The national arts news seems peppered this week with financial Hail Mary’s and returns from the grave, among them the recent salvation of the Cincinnati Symphony (username: ajreader@artsjournal.com, password: access) from a $1.8 million hole, and the New Hampshire Symphony’s slow return from a $250,000 shortfall.
The Cincinnati Symphony is clearly the happier of the two, since the estimated $1.8 million came from a single anonymous donor:
The exact amount of the deficit — partly due to the declined value of the symphony’s endowment because of a downturn in the stock market — will not be known until the fiscal year closes Aug. 31. The donor’s one-time gift is to cover the symphony’s operating deficits from the fiscal years 2003 and 2004, plus any additional amounts that may accrue, said Daniel Hoffheimer, president of the symphony’s board.
New Hampshire is having a bit more of a slog to get out of the fiscal ditch, and is really only half-way there. Says Executive Director Douglas Barry:
‘I feel very confident, with the help of our board and the help of our community, we can help bring the organization back on its feet and be stronger than we were in the past. But we¹re still not out of the woods yet…’
More proof that the nonprofit cultural business model, and the management of same, were both forged in an era of exceptional growth (in audiences, in the economy, in labor, in funding sources). It will require increasingly Herculean efforts like these to keep pace with the old model, until we can forge a better model for modern, slow-growth, or no-growth times.
