Most Big-Time Givers Also Have Big-Time Names

Most major givers to the arts in Orange County are better known than the Steele Foundation, which in 1989 gave $1.02 million to local arts and cultural organizations.

Shopping-center magnate Henry Segerstrom and his family are probably the county’s best-known patrons, and such corporate names as Irvine, Fluor and Pacific Mutual are almost as recognizable.

The Segerstrom family, foundation and company together gave land valued at $6 million as the site of the Orange County Performing Arts Center in 1979, and more than $7 million in cash to the Center through 1989, the most recent year for which complete figures are available. The Center’s main hall is named for Henry Segerstrom, who served as the facility’s first board chairman.

In 1989, the Segerstroms made cash gifts of $354,740 to 25 county arts organizations, plus in-kind gifts worth $263,000--including fund-raisers, marketing and rent-free space for the Laguna Art Museum’s satellite facility at South Coast Plaza--for a total of more than $600,000. These included $100,000 to the Center; $50,000 to the Newport Harbor Art Museum; $50,000 to South Coast Repertory, payment on a $250,000 pledge; $50,000 to the Laguna Art Museum, on a $150,000 pledge; $25,000 to the Pacific Symphony; and $25,000 to Opera Pacific, toward a $100,000 pledge.

The Irvine Co. made $490,000 in gifts to county arts organizations in 1989, including $175,000 for the Center, and $100,000 each for the Irvine Barclay Theatre and the Newport Harbor Art Museum. Major gifts from the Irvine Co. to the Center, the Irvine Barclay, SCR and the Newport Harbor have totaled more than $3.5 million in the past decade. The company has pledged a site for a new Newport Harbor museum, valued between $10 million and $20 million. Since the mid-1980s, the company has become a major donor to UC Irvine, which named its 5,500-seat campus events center for company Chairman Donald L. Bren (a longtime Newport Harbor board member).

The James Irvine Foundation, which is no longer affiliated with the Irvine Co., made grants of $5.72 million to county arts groups during the 1980s, $5 million of which went to the Center, the foundation said. In 1989, the foundation awarded grants of $600,000 to county arts organizations, including $500,000 to the Newport Harbor Art Museum, $50,000 to the Orange County Philharmonic Society and $50,000 to the Garden Grove Shakespeare Festival. Once based in Orange County and endowed by the Irvine family, the Irvine Foundation is now based in San Francisco.

Two other county-based companies, Fluor Daniel and Pacific Mutual Insurance, also have been major corporate arts supporters. Since 1985, the earliest period for which figures are available, Fluor Daniel gave $1.13 million to county arts groups, a company official said. In 1989, Fluor gave $435,109 to various groups.

Since 1983, Pacific Mutual, which concentrates its giving on health and human services, has made grants of about $600,000 to county arts organizations.

Arts Grants

1989 grants to Orange County arts and cultural organizations.

Steele Foundation: $1.02 million

Segerstrom Group: $600,000

James Irvine Foundation: $600,000

Irvine Co.: $490,000

Fluor Daniel: $435,000

Source: Foundations and IRS