An arts fundraising campaign three years in the making is preparing to go public while organizers chase a legal trademark for the unique solicitation and distribution model.
Organizers of the Springfield Arts Collaborative fundraising campaign are keeping under wraps details of the work as they pursue trademark and possibly patent rights. They expect to reveal the fundraising tally and support model this fall.
Scott Giffen, the collaborative’s executive vice president, said the distribution model is still in the testing phases. To this point, Giffen said his efforts alongside the 25-member leadership committee, headed by campaign Chairman Carl Price, have generated pledged investments worth more than $2 million from regional and national donors.
“We have a lot of verbal pledges out there,” said Leah Hamilton Jenkins, director of the Springfield Regional Arts Council, one of the six partners in the collaborative. “We’ve done a lot of great groundwork.”
The collaborative has enlisted the help of Alison George of Springfield law firm Neale & Newman LLP to help legally protect the ideas.
George said the collaborative expects to seek trademarks on its name and logo, but it is considering to file for a patent on its distribution model in order to serve as a consultant to other organizations. Should the group choose to pursue a patent, which typically costs thousands of dollars, she said the process could take a year or more.
“We’re still looking into it. We’re still in the early stages,” George said, adding that the group primarily wants to protect its intellectual property.
Both Jenkins and Giffen said campaign fundraising through the top-secret model is in the silent phase, and details about its goals and support structure would likely become public in October.
“We don’t want to go public with a campaign until we know it is going to be extremely successful. It is very much still in development,” said Giffen, who was hired in October 2010 and charged with turning into reality 10 years of ideas for generating monetary support and distribution.
The collaborative, which was formed in 2009, is designed to support SRAC, Springfield Ballet, Springfield Symphony & Orchestra, SRO A Lyric Theater Co. and Springfield Little Theatre at the Landers. Jenkins said the Community Foundation of the Ozarks is the group’s sixth partner because it holds the endowment funds of the five benefiting arts organizations.
The collaboration came out of efforts to identify ways to increase support for local arts organizations that began in the late 1990s, Jenkins said. She expects the campaign and distribution model to be welcome news to supporters of the local arts community – especially given the economic impact created. According to the 2010 Arts and Economic Prosperity Calculator, Springfield’s 64 arts and cultural organizations generated $16.3 million in consumer and organizational spending. She said the city is home to nine museums and 43 arts-centered festivals and events that year, when it last prepared data for the annual Community Focus Report.
“We think it is an incredibly innovative concept, even on a national level,” Giffen added.
“We want it to be a spark. We want it to be a moment of inertia, if you will, that will push us toward our campaign goal,” Giffen said, declining to disclose the goal but noting that it was several million dollars.
Investors, Giffen said, are considered co-developers of the support and distribution model, and they’ve been providing input on how it could best be structured. Endowment tools, facility-improvement and management tools are all part of the collaborative effort, Giffen said, noting the leadership committee is still fine-tuning details.
“It is very different from your typical united-arts fund or United Way-type models,” Giffen said, adding that donors could still donate to a single organization in the collaborative. “The primary goal is to ensure the vitality of these arts organizations for the future. We are working together, looking at ways in which we can be efficient and effective within, primarily, our financial structures.
“It is nothing secretive. We are just trying to maximize the momentum of the campaign so that it can be as successful as it can.”
This installment of Springfield Business Journal’s Architects & Engineers Project Report showcases 26 endeavors by area design and engineering professionals.
