Waiting for Angels in the Basin : Cultural Foundation Must Lure Generous Donors to Build Long-Promised Arts Complex

A”prime suspect,” in fund-raising parlance, is someone who will donate millions of dollars. Any fund-raising organization needs a number of prime suspects in its ranks, fund-raisers say. These kinds of members not only give, they have wealthy friends who give, too.

The San Fernando Valley’s Cultural Foundation has only one such person. The foundation’s fund-raising director refers to this man, multimillionaire car dealer Bert Boeckmann, as “our angel.”

But Boeckmann may not be enough. The 7-year-old organization is struggling to build a museum, a concert hall and an open-air theater in the Sepulveda Basin, and needs $45 million to do it.

After seven years of negotiations, preliminary reports and public surveys, the foundation is beginning to feel the pressure. Soon it will have to come up with some money.

There are growing suspicions among fund-raising experts that the Cultural Foundation might not be up to the task.

“What worries me is that maybe their enthusiasm is preceding the reality,” said Alan Kumamoto, director of the Center for Non-Profit Management, which assists fund-raising organizations in Los Angeles.

“If I was somebody who was involved with this project five years ago, I’d be discouraged. How do they keep the dream alive?”

Army bulldozers will soon begin to reshape the Sepulveda Basin as part of a federally sponsored program to beautify the city-owned land. The city has agreed to let the foundation build Arts Park L.A. on a 60-acre corner of this new parkland.

As the Army Corps of Engineers digs a lake and plants trees, it also will form a hill for the foundation’s amphitheater.

With work set to begin in the basin, the foundation has yet to raise any of the $45 million needed to build Arts Park. And its lease will come with a clause: build within five years or lose the land.

Foundation officials say they aren’t worried. They say they have purposely waited to begin raising the money.

“Timing is everything,” said Doris (Dodo) Meyer, the foundation’s chairman.

But a history of inconsistent leadership and some all-too-public missteps suggest that the foundation’s timing hasn’t always been good. Original plans to build another cultural center, a $27-million complex in Warner Park, have had to be postponed. The foundation’s 29 board members and five employees are now concentrating on Arts Park. Working in a Warner Plaza office, they must make up for past mistakes.

“Sure, we’re sorry about that, but it’s not going to stop us from what we want to do,” said Linda Kinnee, a professional fund-raiser recently hired by the foundation. “We have a lot of roll-up-your-sleeves work to do. Now we’re back on track.”

If there is a turning point for the foundation, Meyer said, it will come this year. In the spring, the foundation will commission architectural plans for Arts Park. At about the same time, it should receive a lease for the Sepulveda Basin land. The land was promised to the foundation long ago, but there have been complications, delays and haggling with city officials.

With blueprints and a city contract in hand, the foundation will begin a five-year campaign to raise the $15 million it needs to start Arts Park. Donors will give more money if they can see blueprints, Meyer said.

But it is unlikely that several pieces of paper will solve all the foundation’s problems.

Robert Voit, who developed Warner Center, was the only other “prime suspect” on the foundation’s board of directors. Voit recently resigned from the board. But Kinnee said he remains a strong, if less-active, supporter.

The remaining board members include car dealers, bankers, executives and several civic leaders.

“Look at the competitors,” Kumamoto said. “Who does the Music Center have? What is the net influence of a car dealer?”

The Cultural Foundation also lacks endorsement from Southern California’s major art families--such as the Ahmansons--and the corporations that traditionally support the arts, such as ARCO or Carter Hawley Hale.

“If those names aren’t associated with an institution, it brings to mind a question of credibility,” said Kraig Butrum, who has worked on several campaigns to build cultural centers around the country and, as a Northridge native, has followed the foundation’s efforts. “It’s a question of leadership.”

Foundation leaders acknowledge that they need “downtown corporate support.” Again, they say, it’s a matter of timing. The big donors will be sought once blueprints are completed.

“These people want to see what you are going to build,” Meyer said.

The foundation has suffered from inconsistent leadership, as well. Three chairmen, two general managers and two fund-raising directors have passed through its offices in Warner Plaza in just three years.

But the foundation’s latest change in leadership may have been its salvation, fund-raising experts say. Meyer, a long-time aide to Mayor Tom Bradley, took over as chairman last summer.

Everyone calls this 62-year-old woman by the nickname Dodo. She is small and smiling and sometimes described as looking like someone’s grandmother.

In private discussions, however, her tone becomes forceful. “She’s a lady who gets things done,” Kumamoto said. And, although her volunteer work at the foundation is unrelated to her job, she is a woman who has contacts within city bureaucracy.

Meyer bristles at suggestions that Arts Park is a pipe dream. “Seven years is a long time to wait,” she said. “But we feel we’ve learned a lot, and we will get these facilities built .”

In the world of fund-raising, half the battle is looking good. No one wants to give money to a losing cause, or to an organization that appears inept. “Nothing breeds success like success,” said one fund-raiser. “That brings in the money.”

Right now, the foundation is struggling with a campaign to raise $1 million in start-up money. That campaign, originally intended to last six months, has dragged on for more than a year and raised only $500,000.

Start-up, or “seed,” campaigns are difficult to run because people want to give money for buildings, not for typewriters and architectural surveys, Kinnee said. The $1-million fund-raiser started before she came on board. Kinnee said that she would not have chosen to launch a start-up campaign. But it is a project that she and the foundation have had to live with.

“It’s called a lurch, not a launch,” Kinnee said. “I think every business has false starts. There are a lot of ‘should haves’ out there.”

The foundation insists on waiting for Arts Park blueprints before soliciting million-dollar donations. Fund-raisers question this strategy. They say that the big donors are inspired by what happens inside a building, not by blueprints.

“Certainly to have an artist’s rendering--it’s easier to push. But not everyone needs to see one of those to give,” said Dianne Grohulski, who is raising $65 million to build classrooms at USC. The Cultural Foundation “can push the need for having a cultural center.”

Grohulski said this kind of behind-the-scenes fund raising is called a “silent start.” Fund-raisers quietly gather millions from major donors before they even announce a campaign. When a $100-million campaign begins with $50 million in the bank, it looks like a winner from the start and attracts more donors.

Historically, Cultural Foundation officials have been anything but silent. As early as 1984, they announced that a $45-million fund-raising campaign was imminent. Luke Bandle, the general manager at that time, predicted that both Arts Park and the Warner Center complex would be completed by 1987.

Subsequent predictions and campaign starting dates have come and gone. As of September, 1987, the foundation had $50,000 in the bank.

“The foundation is doing a lot of false starts,” Kumamoto said. “From an image point of view, having false starts is harmful.”

Burdened with this history, the foundation’s new leaders are taking time to regroup. They are working on inspiring their own members and supporters, some of whom had been drifting away.

These regular contributors keep the organization running, which costs about $400,000 a year. Expenses in 1987 included Kinnee’s $60,000 salary and the purchase of a $50,000 computer system.

According to foundation documents, 110 annual contributors stopped giving during 1986, leaving only 60 to make the necessary donations. That left the foundation working on “zero cash flow” at times, according to minutes from the board of directors’ meetings.

Meyer and Kinnee discovered that, at some point, the foundation had lost touch with these people--phone calls weren’t made and newsletters weren’t being sent.

One of Meyer’s first moves to solve this problem was to enlist the volunteer help of Barbara Balik, who has worked with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation for 18 years. Balik, of Sherman Oaks, handled public relations and fund raising for Cystic Fibrosis, and was asked to strengthen the Cultural Foundation’s image both with the public and with its own supporters.

Balik asked foundation officials to call and write to contributors who had been neglected. She has Meyer sending monthly newsletters to supporters. Kinnee said membership contributions have already increased.

“Our annual campaign is 100% stronger than it was at this time last year,” Kinnee said. “That, to me, is a good sign.”

If anything has forced the foundation to mend its ways, it has been a series of failed public events over the past eight months.

Last summer, the foundation held its second annual Pacifica music and arts festival. Attendance was so dismal that angry vendors forced the foundation to let some people in free. Contributions from corporations saved the foundation from losing thousands of dollars on the festival.

A few months later, Meyer took the chairwoman’s position and quickly predicted a new era of success would begin with an exhibit by Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo at the foundation’s ARTSPACE gallery in Warner Center.

Documents from a foundation meeting show that the exhibit was expected to raise $121,000. Most of that money was to come from opening-night ticket sales. But only 73 people bought the $150 tickets. Again, corporate donations paid for the losses.

“We were lucky to come out of that with a lovely evening . . . that didn’t leave us sprawled on our faces,” Balik said. “Out of that night came a strong focus. We said ‘OK, let’s get back to our original goals.’ ”

Foundation officials were once loath to acknowledge even the slightest ailure. Now, Meyer, Kinnee and Balik are willing to discuss their mistakes. Learning from these mistakes is “part of the process,” they say.

And, for seemingly the first time in its history, the foundation has set down a plausible, if vaguely detailed, schedule for construction of Arts Park.

The foundation is now awaiting a $100,000 federal grant to help pay for Arts Park blueprints. If the grant money does not come through, Kinnee will begin raising it from within the organization.

Once blueprints are finished, the $15-million campaign will begin. The remaining $30 million will be raised after that.

Meanwhile, the foundation is embarking on a relatively small project with internationally prominent architect Jon Jerde to build an outdoor performance stage in Warner Park. Meyer and Kinnee continue to work on plans for Arts Park with the city and the Corps of Engineers. They hold meetings with officials of the County Museum of Natural History, which is interested in building a satellite museum at Arts Park.

And they keep an eye on the calendar. The Corps of Engineers is reviewing the construction deadline in the lease that will be presented to the foundation.

If everything goes according to the foundation’s plan, construction of the open-air theater will begin before that five-year deadline. The county museum and other facilities will follow. The 2,500-seat concert hall will come last.

Kinnee says the foundation has already secured more than $3 million of the $15 million it will soon seek to start Arts Park. She refused to say who has pledged that money.

“Sure, I feel the pressure of time because I know the public is out there waiting for us,” Kinnee said. “Yes, it’s been a long time to wait, but these things take decades.”

Staff writer Doug Smith contributed to this story.

The Seven-Year Struggle

1980

Cultural Foundation is founded, aims to raise $72 million to build art complexes in Sepulveda Basin and Warner Center. Early years spent recruiting members, commissioning preliminary designs and raising some funds.

1983

First master plan for $45-million Arts Park L.A. is scrapped when Army Corps of Engineers changes the complex’s Sepulveda Basin site.

1984

New Arts Park plan calls for construction over Bull Creek. Corps of Engineers says this would cost millions more. Plan is scrapped. Luke Bandle, foundation general manager, predicts that Arts Park and Warner Center complex will be completed by 1987.

1985

Foundation hires fund-raising firm. Firm discovers most Valley donors are “unaware” of foundation. Foundation is told to publicize work and enlist wealthy Valley residents as members. A schedule is suggested: a start-up $1-million campaign followed by a 5-year, $15 million fund-raiser, with the remaining $57 million to be raised over subsequent decade.

1986

Luke Bandle resigns for personal reasons. Chairman Bert Boeckmann steps down, citing same reason, but remains active with foundation. Madeleine Landry replaces Bandle. Newspaper publisher Byron Campbell is elected chairman. Foundation hires its own fund-raising director, who then backs out of job. Annual contributions decline. Foundation operates “on a zero cash flow” at times, according to foundation documents.

1987

Foundation launches $1-million campaign. Linda Kinnee, a professional fund-raiser, is hired. Madeleine Landry takes indefinite medical leave. Byron Campbell resigns for business reasons. Doris Meyer replaces him. Two foundation events--Pacifica festival and Rufino Tamayo exhibit--are disappointments. By year’s end, $1-million campaign has raised only $500,000.

1988

Warner Center complex postponed. The $1-million campaign continues, with $15-million fund-raiser to ensue. Foundation awaits $100,000 grant to help fund Arts Park blueprints.