San Antonio Symphony News and Archive

Symphony orchestrates probe of donor support.




by Mike Greenberg

from the San Antonio Express News 9/21/97

The San Antonio Symphony is testing the waters for fund drives aimed at raising $42 million to rebuild its endowment, beef up its annual-fund revenues and convert the Scottish Rite Cathedral to the orchestra's permanent home.

The Symphony earlier this month mailed a "case statement" for the potential three-year fund drives to subscribers and donors or potential donors.

Also enclosed was a questionnaire asking recipients to evaluate the orchestra and its needs, assign priorities to the three proposed fund drives and indicate their willingness to contribute money.

Cargill Associates, a Fort Worth consulting firm, has been retained to evaluate the chances of success for the potential fund drives.

While waiting for the questionnaires to be returned, the consultants are "conducting 50 interviews with people of influence and affluence," said David Schillhammer, the symphony's executive director.

Those interviews will produce the most crucial information regarding the symphony's prospects for increased giving, he said.

"The consultants' report is due the second week of October. At that time we will have a sense of our ability to raise the money we need," Schillhammer added.

Three distinct fund drives are under consideration:

• $20 million for structural and access improvements to the Scottish Rite Cathedral, which the symphony is considering as its permanent home.
The orchestra has shared the city-owned Majestic Theater with a series of touring Broadway shows since 1989.

"The symphony had hoped that the Majestic would indeed become its permanent home,"the case statement asserts. "However, the musicals such as 'Miss Saigon' have created conditions which will require the symphonyto move its entire operations out of the Majestic Theater for part of each season for the forseeable future."

"Such annual moves create major inconveniences for patrons... and expensive logistical problems for the symphony".

Accordingly, Schillhammer said in a letter accompanying the case statement, the orchestra is "studying in depth the possibility of reaching an agreeement with the directors and membership of the Scottish Rite Library and Museum concerning a major restoration of the Scottish Rite Cathedral."

Preliminary studies by acoustician Lawrence Kirkegaard and the Architecture firm Ford, Powell & Carson have concluded that $20 million could convert the structure to the multi-purpose performance space and solve its acoustical, technical, and access problems.

• $10 million for the permanent endowment.
The symphony liqudated its endowment several years ago to pay off $6 million in accumulated debt. About $1 million since has been returned to the endowment under a new arrangement by which the San Antonio Area Foundation serves as trustee, protecting the capital from future raids.
• $12 milion in annual fund contributions over the next three years.
The annual fund, which fills part of the gap betwenn ticket sales amd expenses, raised $3.3 million last season, up sharply from $2.9 million the year before, Schillhammer said.

Still, the orchestra ended last season with a $416,000 deficit and an accumulated debt of about $1 million. If the annual fund giving does not rise this year, the symphony projects a loss of $700,000 for the season.

"The organization needs to increase annual fund giving to $4 million a year to operate in the black," Schillhammer said.



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