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Philanthropie : la culture
est-elle en train de perdre du terrain ?
Selon Giving USA, une fondation
qui s’intéresse à la recherche, à
l’éducation et à la valorisation de
la philanthropie, les dons faits à des organismes
culturels comptaient pour 5,2 % de la part totale des dons
versés par des particuliers aux États-Unis
l’an dernier. Une baisse de 2,9 % si on compare avec
les données d’il y a dix ans. La culture est-elle
en train de perdre du terrain au grand jeu de la philanthropie
? Un article de Jacob Hale Russell paru dans The Wall Street
Journal, le 14 octobre 2006.
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Hunger
vs. the Arts
Today's philanthropists want to fight disease and poverty
-- shortchanging operas and museums. How high culture is
fighting for its share of the charity dollar.Michael Tennenbaum
is the kind of patron most museums and symphonies dream
of landing. He started his own private-investment firm and
is a generous philanthropist, recently giving a total of
$10 million to three universities and serving on the board
of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
As for cultural causes, Mr. Tennenbaum says he's not especially
interested right now. Education, medicine and children's
welfare are "more deserving based on my set of values
and more important socially," he says.
It's a rising concern for many potential donors to the arts:
What is the justification for donating to the opera when
the money could help stamp out malaria -- or stem global
warming, reform education or solve any of a number of humanitarian
crises? For arts groups, the problem is being exacerbated
as some of the world's wealthiest and most influential people
have stepped up in the past year to give globally, from
Warren Buffett's more than $30 billion donation to causes
like AIDS and tuberculosis initiatives through the Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation, to Richard Branson's $3 billion
pledge to invest in renewable-energy research and technology.
There is a mounting consensus in the philanthropy world
that this type of giver is setting the agenda -- and culture,
by contrast, is effectively becoming unfashionable. Last
year, donations to cultural groups accounted for 5.2% of
U.S. individual philanthropy, down from 8.1% a decade before,
according to Giving USA, a nonprofit group that studies
philanthropy.
Charles Raymond is a Citigroup managing director who advises
the bank's clients with more than $25 million in assets
on their philanthropic giving. "If you're in that world,
there's real pressure if you have $1 million to say, 'Should
I give to supporting the eradication of malaria in sub-Saharan
Africa or the New York City Ballet and Met Opera?' "
he says. "It's sort of hard to choose the latter."
Arts organizations have mainly ducked this issue until recently,
targeting only those deeply interested in the arts and hitting
up their current donor rosters -- typically packed with
old money from full-time philanthropists -- for bigger donations.
But now, as more donors turn to humanitarian causes, arts
groups are scrambling to tap the fortunes of the next generation
-- Internet billionaires, hedge-fund moguls and biotech
entrepreneurs.
New philanthropists "want to go where the zeitgeist
is," says András Szántó, an arts
consultant who serves as a senior adviser to the Wealth
and Giving Forum. "And the genuine intelligence and
progress in society right now is in science and technology."
In going after this group, arts institutions are being forced
to sideline some cherished principles -- including art for
art's sake, the belief that art is its own justification.
They're also drafting younger board members who may never
have been to the ballet or watched a Verdi opera, even when
it risks creating conflict with the old guard in the boardroom.
In turn, the new recruits can solicit donations from within
their own circles.
This approach is on display at the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Under Peter Brooke, a retired venture capitalist who assumed
the board chairmanship in 1999, the institution has shifted
its focus to a new kind of donor. It's brought in pop-music
celebrities that up the glamour factor at benefits, created
task forces to target executives in specific industries
including life sciences and money management, and carefully
positioned itself as an organization that can buttress the
city's economic expansion.
For Mr. Brooke, a lunch at Boston's Harvard Club in 2003
represented the culmination of two years of patient work
-- and it was to mark a critical turning point. Joining
him was Brooks Zug, a founder and senior managing director
of HarbourVest Partners, one of the largest and oldest providers
of money to private-equity firms. Mr. Zug represented a
key entree into a new world of potential donors. But Mr.
Zug had so far turned down the notion of getting involved
with the symphony, saying he was busy with work and travel.
During lunch, Mr. Brooke pressed his case. The BSO needed
someone like Mr. Zug, and he was counting on his longtime
acquaintance -- they had worked together on some early deals
-- to do just one thing: attend a meeting of a BSO board
committee.
The orchestra was already facing mounting financial pressures.
It had hired star conductor James Levine, whose $1.6 million
annual price tag also came with high costs for extensive
rehearsal time and additional players to support his ambitious
programming. Meanwhile, the city's corporate philanthropy
was suffering, as longtime local companies, like John Hancock
Insurance and Fleet Bank, have been bought up by national
conglomerates.
Mr. Brooke, who founded one of the earliest venture firms,
TA Associates, told his board it was time to try a new fund-raising
plan: "segmenting" the Boston area into interest
groups known for business success -- life sciences, money-management,
law, and private-equity -- and then use board members' personal
connections to solicit patrons, regardless of past musical
interest. "Lawyers identify with lawyers, doctors with
doctors," he says. For arts groups to survive, the
old money "has to be supplanted with new fresh money,
which you won't find in the trust-fund area."
It was an early meeting of one of these niche subcommittees
-- private equity -- that Mr. Zug agreed to attend. To his
surprise, he was made co-chair at his second meeting. The
other chair resigned at the next meeting, leaving Mr. Zug,
who says he's "still learning" about classical
music, in charge. "You find that as soon as you're
on board more is expected and more opportunities present
themselves," he says, "and you step up to them."
Having secured the first of the new recruits, more dominoes
started falling. Mr. Zug and 15 active committee members
now meet roughly six times a year, primarily to decide on
which orchestra events to invite friends in the private-equity
realm. In May, they invited 200 people in private equity
to the Boston Pops opening-night gala, many of whom were
lured by the headline act, Elvis Costello. Roughly 100 of
the private-equity people were first-timers to Symphony
Hall.
Before the concert, the private-equity subcommittee members,
including gala co-chairman Paul Deninger, chairman of investment
bank Jeffries Broadview, gathered in the hall's Miller Room
to talk shop. At the postconcert dinner and auction, Mr.
Zug invited eight others to his table -- all but two of
whom had no prior exposure to the symphony -- and played
up the benefits of becoming involved with the arts. He hopes
they'll get more active with the group in the future: "The
jury is still out." The event was the most successful
Pops gala in the group's history, raising nearly $600,000.
There is also a growing move in the culture world to show
that supporting the arts can produce some of the same impacts
-- albeit closer to home -- as global humanitarian causes.
That's a shift from the tendency to focus mostly on the
art itself. In Chicago, for example, the Art Institute and
the symphony plug their programs teaching schoolchildren
about Eastern traditions in music and art, while a new Museum
of Modern Art study says it will attract $2 billion in spending
for New York City between fiscal years 2005 and 2007.
In interviews with a half-dozen BSO trustees and overseers,
each stressed the same points, like the importance of a
world-class symphony with a top conductor to Boston's international
image. In turn, that can help attract a brighter work force
and businesses to the area. They pointed to inner-city educational
programming that brings music to schools, creating outlets
for underachievers.
One seemingly obvious move in this regard is also part of
the broader "segmenting" strategy: events aimed
at workers in particular industries -- where art is sometimes
only a secondary topic of conversation. In February, the
BSO invited doctors to an afternoon reception and private
chamber-music performance before an evening concert. It
was the third event organized by a committee of doctors
that includes Robert Mayer, a trustee who's also an oncologist
at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a dean of admissions
for Harvard Medical School.
At the reception, nearly 100 doctors talked as much about
their medical-school days as they did about the afternoon's
lecture on Schoenberg's music. Mr. Mayer says they're following
up with the guests to encourage them to subscribe or donate.
Other groups have tried a similar sector-by-sector approach.
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts has had an annual
dinner for New York's real-estate community for more than
30 years, but last year decided to add a spring gala for
hedge-fund managers. The first event was co-chaired by Eric
Mindich, of Eton Park Capital Management, and Daniel Stern,
a principal at Reservoir Capital Group, and headlined by
talk-show host Jon Stewart. Reynold Levy, the group's president
since 2002 and former head of the International Rescue Committee,
says early in his tenure, he asked himself whether there
were new sources of wealth -- including those he'd tapped
for humanitarian causes in his previous job.
"I noticed there are way more hedge funds than mutual
funds, so shouldn't Lincoln Center make those connections?"
says Mr. Levy. The hedge-fund group has raised about $4
million so far, in part by identifying prominent leaders
with an interest in the arts to bring on their friends.
The challenge of recruiting a new group of donors comes
as arts groups are being squeezed on all financial sides.
Beset by declining attendance, the performing arts are increasingly
reliant on contributions, which usually comprise more than
half of annual budgets. Government funding, already low
relative to Europe, is down: Major cuts to the National
Endowment for the Arts' budget mean this year's budget was
$124.4 million, down 23% from 1995, and state funding has
fallen 27% from 2001 to this year, according to Americans
for the Arts, a nonprofit arts-advocacy group. Corporate
donors are getting more stringent about where their gifts
go -- to support tours in cities of interest, or for branded
programming.
One of the big difficulties for arts groups is to show potential
donors the direct impact that their money has. "If
you're a hospital, you show a sick kid and it's easy. If
you're a school, you show a poor kid who wasn't performing
well and now is, and it's easy," says Jeffries Broadview's
Mr. Deninger, also an overseer at the BSO. "Arts organizations
have a harder time at this."
Institutions are tackling this in creative ways. For instance,
they're targeting specific people and offering them the
chance to underwrite their own work. Edward Baker, chief
investment officer for emerging markets at AllianceBernstein,
says for years he mainly donated to causes that supported
mathematical research. During one of his many trips to San
Francisco, the city's ballet asked him if he would be interested
in co-sponsoring the sets and choreography for a new ballet.
The piece, "Quaternary," debuted in the U.S. this
season. Anytime the company performs the piece, Mr. Baker's
name will be on the program. "It's more appealing to
me to help someone create something that's exciting and
important than it is to give more generally to support the
broad organization," says Mr. Baker.
Trevor Traina, a 38-year-old board member of the Fine Arts
Museums of San Francisco, knows something about the challenges
of getting these new entrepreneurs involved in the arts.
He leads a "dual life," as a successful tech entrepreneur
-- who sold CompareNet, the e-commerce company he co-founded,
to Microsoft in 1999 -- but also as the son of well-known
social-power broker Dede Wilsey, the museum's board president.
Mr. Traina says he's approached his contacts in the tech
community for museum donations, but has found it an uphill
battle. "A lot of the new tech people view cultural
institutions as musty and not deserving," he says.
To tap a younger crowd, Mr. Traina created a Junior Committee
to throw a glitzy annual gala aimed at the Bay Area's under-40
crowd -- from old- and new-money communities. It raised
$307,000 at its third one last spring, where high-profile
attendees like pop singer Vanessa Carlton landed mentions
in local gossip columns and glossy magazines.
Some of the Junior Committee members have stepped up their
museum leadership, as Mr. Traina had originally hoped: Carson
Levit, managing director at hedge fund Pequot Capital Management
and a gala contribute, joined the museum's main board of
trustees last year.
One of the gala's co-organizers is Allison Speers, a 36-year-old
fashion publicist who works with other nonprofits that attract
high-tech money like the African Wildlife Foundation. She
recruited one prominent San Francisco hedge-funder -- whom
she discussed on condition his name not be used because
he prefers to keep his charitable giving private -- to the
spring gala after running into him on an airplane. "I
said, 'Oh, my God, you have to come to our event,' when
I heard about their new house and that they were collecting
art," she says. He came as a lead sponsor's guest,
and plans to attend this year. But he still prefers to fund
other causes, like Ubuntu Education Fund, which works in
South Africa and has a business-heavy board.
At the Los Angeles Philharmonic, one board member who's
led the charge for new donors is 41-year-old David Glickman.
Mr. Glickman runs Glickman Capital, a buyout firm, and is
the founding chairman of U.S. TelePacific Corp., a West
Coast telecommunications company. He is something of an
anomaly in the arts-funding world. "At 31, I showed
up to my first board meeting and found out that I was a
good 20 years younger than anyone else," he says.
In recent years, he says, he's recruited at least a dozen
$10,000-a-year donors close to his age. Part of his pitch
to people under 45 is to give them leadership opportunities
where they can feel they're shaping a project. He's created
a committee of about 50 people mostly under 45 to sponsor
and oversee the opening of the Hollywood Bowl, the orchestra's
outdoor summer series.
One of his recruits, Paul Reitzin, 49, a furniture entrepreneur,
has joined the organization's overseers and added the Philharmonic
to the causes he supports, primarily children's welfare
and cancer research. He says he was moved primarily by a
program called Music Matters, which has musician residencies
at inner-city schools, teaches teachers about music and
offers special student concerts. "The school systems
don't have any more money for music programs."
Not all of Mr. Glickman's recruits make arts their top priority,
however. Another friend, Robert Kors, a former Los Angeles
lawyer who works as a consultant to reorganize distressed
companies, says that at Mr. Glickman's urging, he has given
some money to the Philharmonic, but he prefers to focus
mainly on causes like Children Affected by AIDS. "To
me, that resonates."
By JACOB HALE RUSSELL
October 14, 2006
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB116078080029792564-
Vemv_7pZyrszNuYOP2pgw9Khr_U_20071013.html?mod=blogs
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