Magic Circle Receives $200,000 Grant
In an unprecedented shift in focus and resources
onto the Central Valley, the James Irvine Foundation has awarded
$4.1 million in grants to be divided among 15 arts organizations,
including five in the Sacramento area.
Those five are the Sacramento Philharmonic, the
Sacramento Ballet and the Crocker Art Museum, which will each
receive $325,000; the Sacramento Opera, which has been awarded a
$250,000 grant; and the Magic Circle Theatre of Roseville,
which was selected by the foundation for a $200,000 grant. The $1.4
million in grant money is to be used over a three-year period.
"We see a real opportunity in the Central Valley
to support its arts organizations and increase the vitality of its
art sector," said Martha S. Campbell, vice president for programs
for the San Francisco-based Irvine Foundation.
The foundation is one of the largest private
organizations that gives grants to nonprofit arts groups in the
state.
The local awards come after a recent
county-by-county Irvine Foundation report, which found that the
fast-growing Central Valley has been deeply under-served by
foundations.
Some Central Valley counties received less than
$10 per capita in annual foundation giving, the report said. In
Sacramento County, it is $68 per capita. The state average is $102
per capita.
The per capita figure reflects the amount of grant
dollars divided by the total population of a county or region.
"The need to fund in the Central Valley is very
present," Campbell said.
That sentiment is echoed by Ruth Blank, chief
executive officer of the Sacramento Region Community Foundation.
Blank oversees nearly $100 million spread out
among 375 local grant funds. However, most of the funding the
community foundation dispersed last year went where donors dictated
-- namely health and human service organizations and youth programs.
Only 3 percent went to the arts, Blank said.
"I think it is exciting that Irvine looked where
foundation monies were going in California and realized that the
Central Valley was being left out," she said.
Until now, most of the grant funding by the Irvine
Foundation has been to organizations in Los Angeles and San
Francisco.
But as a result of the report, the foundation
invited 30 Central Valley arts organizations to apply for funding.
"This is one way to help these arts organizations
to meet evolving changes and to build their capacity to reach more
audiences," said John McGuirk, the foundation's director of arts
programs.
For their part, reaction from local recipients was
one of elation.
"Getting a grant from the Irvine Foundation --
it's just like getting a Good Housekeeping stamp of approval," said
Rod Gideons, executive director of the Sacramento Opera.
The grant will be used to hire a development
director and will also be leveraged to raise funds from other
foundations, he said.
Indeed, the grant money is not intended to fund
programming. Instead, it is meant to help strengthen the
administration of each organization, with most funds slated for
staffing and board development. In turn, it is expected that this
will assist a group's ability to expand its audience base.
For the Sacramento Ballet, the monetary award
represents the largest one-time grant the organization has ever
received from a foundation in its 53-year history.
"It's extraordinary, to get this kind of funding
for capacity building," said Kerri Warner, the ballet's executive
director.
The money, she added, will be used for developing
a strategic plan, including a business plan for its new Center for
Dance Education.
The Sacramento Philharmonic intends to use some of
its grant money to help brand the organization. "One of the things
that we identified during this grant process is that people in the
community were not aware of us," said Marc Feldman, the director.
For the Crocker Art Museum, which recently broke
ground on an ambitious $85 million expansion project, the $325,000
grant will go a long way toward strengthening its position as a
leading visual arts institution, said museum director Lial Jones.
Jones said the grant will be used for board and
staff development, as well as for increasing audience numbers and
audience diversity.
"What's unusual about this grant is that the
Irvine Foundation did a survey of arts organizations throughout the
state and they talked to us about what would be most beneficial for
us, in the long term," Jones said.
"And overwhelmingly, the arts organizations and
cultural organizations said the No. 1 challenge was capacity
building."
Up until it was chosen as a recipient by the
Irvine Foundation, the largest one-time grant that the Magic Circle
Theatre had ever received was a $50,000 grant from the city of
Roseville, said Kris Hunt, head of public relations and a grant
writer for the regional theater.
Now, they will be able to use the foundation funds
to do training for its board of directors and allow the company,
which has a yearly budget of nearly $1 million, to hire two new
employees, Hunt said.
Magic Circle was chosen over other theater
applicants because of its large children's theater component, said
Ted Russell, the Irvine Foundation's senior program officer.
"We were impressed with their artistic leadership
and their community connectedness," Russell said. "We looked at the
theater as a whole and what it means to the immediate community, and
we saw that this organization is important to Placer County."