Keck Grant to Orange County Arts Center

The W. M. Keck Foundation has awarded $1 million to the Orange County Performing Arts Center’s Endowment Fund, Center officials announced Monday. The grant will be used to launch a campaign to increase the endowment’s cash assets from the current $3 million (including the Keck grant) to $12 million by the end of 1993.

The gift represents a “major step forward” in financial stability for the Costa Mesa Center, which uses endowment funds for programming and operating costs, said Center Chairman Henry T. Segerstrom.

“Building the cash in the endowment broadens our financial support base so we don’t have to depend so heavily on ticket sales and can perhaps engage in more (artistically) daring” programs and exercise “more flexibility” in programming, Segerstrom said.

At present, about $70 million has been committed to the Center’s Endowment Fund, established in 1982, primarily in deferred estate gifts such as will bequests, Center officials report. But these funds are not expected to be converted into cash assets for 20 to 30 years.

In considering the gift to the Center, which was created and sustained entirely by private sector funds, “we were particularly impressed by the way people of the area have rallied to build and support this marvelous facility,” said David A. Thomas, chairman of the W. M. Keck Foundation’s Southern California Program Committee.

Thomas also said that though it is unrestricted, the grant is an attempt “to encourage continued development” of arts education and community outreach, a particular focus of the Los Angeles-based foundation which limits its arts support to Southern California. The Center currently sponsors several educational programs of its own plus helps subsidize others presented by regional groups using the facility.

“We depend on (foundation grant recipients) to ever expand their educational outreach programs even though our grants are not necessarily directly tied to their expansion,” Thomas said. The foundation has made similar gifts to the Museum of Contemporary Art ($2.2 million in 1988), the Los Angeles Philharmonic ($1.2 million in 1988) and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra ($100,000 in 1989.)

The W. M. Keck Foundation, which has donated more than $24 million to arts and culture in Southern California since 1980, contributed $1 million to construction of the $73.7-million Center in 1983. The foundation annually gives a total of $35 million to support a wide range of needs nationwide in addition to arts and culture.

The foundation was established in 1954 as a grant-making entity by the late W. M. Keck, founder of the Superior Oil Co. Its primary focus is support for science, engineering and medical research.