A newly formed arts partnership unveiled its fundraising model while announcing roughly $2 million in publicly pledged donations.
To date, the initiative dubbed the Springfield Arts Collaborative has received pledges for roughly $7 million and has a goal to raise another $2 million by October, according to organizers.
The Springfield Arts Collaborative is a partnership between Springfield Regional Arts Council; the Springfield Symphony Orchestra; SRO, a Lyric Theatre Co.; Springfield Ballet; Springfield Little Theatre; and Community Foundation of the Ozarks. SRAC Executive Director Leah Hamilton said while CFO is not a beneficiary of the donations, it offers operational support for the collaborative through oversight of its funds.
Details of the collaborative emerged as arts’ leaders announced in December a nearly $1.4 million donation by the O’Reilly family of O’Reilly Automotive Inc., a $500,000 gift from the Freelander family and $100,000 from the current campaign leadership committee.
“Essentially, it uses the best practices of a united arts fundraising model, with a one-stop ask, and then an arts’ center model that incorporates multiple organizations under one roof,” Hamilton said, noting the member organizations would maintain their autonomy.
In establishing the collaborative, SRAC hired Scott Giffen in 2010 to secure funding and develop a structure to share donations between the five groups by using a formula that guides how each organization is to receive funding.
“They wanted to look at long-term solutions – planned giving, endowment-based giving – to diversify their income streams and be more secure in knowing where their revenue would be coming from,” said Giffen, Springfield Arts Collaborative’s executive vice president.
Giffen said the formula – approved by a roughly 30-member leadership committee – is based on each nonprofit’s annual income levels. Under the agreement, 75 percent of the funds raised are distributed to the member arts organizations based on the size of their operational budgets. Three funds managed by CFO receive the remaining 25 percent, which is categorized as monies unspecified by donors. One fund supports the Creamery Arts Center facility; the second belongs to Landers Theatre for renovations and upkeep; and the third fund supports arts education throughout Springfield Public Schools.
“It is based on the assumption that the larger you are, the more resources you need,” said Giffen, who worked in Atlanta as an arts fundraiser before following his wife to the Ozarks when she was named associate pastor of Kingsway United Methodist Church. “The model is dynamic in that it changes every year based on how the organizations are doing.”
He said Springfield Little Theatre is currently the largest of the five arts members in the collaborative, and all groups currently are operating in the black.
As of Jan. 10, the collaborative had received $250,000 in cash. The pledges include a mix of planned gifts, cash and endowed funds, and Giffen said the disbursements would take place automatically as funds are received by CFO.
“Of the $7 million that has been (pledged) so far, no one has disagreed with the model,” Giffen said. “We think that is a huge stamp of approval.”
There had been talk of patenting the collaborative’s unique fundraising model, but Hamilton said it was determined an ineffective use of time.
“We hope this can be a model that can be replicated by other communities of a similar size, but right now we are focused on making sure this is successful,” she said.[[In-content Ad]]
