Charitable trust gives boost to Q-C attractions

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By Alma Gaul | Friday, July 4, 2008 5:46 PM CDT | () comments

Five key Quad-City attractions that face serious financial challenges gained firmer ground this week with the receipt of grants totalling $675,000 from a new charitable trust formed to provide long-range operational support for the institutions regarded as the fabric of the community.

The Figge Art Museum and Putnam Museum will receive $225,000 each, the River Music Experience, or RME, and the Quad-City Botanical Center will receive $100,000 each, and the Quad-City Symphony Orchestra will receive $25,000.

“We are fortunate to have such first-rate cultural and educational organizations serving our community,” trust president Ed Rogalski said in making the announcement. “In many cases, however, they are experiencing financial difficulties that, ultimately, may hinder their ability to remain productive community assets.”

The money is intended to put the organizations on sounder financial footing and help sustain their role in the community, said Rogalski, who is the former president of St. Ambrose University in Davenport.

Driving forces behind creation of the new trust are Richard Bittner, a trustee of The Bechtel Trusts & Foundation, and John Bustle of the John Deere Foundation, Rogalski said.

The Bechtel and Deere foundations are also the sources of the disbursement money, along with the Hubbell-Waterman Foundation. Other funding sources are being sought.

The financial struggles of the five organizations receiving funds were described in a series of articles published last year in the Quad-City Times.

Putnam

The series explained how the Putnam had, for more than 10 years, been meeting its operating expenses by spending down its reserves and that it was reaching a point where only about 14 months worth of reserves was left.

“We don’t have a lot of time left,” Putnam interim director Mark Bawden said in March 2007.

The picture is better now, said Kim Findlay, president and chief executive officer, who was hired in May 2007.

For starters, Bawden managed, before he stepped down, to retire the $3.65 million debt that remained from the building of the IMAX Theatre, an obligation that was dragging the institution down and inhibiting its ability to move forward.

For the fiscal year that ended in April, the Putnam spent $350,000 from its reserves, but that figure was considerably less than some previous years. And the spending from the reserves should be reduced to $100,000 to $150,000 in the current fiscal year, Findlay said.

Money from the new trust will help the museum’s financial picture, and there have been other bright spots as well, she said.

Last fall, for example, the museum received a $2 million endowment gift from the estate of Royal and Margaret Rostenbach, a Maryland couple with roots in Davenport, she said. The Putnam also received a $287,000 grant to be spent over three years from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services, and it has recruited new corporate sponsors for its exhibits and/or IMAX shows.

In addition, the museum has tried to be creative in terms of reducing expenses, including the formation of a master craftsmen’s guild that helps put exhibits together, such as building walls and fabricating table units.

“That is helping tremendously to defray expenses,” Findlay said.

Figge

For the fiscal year that ended on June 30, the Figge’s expenses may just about match its funding sources (revenue and gifts). But to survive, it will need to raise an endowment of $15 million to $20 million in the medium term and perhaps $50 million in the long term, said Sean O’Harrow, who was hired as executive director in August 2007.

That is because even though 2007-08 may end up about even, the museum typically will run about $500,000 short annually, and that shortfall will have to be made up by income from the endowment, he said.

Whether such sizeable amounts can be raised remains to be seen; fundraisers may have to seek help outside the community, he added.

Meanwhile, the museum has $5 million.

“It’s our savings, and we are spending it to buy us time to raise an endowment that will make us a viable institution,” he said.

O’Harrow lauded the organizers behind the charitable trust, called the Quad-Cities Cultural & Educational Supporting Charitable Trust, for their support.

“I am grateful for caring and visionary leaders who realize that, unless we have permanent support for our educational and cultural institutions, we, as a community, are not going to survive. Without people like that, we’re sunk.

“We have to have these institutions to have the quality of life that is good enough to convince people around the world — and I mean around the world — to come and move here. Our future is linked to attracting people from outside, new ideas, new blood.”

As with the Putnam, there were bright spots last year, including a $2 million endowment from the Rostenbach estate and a $287,000 federal Institute of Museum and Library Services grant, both identical to the Putnam.

O’Harrow also said the Figge runs lean: Its $2.3 million operating budget figures out to about $38 per visitor compared with $80 per visitor that is spent on average in museums nationwide.

“That’s less than half,” he pointed out.

Botanical center

The financial picture at the botanical center looks better than it did several years ago, when it was operating in the red, had more than $100,000 in unpaid obligations and those in charge wondered if they would be able to meet their payroll, said Allen Dieter, a longtime board member.

The center’s fiscal year ended in June and will be close to meeting its $450,000 in operating expenses, said Amy Jenkins, the director of operations.

Although the board has not discussed the trust’s gift, Dieter said he hopes at least a portion of it will go toward retiring a portion of the $485,000 debt left from the center’s construction.

RME

Frank Klipsch Sr., director of the Scott County Family Y and an RME board member, said finances have stabilized and that operations have streamlined at the downtown attraction. Simultaneously, the RME has better defined its mission as a provider of music education and a venue for live music performances.

The new Woodfire Grill, which opened in the RME after Jan. 1, is generating more traffic than the previous Centro’s restaurant did, he added.

The trust money will be used to leverage, and as a challenge to raise, additional funds, he said.

Q-C Symphony

After four years in which expenses exceeded revenues and were covered by increased earnings by the symphony’s strong and sizeable trust, the symphony may close the just-ended fiscal year with a “modest surplus,” said Jeff vom Saal, who was hired as executive director in September 2007.

That is one reason vom Saal says he is “very excited about our future.”

Other reasons are engaging programs for the upcoming season, the debut of Mark Russell Smith as the orchestra’s new conductor/artistic director, several financial boosts in addition to the grant from the trust and an 8 percent increase in subscription concert sales over the year before, vom Saal said.

New programs will include a spring pops concert featuring the music of Led Zeppelin.

“I want us to be an authentic partner in the community, with real engagement, not an encapsulated entity, but something that really matters,” he said.

Two fundraisers were particularly successful: The long-standing Second Fiddle Sale and the first-ever Derby Day event at the Rock Island Arsenal Golf Club, which featured a live, televised viewing of the Kentucky Derby, food, raffles and an auction. (A dinner for eight prepared by Smith — an accomplished chef as well as musician — went for $3,000.)

Also, the symphony recently received a six-figure gift, vom Saal said.

Ongoing efforts

These kinds of efforts are exactly what the recently formed charitable trust wants to see, Rogalski said.

The trust will contribute to each of the organizations annually with the understanding that they will work individually and collaboratively to make their operations as self-sustaining as possible, he said.

Other organizations may be added in time, and the trust plans to create an endowment, the income of which will support the organizations on an ongoing basis, he said.

“We’re not going to let them falter,” he added.

Alma Gaul can be contacted at (563) 383-2324 or agaul@qctimes.com.