Companies Ponder Pulling Orchestra Pledges

Someday, graduate business students may mull over this scenario:

After years of financial travails and last-gasp fund-raising drives, a major arts organization in a large and still-growing Sun Belt city folds up shop. You are the chief executive of a large, community-minded corporation that has pledged $100,000 to the organization.

The situation: Your company has paid $25,000 of the pledge, due in annual installments over four years.

The dilemma: Do you pay the balance and help the organization meet its obligations and debts, or do you withhold the money and perhaps risk public ridicule and negative publicity?

The scenario is very real to several corporations that pledged hundreds of thousands of dollars to the San Diego Symphony Orchestra.

Although those corporate pledges were made to the symphony’s building fund, which is still very much alive, and not to the symphony’s now-dormant operations, executives are trying to determine the proper corporate response.

One company contacted Tuesday said it would honor its pledge without hesitation; others said they are taking a wait-and-see attitude.

“We’ve never had a . . . grant go south before,” conceded one executive whose company made a six-figure donation to the symphony. “This is a new experience for us.”

The symphony’s capital campaign, concluded in the fall of 1985, raised $4.75 million for the renovation of Symphony Hall. Much of the money was in the form of pledges from large corporations, which promised to pay their contributions over several years.

San Diego Gas & Electric was the only company contacted Tuesday that unequivocally said it would pay the money it pledged.

“As of now we intend to pay the balance,” said Jack Morse, corporate community affairs representative. The utility pledged $125,000 but has paid only 20% of that.

“We don’t see anything in the immediate future that would deter our obligation,” Morse said. “Now isn’t the time to pull the rug. . . . I’d give them the benefit of the doubt . . . for at least a year.”

Companies that said they are taking a wait-and-see approach include: Great American First Savings Bank, which still owes $33,000 on its $100,000 pledge; the James S. Copley Foundation, which owes $100,000 of its $250,000 pledge; the Times Mirror Foundation, which owes $65,000 of its $100,000 pledge; Home Federal Savings & Loan, which owes $75,000 of its $100,000 donation, and PSA, which owes $80,000 of its $100,000 gift.