14 minute read
FUNDRAISING FOR INNOVATION
THE CHALLENGES OF ASKING FOR MONEY DURING A PANDEMIC
N
ot everyone would take on the role of fundraising for a large performing arts organization in the midst of a global pandemic. Bert Griffin took on the task when he accepted the role of Chief Development Officer for the Louisville Orchestra in the summer of 2020.
“It has been challenging,” Griffin acknowledged. “The real challenge is that no one actually knows how to fundraise during these times. We’ve never had a global pandemic with this generation.”
Griffin’s job is to handle solicitations of principal gifts to the Louisville Orchestra, which entails working with the board of directors, as well as potential new donors. He has served as an orchestra board member himself for two and a half years, and now manages the organization’s team of fundraisers.
Griffin, a Louisville native, has spent his entire career in the fundraising field, which is a path that seems to run in the family. His mother, also a lifelong fundraiser, had a profound influence on Griffin’s choice of profession.
“She was of the generation when fundraising was a relatively new field, and professional fundraising was not common,” he says. Griffin worked for his mother’s organization for over 11 years.
Griffin experienced plenty of success in his previous roles. At Spalding University, he and his team increased giving by 400%, surpassing their capital campaign goals ahead of the campaign’s end.
Griffin doesn’t claim to accomplish these goals on his own. “Fundraising is always a team effort. At the very minimum, it’s a relationship between fundraisers and donors, but there are also organizations, boards, and others. My job is to try and maximize all of that.”
Fundraising is an honorable profession, Griffin says, and he’s proud to be part of it. “We’re the forward-facing arm of most organizations and exist to make sure the organization can thrive.”
A DEDICATED TEAM
Louisville Orchestra’s esteemed conductor, Teddy Abrams, has been a source of inspiration to Griffin. “He’s an amazing person, and Louisville is extraordinarily blessed to have him as part of our community.”
Griffin unabashedly praises everyone at the Louisville Orchestra, including its staff and all the board members who support it. “We have an amazing team, which is one of the reasons I wanted to come here. I’m biased, but I think the orchestra is the jewel of Louisville’s cultural arts scene.”
“We have a really strong group of volunteers, both board and non-board members,” he adds. “A lot of people are dedicating their time, talent, and treasure to make sure the orchestra gets through this pandemic.”
The Louisville Orchestra 2019. Photo by O'Neil Arnold.
Bert Griffin with his daughter Evelyn.
OFFERING VALUE, NURTURING RELATIONSHIPS
Griffin believes that funding for the arts is directly connected to the health of the economy. If the economy is doing well, giving goes up, but if the economy is doing badly, giving drops. This is one reason why fundraising during the COVID-19 pandemic has been so difficult.
“Many arts organizations are furloughing their teams,” he says. “We’re trying to avoid that, and that’s one of our biggest motivators.”
For Griffin, it’s essential to strike a balance between the “asking” aspect of fundraising work and the relationship aspect. “It’s a fine line,” he says. “You have your fundraiser, and you also want to respect your donors and nurture those relationships.”
“Giving is something where you never feel buyer’s remorse,” he adds. He enjoys the work of sitting and talking with potential donors, learning where their passions lie. “If you can match that passion with what you have to offer, that’s a gift they will never feel bad about having made.”
Griffin believes that the more prepared the fundraiser is, and the more people understand what you have to offer, the more opportunities will present themselves. “You want people who give to truly believe in what you’re doing, especially at the levels we’re asking.” Whether this involves giving to support educational efforts in local schools, or sponsoring a public musical performance, Griffin strives to offer opportunities for donors to make those things happen.
PIVOTING DURING A PANDEMIC
Much of fundraising comes down to having a plan, Griffin says, but flexibility is also key. “You may have to pivot.”
“We’re so pleased to have Bert on the administrative team,” says LO Music Director, Teddy Abrams. “Not only does he have deep connections with the Louisville community, he has been with the orchestra for some time as a subscriber and a board member. He knows us, but is also coming in as we are launching some really bold innovations. Bert has the experience and the imagination to get our big dreams across to donors.
"Because we cannot perform as we usually do,” Abrams continues, “we are exploring new ways to connect. We’re launching the orchestra into technologies that are frontiers for us and creating programs that will be our new realities. It’s been a lot of brainstorming and conceptualizing with a board, musician, and staff innovation committee. Bert is doing the work to make those intangibles a reality that we will announce soon. He has embraced the uncertainties and has been able to nuance the strategies we are attempting to appeal to a new donor base.”
Griffin recognizes the inherent value in keeping the arts alive through economic hardships. He says that during the strictest lockdown period, he was aware of how his own family was spending their time.
Married with two children, he says that the arts helped them to get through the time of sheltering in place. Virtual experiences with the arts such as singalongs, online concerts, and watching Disney Plus brought joy to him and his family.
“I thought, I don’t want that to go away. There’s got to be a way we can figure out how to do more. We need more people to be engaged with and exposed to the arts because the arts are unifying.”
A quote attributed to Louis Pasteur has stuck with Griffin throughout his life and career: “In the fields of observation, chance favors only the prepared mind.” He feels this boils down to the belief that while luck or chance may have its place, preparation is key to making the most of opportunities, including those within fundraising work.
He also recognizes that fundraising is an ongoing endeavor. Securing a high-dollar gift is an achievement, but it doesn’t end there. “What else are you doing to help increase that gift? Who else are we talking to? We can’t rely on a one-time gift, no matter how large, to sustain us forever."
Griffin is determined to help keep the orchestra thriving even in the toughest of economies. “I think as long as Louisville makes the investment in the orchestra and the orchestra stands, there will always be a strong cultural arts presence in the city.”
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Though you may not be able to attend a concert performance in person, you can revisit some iconic orchestra performances in the videos below.
VIDEO: Owsley Brown Presents Symphony for Nature featuring Teddy Abrams leading the Britt Festival in Michael Gordon’s Natural History. Performed on location at Crater Lake National Park.
VIDEO: Teddy Abrams and members of the Louisville Orchestra join Jim James on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon October 2019.
THE ART of RESTORATION
John Chamberlain’s “The Coloured Gates of Louisville” unwrapped. Photo courtesy of KPA.
PRESERVING THE INTEGRITY OF “THE COLOURED GATES OF LOUISVILLE” AFTER 2018 FIRE
I
n the days that followed the June 13, 2018, fire at The Kentucky Center, one area of great community concern was the collection of 20th century artwork on display in The Center’s main lobby. In particular, John Chamberlain’s “The Coloured Gates of Louisville,” which hangs on the wall above the Bomhard Theater.
While firefighters were battling the fire on the barrel roof, thousands of gallons of water cascaded down the wall behind the piece. As this sculpture is made of compressed, compacted, and rolled car bodies, there was concern about how water might damage the art.
Due to scheduled ceiling repair work taking place that summer, The Kentucky Center had contracted Bonsai Fine Arts Inc., a nationally renowned company specializing in museum level storage, to build protective covering on the Chamberlain to protect it from dust and debris. Little did we know the protection would be put to such a test.
Within hours of the fire, experts from the Conservation Center, an international leader in the field of art preservation, were on a plane to assess the situation. Amazingly, “The Coloured Gates” was not damaged.
When the protective cover was removed, water and silt were found on the steel. The crew from the Conservation Center was able to wipe it down with denatured alcohol, which bonds to water and evaporates quickly, eliminating any danger of corrosion. The covering was replaced for the duration of the lobby restoration project, and finally removed in early 2020.
Last month, ART (Art Recovery Technologies) of Greater Kentucky completed their work cleaning dust and debris from every corner of this complicated piece. We invite you to watch this Kentucky Performing Arts Backstage Pass on The Art of Restoration.
John Chamberlain’s “The Coloured Gates of Louisville” with protective covering. Photo courtesy of KPA.
VIDEO: Thanks to the hard work of ART of Greater Kentucky, the art is safe and in great shape.
SHOW YOUR SUPPORT
There are many causes worthy of your support during this uncertain time. We invite you to consider a gift to Kentucky Performing Arts, so that we may continue to build lifelong relationships with the arts across the Commonwealth. Donate.
SPOTLIGHT ON PHIL LYNCH KENTUCKY PERFORMING ARTS FOUNDATION CHAIRMAN
by G. Douglas Dreisbach
Louisville is filled with people who are passionate about the arts and the sustainability of the arts in our community. The positive benefits of the arts are all-inclusive of age, race, gender, and social economic status, giving us a sense of “escape” when we engage in the genre.
With stages dark around the Phil Lynch world due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is crucial that the groups seek assistance anywhere they can to stay relevant, solvent, and sustainable. We caught up with Phil Lynch, who is the Chairman of the Board for the Kentucky Performing Arts Foundation, to discuss his role on the board and how the foundation continues to provide support and direction for navigating through today’s challenges.
This is an excerpt of the full interview. To read it in its entirety, visit Audience502.com.
G. Douglas Dreisbach: Tell us about the Kentucky Performing Arts Foundation.
Phil Lynch: The Kentucky Center for the Arts was created in 1980 by the state legislature to promote state culture and tourism and to provide a home for Louisville’s prominent performing arts groups. About the time center opened in 1983, a group of Louisvillians, including many prominent community leaders and philanthropists, decided to create a foundation with the specific purpose of providing support for the Kentucky Center.
Typically, the foundation contributes about 4.25% percent of the value of its assets to The Kentucky Center (now Kentucky Performing Arts/KPA) to help support the organization. Things have changed now with the coronavirus, but the foundation really works hand in hand with the KPA operating board, and most importantly, with the staff, led by Kim Baker, to assist however and wherever we can.
GDD: With the pandemic hitting in March and literally bringing the live performance world to a screeching halt, how did your role and the direction of the foundation change?
PL: I have been on the foundation board for four years, chair since September of 2017. Initially, it was all about Old Forester’s Paristown Hall — funding it, getting it up and running. Then, in 2018, the fire struck the Kentucky Center, so we spent a lot of time dealing with that. And then, this year the focus has been on the coronavirus.
The way things have changed, as everybody knows in any arts organization, is that revenue just disappeared. There might be a little bit of revenue here and there, but the main revenue generators are ticket sales and concessions sales, and both have
I really enjoyed the production of Hamilton more at The Kentucky Center in Whitney Hall than I did in New York... it was just spectacular.
disappeared. The Kentucky Performing Arts Foundation has committed to continue to seek donations while also tapping the assets of the foundation to basically pay the bills of The Kentucky Center until we get out of this mess and can start generating revenue again. It has been a very busy five to six months, as we have had meeting after meeting discerning how best to do this.
GDD: You have been into acting yourself. Tell us about some of your experience on stage.
PL: I grew up in Lexington, Ky., and was involved in the theater because my parents were involved in Studio Players. I grew up knowing about the rehearsal process and then going to see my parents in plays. Then I got involved in a couple productions at the Children’s Theatre of Lexington, which at that time had children acting instead of adults. Then, in college, I got involved with Studio Players and was in some plays, and actually was elected president of the board of that organization and was also where I met my wife, Susan McNeese Lynch.
I moved to Louisville in 1979, and Susan and I got married in 1982, and in early 1985 we performed in a play together at the Clarksville Little Theatre. It was really the first time we had ever done a show together. Then, we had children and both of us were working, so I basically was not able to do anything for a while.
But about 12 to 13 years ago, I got back into the game and started performing again, and it has been a great experience that I have really enjoyed. Probably the best experiences were performing with Susan again in Eve Theater’s productions, Kin and 10 out of 12. Both were at the MeX (Theater in The Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts).
Another way I was involved in the arts here in Louisville was that I was the chief fundraiser for the theater at the Henry Clay building, which is really one of the best theaters in town for the audience and for performers. I was able to finally perform on that stage a couple of years ago when Bunbury Theatre produced Art, a classic play written by the female French playwright Yasmina Reza. I played Marc, who’s kind of a jerk, but that seems to be my type, as I’ve learned over the years. (Laughing)
Phil and his wife Susan performing together.
GDD: What are some of your favorite moments from the Louisville performing arts and entertainment scene?
PL: My favorite music performance would have been Sting at the Louisville Palace, probably 20 years ago. It was not The Police, just Sting and his new band, and it was a fabulous concert. Theatrically, even though we saw Hamilton in New York prior (not the original cast), I really enjoyed the production of Hamilton more at The Kentucky Center in Whitney Hall than I did in New York. I am not sure if it was simply because of where I was sitting or the way the stage was laid out, but it was just spectacular.
GDD: In closing, imagine that you have everyone’s attention. What do you say about the performing arts in Louisville, where we are today and where we need to go?
PL: I would tell all the patrons and audience members to stick with us, to be patient. We will be back in some form or another. As you know, KPA launched KPA at Home (a series of live concerts streamed online) and executed the Governor’s School for the Arts virtually. Actors Theatre and Pandora Productions are doing virtual seasons. Kentucky Shakespeare has been streaming video of past performances that they have done at in Central Park. Some people are doing radio plays. There are opportunities right now. But the whole idea of gathering for a shared experience is going to take a while. I would ask people, if you are able to support the arts organizations with a contribution, please do so, because many of these arts organizations desperately need financial support to get through this period of time when there’s virtually no earned revenue.
