Donation to Arts Groups Keeps on Giving

The five Orange County arts groups that divvied up $6.6 million awarded by philanthropist William J. Gillespie a year ago today put their money into endowments or savings accounts. Three of the groups have used the funds to stage risky, adventurous works, create something new or diversify programs.

A spokesman for the Laguna Beach arts lover said Gillespie is happy that all the money is tucked away and earning interest, no matter how that interest is being spent.

The message Gillespie sent by acting “at a particularly difficult time in arts funding,” said Tom Tomlinson, president of the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, “was that these institutions deserve to be sustained over time. So by placing [the funds] in an endowment, we [are maintaining] the gift forever.”

The center, which received $2.8 million of the donation, had never gotten so large a gift that wasn’t part of a building campaign. None of the other recipients had ever received a larger, one-time donation. These groups and their grants are:

* Pacific Symphony, $1.2 million.

* Pacific Chorale, $1 million.

* South Coast Repertory, $940,000.

* The Philharmonic Society of Orange County, $680,000.

Gillespie, a regular at each recipient’s programs, drew the grant funds mostly from interest from a $17-million trust that his mother, Edra E. Brophy, set up in 1988.

The groups were free to use the grants any way they chose. Richard A. Gadbois III, Gillespie’s spokesman and treasurer of his personal foundation, said recently that “he’s delighted with how everything’s gone.”

Endowment interest subsidizes everything from arts groups’ gas bills to new-play commissions to pianists’ salaries. Because the county’s arts institutions are relatively young, however, their endowments don’t yet generate enough interest to cover every need, arts officials say.

For instance, SCR’s endowment, brought to $8 million with the addition of Gillespie’s gift, earned $400,000 this year. That’s $400,000 less SCR had to raise, but the theater has a $6.2-million budget.

Part of SCR’s endowment interest went toward the development of plays by David Henry Hwang, Richard Greenberg and Donald Margulies, all of which are scheduled to premiere this fall.

“At a time when so many grants are driven by foundations’ and corporations’ agendas,” SCR producing artistic-director David Emmes said, “it is so great to have support from someone who says, ‘I want to support the art and whatever areas you believe most need support to fulfill your mission.’ ”

Dean Corey, executive director of the Philharmonic Society, deposited the group’s gift into a savings account he calls a “safety net.”

The fund, which may one day become an endowment, provides security, he explained, to help the society broaden its offerings without worrying too much about box-office disappointments. Its upcoming season, for instance, features Cajun musician Steve Riley, composer Philip Glass doing a solo piano recital and a music-video work by Steve Reich.

“Anything in the artistic realm today is a risk,” Corey said, “but how much risk you take depends on how much you can handle the downside of something.”

Ironically, Pacific Chorale’s grant caused that group a public-relations challenge, stemming from the fact that the gift was larger--by a third--than the chorale’s entire $750,000 budget for the year.

After the grant was announced by media throughout the county, donors assumed the group would never need another nickel.

“We had to make a major effort to alert our donors that we are not millionaires,” said executive director Julie Bussell. The group even created a new logo with the slogan “Pacific Chorale Endowment Fund--Insuring the Future of Choral Artistry in Our Community,” Bussell said.

“And we mailed everyone letters letting them know that we’d chosen to use the gift for an endowment.” She said the strategy prevented a decline in donations.

The chorale, which has never had an endowment, started one with $750,000 of its gift. The account earned $60,000 interest, only 13% of what the group had to raise this year.

“No, the endowment is not big enough to alleviate the need for donations,” she said. “But it does help.”

The chorale earmarked $100,000 of Gillespie’s gift for future recordings. It used another $90,000 to retire an accumulated deficit and bought new computers with the rest.

“By upgrading our computer equipment,” Bussell said, “we were able to bring 90% of our marketing in house. We used to farm out all the layout--the season brochures, invitations to fund-raisers. We’re saving about $15,000 a year this way.”

In just one year, she said, the computers will pay for themselves. Meanwhile, the endowment’s interest supported an additional concert this season.

“We wanted to have an opportunity to show more diverse programming,” Bussell said. “This year, our fourth concert was an a cappella program.”

The head of at least one local group that didn’t get any of Gillespie’s money said he isn’t miffed. But Laguna Playhouse executive director Richard Stein knows that the best route to a donor’s pocket is familiarity.

“I don’t believe Mr. Gillespie has been to any of our productions recently,” Stein said, “so we’ve extended the invitation and certainly hope to get him down here, because that’s always the first step toward getting someone interested in giving.”

Gillespie does, in fact, give only to those groups whose performances he regularly attends, Gadbois confirmed, adding that the heir to a founding investor in Farmers Insurance Group has continued giving some of last year’s five recipients smaller gifts of up to $30,000.

But nobody should expect anything hefty until 2008, Gadbois said. That’s when about $5 million more from the Edra E. Brophy trust will be given to any arts groups Gillespie chooses.