Micro-Philanthropy: Think Small

Image by: Antony Hare

The days of the “big give” philanthropist are over. And that’s a good thing.

I am writing this month’s column aboard an early morning Air Canada flight bound for Toronto. The purpose of my trip is to have dinner with Matthew Teitelbaum, director of the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), tour the gallery’s new $250-million Frank Gehry extension and view an installation by Kerry James Marshall currently on loan from the Rennie Collection.

Toronto has seen an unprecedented construction boom of new cultural infrastructure in recent years. The timing was perfect; almost all of the fundraising – around $1 billion for the AGO, the Royal Ontario Museum, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts and the Royal Conservatory of Music – occurred during extraordinarily good times, when corporate coffers were full and philanthropy was at its peak.

The question now is, In this new economy, will such grand architectural endeavours ever get off the ground? More importantly, can our existing cultural institutions – now struggling to pay their bills – even survive?

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You don’t have to look far to see the storm clouds. Just south of the border, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles recently saw its endowment fund virtually disappear thanks to an investment and management regime premised on never-ending good times. In January Brandeis University in Boston announced the closure of its art museum, with over 6,000 works of art – including some from major contemporary masters such as Andy Warhol and Willem de Kooning – put on the auction block because of a ballooning deficit. Complicating things further, one of the university’s major sources of private philanthropy dried up after the Shapiro family lost some $500 million in investments with Wall Street fraudster Bernie Madoff.

I am all for more cultural facilities, but times have undeniably changed in this economic meltdown. Giving has decreased dramatically, and it is the rich, the key patrons of the arts – people like the Shapiros – who got whacked. Cultural institutions and non-profits that have come to rely on the “big give” are going to have to change their strategy for financing long-term ventures.

They should start by taking their cue from President Obama, who broke fundraising records in 2008 by thinking beyond what worked yesterday and instead sought small donations and embraced a broad, non-traditional audience. We need to welcome the $100 donors and cultivate more of them. To do that, we need to better understand what they want.

As an avid collector, much of my world travel is driven by the need to educate my eye and experience the contemporary art world first-hand. Wherever I go in Europe these days, I see young schoolchildren sitting cross-legged in museums, soaking up the culture. Patiently and passionately, European institutions (both schools and museums) are cultivating a rich appreciation for art – and, just as importantly, they’re laying the foundation for future patrons.

While we worry in Canada about attracting brand-name “starchitects” to build our new museums and symphony halls – hoping this will reel in the audiences and attract big donations – in Europe they understand that the contents of the box are far more important than the box itself. The AGO’s CEO, Matthew Teitelbaum, interestingly enough, understands this. His new gallery, while built by a brand-name architect, is almost impossibly practical. It is designed to encourage and delight visitors as well as to showcase, in the best possible light, the AGO’s growing and important collection.

Its simplicity and functionality fosters an individual connection between patron and institution – something that became evident to me as I toured the building with Teitelbaum. Along the way he stopped to talk to five different individuals – five donors, I later found out, who ranged from million-dollar givers to a $500 contributor. And to a person, by God, he knew their names. In this new world order, institutions are going to have to make sure that every donor is recognized – and understand that every gift counts.

• Tags
  • Bob Rennie, 
  • AGO, 
  • Charity and Philanthropy, 
  • Corporate Finance, 
  • Media, Arts and Entertainment