PeakArts? upfront plea worked

BOULDER — PeakArts Association needed funding. Fast.

The non-profit organization has provided the administrative umbrella underneath which the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra, Boulder Ballet and PeakArts Academy functions since 1999.

As of January 2002, PeakArts needed $350,000 in donations by the end of the month to sustain its budget and continue operating.

Robert McAllister, chief executive officer of PeakArts, decided to do something about it. He made a personal plea to the audience of a Philharmonic concert, resulting in a story the next day in the Boulder Daily Camera.

He also wrote an impassioned plea to area residents in the Jan. 25-Feb. 7 issue of The Boulder County Business Report.

?Any non-profit needs public support,? he said. ?We didn’t receive that support, so we needed to make a public appeal that non-profits exist only with the support of the community.?

The community responded with $351,000 in 25 days.

?All but $16,000 was individual contributions. We’re happy regarding the large support of the Boulder community. It shows PeakArts is a vital non-profit.?

Of the total, $16,000 was from a foundation.

Barbara Shaw, executive director of the Colorado Association of Non-Profit Organizations (CANPO), lauded McAllister’s forthright approach.

?The best thing to do is to be honest with your donors, clients, and everyone connected with your non-profit,? she said. ?Tell them that things are tough, we’re good stewards of your money, and here’s what we need.?

CANPO is a Denver-based advocacy organization. Its 1,200 members can save funds through group purchasing, insurance programs, and discounts on printed materials. CANPO also offers its members a resource library.

McAllister, CEO since June 2001, takes non-profit stewardship seriously. His previous employment involved resurrecting the finances of the Cleveland Music School Settlement, where he served as executive director.

?Our job is to be fiscally responsible,? he said. ?We are committed to keeping a balanced budget.?

Weeding out unnecessary expenses is one way to do that.

Although downsizing plans had been made in advance of the terrorist attacks, PeakArts cut back staff expenses, eliminated eight programs, six of which were under the now-defunct Sinfonia, and trimmed the budget in other ways shortly following Sept. 11.

?Those programs had not been financially viable from the previous year,? McAllister said.

McAllister whittled the $2.9 million budget down to $2.6 million for the 2002-2003 season.

?My motto is ?run a non-profit like a business, with a mission centered in the arts,’? McAllister said.

Balancing a passion for the performing arts with a businesslike approach should work well, according to John Bunting, an accounting professor at Regis University in Denver and a former comptroller for several non-profit organizations.

?Non-profits are typically run by people with passion for some educational, community or philanthropic purpose,? he said. ?Quite often, the passion drives them to sustain that level of effort to get the funding they need.?

Surprisingly, ticket sales have been good, despite the emotional toll of the terrorist attacks.

?Sept. 11 did very little as far as attendance,? McAllister said. ?Seventy-five percent of the house sold is our average, and the last four concerts were sold out.?

Tickets range from $10 to $60 for most performances.

The biggest bite out of PeakArts’ budget was lack of donations.

?Sept. 11 profoundly impacted donations,? McAllister said. ?A number of donations were going to relief, so we had less funding from individuals.?

The immediate impact of Sept. 11 ?was huge,? Shaw said. ?Arts organizations were hurt badly, especially performing arts. We’re saying to give here in Colorado, too, because there are needs here.

?Some people think that with symphony orchestras, they need only huge $10,000 and $20,000 gifts,? Shaw added, ?but small $25 gifts can help, too. There is always more need than there is money.?

The economic downturn also impacted PeakArts’ corporate donations.

?There were fewer dollars in the economy for non-profits because there is less wealth in companies compared to the last 10 years,? said Stan Zemler, president of the Boulder Chamber of Commerce.

Shaw agrees.

?The greatest concern to people running non-profits is that corporate giving has declined because of 9/11 and the economy,? she said.

Foundation grants may decrease, too, because foundations generate their income by investments.

?They give a percentage based on their holdings at the end of the year,? Shaw said, ?and the stock market has been down.?

Fortunately, as evidenced by PeakArts’ rebound, individual giving may be reviving now that the relief effort is well funded and the immediate crises is over.

?People who gave to the relief effort are in the giving spirit,? Shaw said. ?Giving will stay where it is and may even go up.?

McAllister is raising awareness of PeakArts through more community outreach.

?We’re working with the Boulder Valley School District to offer discounted tickets to students in Boulder Valley,? he said.

The educational arm of PeakArts, PeakArts Academy, also keeps the community in touch. McAllister believes that the key to PeakArts’ continued viability is ?linking with the community through the schools and assisting the community by providing quality instruction.?

PeakArts Academy in Boulder provides instruction in dance and music for hundreds of students of all ages. Private lessons cost about $17-30 per half-hour.

Its association with the performing arts branches, the Boulder Ballet and Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra, is rare, according to McAllister.

?Linking the performing organizations with the educational arm is very unique throughout the country,? he said. ?It’s not the way most people do it.?

McAllister is on the board of the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts, and PeakArts Academy is a member of that organization.

McAllister’s background in education and in performing arts gives him ?a fundamental understanding of the arts,? he said. ?I know how arts affect people. In most places, the arts truly do not connect to the community. That’s a problem.

?We have a commitment to delivering arts programming and instruction and to provide a model for others to replicate nationally,? he said. ?There’s equal support of the academy and the performing arts. We feel we have a highly desirable product-music.?

Bunting agrees.

?Often, non-profits don’t have a broad appeal,? he said. ?There’s a market out there for the Boulder Philharmonic, as indicated by (Colorado) Public Radio.?

On April 10, 2001, the classical music and news station expanded its service into a two-channel network. Denver’s KVOD 90.1 FM broadcasts classical music, and Boulder’s KCFC 1490 AM carries news and information.

?The question is, how can Boulder Philharmonic tap into that? That’s the challenge,? Bunting said.Colorado Shakespeare Festival Support for the arts has not grown since the Sept. 11 attacks, but art organizations are mostly holding steady.

?We’re halfway there, and we’re right on target for the current season [budget],? said Micah Abram, development officer for Colorado Shakespeare Festival. The festival is an extension of the University of Colorado at Boulder but receives little financial support from the school, according to Abram. The organization’s current season budget is about $1.25 million.

?We haven’t seen a decline, except on the corporate level,? Abram said. ?They’ve either given to 9-11 relief, or their stocks have declined. Major gifts are (coming in) slower, and it’ll be a matter of time before people are feeling more comfortable.?

Overall, Abram believes that the arts are just what the public wants during troubled times.

?People are staying with the causes they believe in,? she said. ?I am getting a sense that people rely on the arts. They know that it enriches their lives.?

Colorado Music Festival Community support has also buoyed Boulder-based Colorado Music Festival, according to Executive Director Michael Smith. ?We went into fund-raising at the end of the year with trepidation,? he said, ?but the community came forward and supported us.?

From October through December, the organization raised $240,000 in private donations alone.

Smith anticipates meeting the 2002 budget of slightly more than $1 million, but ticket sales will be the clincher.Timberline Symphony Lafayette’s Timberline Symphony is just beginning its fund-raising effort for the 2002-2003 season, but board member Tabitha Brown is optimistic.

?People who are dedicated to the arts are more inclined to sponsor arts organizations,? she said. ?They are going to find a way to make it work.?

The budget for the upcoming season is slightly less than $15,000, and Brown believes that the symphony will meet the budget.

?If you find the right people and build the right connections, [fundraising] is not difficult,? Brown said. Longmont Symphony Longmont Symphony Executive Director Natasha Tiff believes that fund-raising, along with ?trying to be careful with our budget? should keep the organization in the black.

Like the other arts organizations, Longmont Symphony has seen the largest decline in corporate sponsorship.

?We’re taking steps to be very careful in the next five months until the end of the fiscal year,? she said.

The symphony’s 2002-2003 season budget is about $200,000.

?It’s a struggle,? Tiff said, ?but we’ve always tried to keep operating costs low.?

Longmont Theatre Company Longmont Theatre Company has actually seen an increase in individual donations, according to Executive Director Sheri Friedman, and subscriptions are up by $5,000.

?Unfortunately, the foundation giving is down because of the stock market,? she said. ?But corporate donations have stayed steady.?

The theater is operating on a $175,000 budget for the 2001-2002 season. ?We still have about five more months left in the season and by the end of that we should be fine,? Friedman said.

Boulder Museum of Contemporary ArtThe Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art saw a 20 percent decline at its fall fund-raiser, according to Director Ken Bloom, and the museum’s final fund-raiser of 2001 was 30 percent to 40 percent short from what organizers anticipated.

But the news isn’t all bad.

?We have some regular donors who reduced their support,? he said. ?But others raised it.?

Although corporate giving decreased, the number of donors ?remained stable,? he added. ?Most of the affect has been in terms of people paying more attention to us. People are staying closer to home, and we’re a modern museum. We represent the culture that our attackers are trying to destroy. We’ve had a lot of relationship building and that’s very positive.?

Bloom is confident that the museum will meet its 2002 budget needs of $410,000.

?In the arts, we have pretty dedicated sponsors,? he said. ?They haven’t abandoned us. I feel really good about this community.?

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