease lights because their lighting bills were approximately $25,000 [annually] and they could not afford to lease stage lights.
[The banks] asked what the cost would be to buy the lights instead of leasing them. It was about $25,000 to buy the lights to light up everything. So the five banks decided to loan Seven Angels $60,000, interest-free. We not only removed all their leasing costs on an annual basis, but also left them with a $10,000 a year cash flow they didn't have before. Part of the cash flow was used for audience development and the other to pay back the loan. Over the years, it worked very well for them.
So there are ways out there, if everybody decides to take a step back and really look at the bigger picture, we can be constructive from both the arts and corporate ends.
We also tried to figure out ways to use other budgets besides corporate contribution budgets to help. We were the first bank to approach Long Wharf [Theatre] and suggest that we have an evening where we would take 400 of our top customers to Long Wharf for a reception. Not only was it very good marketing for the bank, but as it turned out, many people hadn't been to Long Wharf before.
My challenge at the Regional Water Authority [RWA] since we don't have a corporate contributions budget is to find other ways to creatively help the arts.
The first thing we did was an arts contest in the schools. We had children do paintings and drawings for our annual report. We had so much fun with that and won all sorts of awards for those reports.
In the [RWA's] community room are large blow-ups of the children's work. Some participating schools could not afford art supplies for the contest, so the [RWA] bought the supplies for them.
When we started bottling water we [wondered] how we could help the non-profit sector. With some of the arts organizations, we are selling the water at the [RWA] cost and then inviting the arts organizations to sell the water and keep the profit.
I wanted to suggest to some of the arts organizations, because the need for talent is critical and developing that talent into a wonderful board is paramount, that it is critically important when you look at your board composition that it represents the areas that you think are important to your organization. But it is hard to find busy people and ask them to go on a board [for what] is usually a minimum three-year commitment.
Think [instead] about short-term task forces where members are not required to sign up for a three-year board [term], but are to solve particular problems and challenges you may have.
One of the things that the Arts Council has done that has helped its own bottom line is our Arts Awards Luncheon in December. It has become so popular that we have turned people away. We don't charge a lot for the luncheon, but actually end up with a little [money] for the Arts Council.
The Governor's Awards is going to take place on June 17 [at the Shubert Performing Arts Center]. Again, the Arts Council is pulling that together and that is requiring a huge amount of corporate support and we are very fortunate that the corporations in this town have recognized the importance of the arts.
Although I don't think we can claim this as a fundraiser, we have a monthly Art Spot which is particularly targeted toward younger, newer people in this community who are trying to find other younger, newer people in the community for friendships and peer relationships. We have somewhere between 100 and 200 people coming to every one of those and we have an e-mail list of probably 400 or 500 names of people that are newer in the area. These are the people that may not have been on the list that was developed during the 20 or 30 years, but have the energy and interest in the arts.
Eliza Cleveland, director of development, Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History: The Peabody is part of Yale University. We have more than 70 full- and part-time staff and close to 20 curators, all of whom are Yale professors and who volunteer their time as curators for the museum. We also have a dedicated volunteer staff exceeding 300 people.
About 130,000 people per year visit the Peabody. Roughly 60,000 of them are children and about half of these come to the museum as part of a school group. Visitors come from all over the world, but the greatest numbers are from the New Haven and southeastern Connecticut. Families make up the majority of the general visitorship, and most school groups are comprised of younger students. However, both of these traditions altered considerably over the last four months.
The mission of the museum is to "serve Yale University by advancing our understanding of the earth's history through geological, biological and anthropological research and to communicate the results of this research to the widest possible audience through publication, exhibition and educational programs."
In recent years, the museum has greatly expanded upon the ways in which we communicate our understanding of the earth's scientific and cultural history. We host more than 70 events every year to which the public is invited, we have an extensive teacher-training program and with the opening of the exhibition on Machu Picchu, we have started a new trend in developing large, very exciting exhibitions.
The idea and development of the exhibition Machu Picchu: Unveiling the Mystery of the Incas are result of the interest and passion of Yale anthropology professor Richard Burger and his wife, Lucy Salazar, co-curators of the exhibition. Both are archeologists whose expertise in Peruvian/pre-Colombian civilizations made them the ideal candidates to begin studying the artifacts brought to the museum by Yale professor Hiram Bingham starting in 1911 after his scientific discovery of Machu Picchu.
Enormous planning was necessary to design an exhibit that would enable the public to learn about Machu Picchu and the people that built it. The museum undertook a comprehensive survey to determine exactly what people did and did not know about Machu Picchu and the Incas. Many of the results were illuminating and were used to shape the content and design of the exhibit.
For example, while most people had heard of Machu Picchu, the general consensus was that it was in Mexico.
Also, there were many misconceptions about the true nature of the science of archeology. Nevertheless, the survey showed that there was considerable interest in the idea of an exhibition at the museum, many were intrigued by the mystery of Machu Picchu, some valued learning about a culture they dimly remembered from high school and others thought it an excellent opportunity to educate children.
As the design of the exhibit began to take shape, the fundraising began. As a fundraiser for Yale, one of the questions I am asked often is, 'Since Yale has such a large endowment, why I am coming to you for money?' I explain that Yale's endowment covers the overhead of the museum - including the position of development director - but our public events, exhibits, many of our lectures and many capital expenses from renovations need to be funded through outside-Yale resources.
For the exhibition, possible funding sources were identified and grant proposals started going out the door. Federal and state agencies such as the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation and the Connecticut Humanities Council provided funding for about 51 percent of the cost. Support from foundations constituted another seven percent and private donors made up for another 40 percent. The most surprising thing is that corporate support was a mere two percent.
The press we received was unprecedented in Peabody history. There was an article on the cover of the "Science Times" section of the New York Times and on the cover of Smithsonian magazine. The exhibit was mentioned in more than 70 paper media articles and 70 Web articles and was covered by NPR, WTNH-TV, WFSB-TV, WVIT-TV and Associated Press TV. About 20 of the articles mentioned the names of the funders of the exhibit.
Over the next two years the exhibit will be traveling to five museums around the country, each of whose annual attendance exceeds one million people. It will return to the Peabody for permanent installation in two years.
At the Peabody we felt a great many impacts. We saw the Machu Picchu exhibition attract more adults than families and more older students than younger ones. This was very different from our normal day-to-day business.
Visitors came from further away [than usual] to see the show. They came from throughout New England and the Eastern Seaboard. They came from Utah, Oregon, Ohio, Canada, staying in New York and coming to New Haven for the day or weekend to visit the exhibition.
We also received many telephone inquiries from people who planned on staying in New Haven. We saw the number of visitors to the museum double during March, April and May 2003 compared to 2002. It is projected that we will exceed 150,000 visitors this year.
The Peabody is greatly appreciative of the generous corporate support we received from many of our public programs and there are many opportunities at places like museums to partner with corporations of any size.
Sally Glick, co-principal, Coordinated Financial Resources and Chamber Insurance Trust, Orange: We sponsor arts events because that allows us to maximize our advertising dollars - we look bigger than we are. Our pockets are not so deep, so we carefully spend our money and we only support what we truly believe in. We use that concept in our business and we continue to use that concept in our support of the arts.
The arts help us more than we help the arts. They show that we are dealing with integrity and loyalty and it enforces the bond we have with the community. There is such loyalty in the arts community; there is an element of trust.
Those who work and prosper in the greater New Haven community know there is biotech, they know there's Yale, but there is also the arts. The arts do support the economic infrastructure of the community itself and therefore supports business. We participate and take pride in our commitment.
Look at the smaller business entity. You may be looking for a smaller piece of the pie; you may need more pieces of pie to get to the point you need to get to. But the entrepreneurial spirit is also the creative spirit and to survive and grow in this marketplace is a talent. Those talents are overlooked in the fact that small business could be a driving force.
Michael Stotts, managing director, Long Wharf Theatre: This was written about Long Wharf five years ago when an economic impact study was done for the theatre in anticipation of building a new theatre downtown: 'The greatest impact on Connecticut and its residents cannot be measured in dollars and cents. Thriving cultural organizations provide programs that educate, entertain and enlighten a broad range of individuals.
Long Wharf Theatre brings national attention and a strong sense of pride to New Haven and Connecticut. The theater has a proven record of accomplishment in its programs and will continue to bring high-quality work to the residents of the region.
Healthy cultural organizations also contribute to a region's image. It is this image that corporate leaders look to when making decisions about relocation to or from a particular area. Long Wharf Theatre is a major contributor to city and state efforts attracting new business and retaining existing business.'
That is a truism and I wanted to read it because of the enormous impact that Long Wharf has had on this community and the theater has had on a nationwide basis.
How do we go forward from here? Times have drastically changed from when this was written five years ago. I was prepared to read a lot of facts and figures from the economic impact study about how the building of a new $50 million theater downtown is going to stimulate additional business, employ more people and attract new audiences. All of this is true, and we hope to really get there in the coming years. As many know, there are discussions underway about bringing Long Wharf downtown.
But, getting there is our largest challenge right now. The arts in general nationwide are going through a crisis, and I think it's time that we pay attention to it.
Our budget this year was $6.4 million; next year it is down to $5.8 million. What is happening nationwide is being called a 'perfect storm.' We are starting to witness reductions in federal and state funding, [while] corporate fundraising and foundation giving is down. Individual giving is also down, and subscriptions are starting to wane. In its heyday Long Wharf had 18,000 subscribers; today we have 9,000 and we're trying to build on that.
Long Wharf currently raises about $200,000 [yearly] in sponsorship opportunities, attaching your name to one of our creative projects. We have also hosted events with other companies. Our Business Circle raises over $100,000 a year from smaller business [such as] pastry shops, bookstores and local merchants.
If New Haven wants to remain the arts and creative capital of Connecticut and if it wants to have all of its arts organizations sustained, hopefully the funding streams will start to rejuvenate through creative partnerships so that our very important assets continue to thrive.
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