Rolling Out the Welcome Mat for Boeing

When Boeing first arrived here, city leaders were stepping all over themselves to make an impression.

Now, a new contingent of enamored suitors has emerged.

“Boeing is like the new girl in town; everyone is calling on her,” said an almost giddy Carlos Tortolero, executive director of the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, who said the newest corporate neighbor is the topic of discussion at most cocktail parties, receptions and lunches among artist friends.

Since the announcement that Boeing would relocate its headquarters and 500 jobs to a building along the Chicago River by fall, leaders of the creative community have sent company executives welcome letters, gift baskets, theater invitations and museum passes--all in hopes of getting on the jet maker’s radar screen. More ambitious groups have gone a step further, mobilizing special committees made up of affluent and influential board members to schmooze just about anyone linked by blood, marriage or corporate affiliation to Boeing bigwigs.

Tortolero and board members of the Mexican Fine Arts museum have already begun researching Boeing Web sites and reviewing the company’s annual reports to better understand the company’s pattern of giving. It’s an effort well worth making, considering that in April the museum opened a new addition, which expanded its facility by 23,000 square feet, Tortolero said, noting that it takes corporate donations to “fill the space and keep the lights on.”

“You have to be aggressive,” Tortolero said. “We hope to find anyone who went to school with Boeing executives or their father’s uncle’s brother’s sister who went to school with a Boeing executive--someone who knows us and can get the relationship going.”

Tortolero is not alone.

As Boeing officials landed in Chicago to make the relocation official, Museum of Contemporary Art officials had a museum gift tote chock-full of museum passes and tickets to the recent Art Chicago 2001 delivered to their hotel rooms. Lyric Opera officials mailed welcome letters to Boeing Chief Executive Officer Philip Condit and President and Chief Operating Officer Harry Stonecipher--two well-known opera fans. A leadership team is being assembled by the Steppenwolf Theatre of Chicago with the expressed purpose of getting to know Boeing officials interested in theater.

Arts officials are quick to point out that this is how they develop relationships with any potential donor, and certainly one with pockets as deep as Boeing.

“[Boeing] has a very deep history of supporting the arts, and just having them here adds to the profile of the city,” said Gail Kalver, executive director of Hubbard Street Dance Company, who believes the group’s domestic and international tours fit into Boeing’s profile as a global business leader. Though Hubbard hasn’t begun the wooing process yet, Kalver said they plan to invite Boeing officials to special receptions in the fall.

As a corporate citizen, Boeing has a reputation for supporting not-for-profits dedicated to education, health and human services and art and culture.

In 1999, Boeing and its army of employees donated $96.6 million (in cash, in-kind services and loaned executives) to hundreds of charities in cities where company facilities are located, according to the company Web site. About 8%, or $7.4 million, went to the arts and cultural organizations.

The year before, Boeing ranked No. 1 in North America for employee giving--raising $63 million that year.

In recent years, Boeing put up $5 million to build the new Benaroya Hall for the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and gave $1.5 million for the renovation of the Opera House at Seattle Center. The company gave a $300,000 grant to help the Magic House Children’s Museum in St. Louis expand its education center. It sponsored a special millennium dance performance by Seattle’s Umo Ensemble and worked with the California Science Center of Los Angeles and Discovery Science Center to offer free admission on Aerospace Day.

*

Boeing officials would not speculate how much money Chicago’s arts community would receive. But corporate guidelines dictate local contributions be made based on the number of employees living and working in a given area. With only 500 jobs relocated to Chicago, compared with 80,000 remaining in Seattle, local groups won’t see much of the pie.

“What you have is a corporation coming in from the outside that wants to make its presence felt by supporting Chicago cultural and artistic institutions,” said William Chipps, senior editor for IEG Sponsorship Report, a biweekly newsletter that tracks corporate sponsorships nationwide.

He recommends that organizations research what the company wants to accomplish in the community, and get a handle on how Boeing gave in the past.

“You have to customize your programs and proposals to meet Boeing’s needs and use your contacts to develop a personal relationship with the company,” Chipps said. “Boeing is known for giving, but keep in mind that Boeing simply won’t be looking to give donations just to have the company logo plastered on a sign at some event. They will be looking for programs that offer a lot to the community.”

Local organizations say having Boeing’s name on a donor or sponsor list would raise the stock of any Chicago organization among foundations nationwide and probably would influence other Chicago companies to become more involved in philanthropic activities.

“Certainly, Chicago is much bigger than Seattle, with a much larger range of institutions,” said Robert Fitzpatrick, director of Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art. “Yes, there will be competition. But I suspect [Boeing] will carefully look at its involvement in the city and make a decision based on their history of civic responsibility, personal interest and where it can have an impact.”

Fitzpatrick says Boeing could be instrumental in furthering the Museum of Contemporary Art’s effort to build cutting-edge exhibition programs, particularly those of an international and technological focus. “We have suffered when mergers took place, and this is a counterblow to that. For us, this means another opportunity is here.”

It doesn’t hurt that Condit served as a board member for Seattle’s A Contemporary Theater and is an opera buff who donates and subscribes to the Seattle Opera, company officials said.

Stonecipher also subscribes and donates to the Seattle Opera. And while working at a firm in Rockford, Ill., during the early 1990s, he subscribed to the Lyric Opera in Chicago.

“I don’t want to seem greedy or presumptuous, but I would hope, given these gentlemen’s interest in opera, that they would find their way to support the Lyric Opera,” said William Mason, the opera’s general director.

He noted that Boeing could bolster a program that trains young singers or sponsor productions. It’s been a long time since this kind of excitement swept through the artistic community in Chicago, where donations have dwindled in recent years because of corporate mergers and relocations out of the city.

“[Boeing] corporate leadership is nurtured and fed by the arts,” said Susan Trapnell, executive director of Seattle Arts Commission. ‘You never had to make a case for art with Boeing. They know what role art plays in a community.

“I’m sorry that the nature of the global economy was such that they felt they had to leave here,” said Trapnell, who had few words of advice for Chicago charities. “Keep your hands off. We want the money to stay here,” she warned with an uneasy chuckle.