Les Misérables

Baton Rouge’s arts community was already girding itself for shrinking donations and a 12.5% drop in state grants due to the recession when things got decidedly worse.

News broke in February that Stanford Financial Group, which handled investments for some of the community’s wealthiest individuals, was in fact a Ponzi scheme, putting personal fortunes at risk, not to mention philanthropy, on which the arts community heavily relies.

It’s still impossible to calculate just how deep Stanford’s scandal will hit the Baton Rouge Symphony, the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge or other groups, because donors rarely share the reasons for the size of their charitable gifts.

However, one of Stanford’s signature philanthropic endeavors involved the presentation of $25,000 and $10,000 excellence in the arts grants to the local arts organizations that—ironically—demonstrated superior fiscal responsibility and board oversight.

Stanford’s sudden demise left the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra with a $30,000 shortage, nearly 2% of its total budget. Yet, even on his last day as BRSO interim chairman, Ron Ross remained optimistic. “The Symphony is going to survive and is reworking the budget,” he said. “There’s been no loss of appetite for performances from [cellist] Yo-Yo Ma to [trumpeter] Chris Botti. At intermission, there were still ticket seekers. The demand is there. Patrons and supporters just need to step up and support the arts like never before.”

Throughout history the arts have survived everything from war to the plague—and in fact, the worst of times often inspire the best of works. But while individual artists and musicians can work day jobs or wait tables during hard times, arts organizations who rely on a combination of government grants and philanthropy still must pay the light bill, pay royalties and a cast of thousands—both center stage and behind the scenes.

Recently, multi-million dollar losses in investment portfolios and endowments have devastated the arts nationally. The renowned Philadelphia Orchestra’s projected $2 million deficit resulted in a 20% cut in staff. The organization now operates without a chairman, a president or music director.

At the end of March, the state’s executive budget dealt another blow to statewide arts funding.

Gov. Bobby Jindal planned to reduce the Decentralized Arts Funding program by 83%, statewide arts grants by 31%, folklife funding by 50%, and to eliminate artist fellowships, the Percent for Art program and several staff positions.

Seth Harvey, director of communications for the Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana (which oversees the Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism), predicts legislators may consider amending Jindal’s plan if they understand the arts’ economic significance. “It’s not just about a painting or a sculpture,” he says. “The arts create jobs. It’s like cutting any sector of the economy. There are 144,000 people who work in the arts throughout the state, which makes it one of the biggest employers.”

Even before the legislative session began, Arts Council Grants and Community Development Director Laura Larkin launched a pre-emptive strike with a viral e-mail campaign to dissuade the House Appropriations Committee from endorsing the governor’s budget. “We expected some cuts due to the economy,” Larkin says. “With the governor’s cuts, we cannot run a statewide DAF program with the money left in the budget—$500,000. That was the budget for the Baton Rouge area alone.” In 1994, a similar grassroots campaign led lawmakers to restore arts funding after its complete annihilation.

In Los Angeles, in order to offset a 25% budget reduction, the Getty Museum, the world’s richest arts center, cut back on the number of exhibitions and halted plans to acquire new works.

Closer to home in New Orleans, rising costs and shrinking discretionary spending forced the 93-year-old Le Petit Thčâtre du Vieux Carré to lay off its entire staff and to seek a management consultant.

The Symphony’s Ross is not the only Baton Rouge arts executive who remains confident in the arts community’s vitality.

As the Community Fund for the Arts kicks off its united fundraising campaign for its 14 member organizations, corporate giving remains a significant source of support for the CFA. However, it has diversified its donor growth strategy. “We’re enhancing workplace giving opportunities,” says Arts Council CEO Derek Gordon. “If everyone gives a little bit, collectively we can keep strong. Individuals can give a single gift or a percentage of their salaries.

“Small and mid-sized businesses often think this kind of thing is taken care of by the big boys; but, the campaign finds success through $100 or $500 donations as surely as $20,000 or more,” he says.

Gordon anticipates the campaign will attract a new kind of arts enthusiast. “The people of Baton Rouge and the leadership have begun to respond to the arts in a deeper way than in the past,” he says. “There are more opportunities, a richer cultural community here than there was 10 years ago. Live After 5, FestForAll, Sunday in the Park and other free events allow more people more opportunity to see the arts as part of their lives.”

But some new funding could come from $50 million of the federal government stimulus package set aside for the arts nationwide. Funds will be distributed both by state agencies and competitive grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.

However, like so many funding sources, the stimulus money may only be available for one season.

“We’re definitely bracing for tough times,” observed the Baton Rouge Area Foundation’s Director of Partnership Relations Gerri Hobdy. “I don’t think anybody is so challenged their doors are going to shut—here. In other cities in Louisiana, that may not be the case.”

The Baton Rouge Symphony and other organizations are revisiting their mission and making hard choices. However, a decline in shows and performance schedule appears unlikely, and unwise. “Our Kennedy Center consultant stresses the importance of not cutting programming or marketing,” Ross explained, “because you can’t restore programming and reconnect to the market once it’s gone.”

Baton Rouge’s arts organizations have ridden out other storms—figuratively and literally—from a complete loss of state funding in the 1990s to the competition for funds and audiences after recent hurricanes. “Because the state and local arts communities have been through this before,” Hobdy says, “they know what they need to do so people understand their importance to this community and its economic viability.”

With guidance from BRAF, CFA, the Louisiana Division of the Arts and the Louisiana Association of Nonprofit Organizations, many arts organizations have pursued best business practices—prudent fiscal controls, active board leadership and fundraising, building up financial reserves, long-term planning—as aggressively as they’ve sought big-name guest artists.

In many ways, fiscal responsibility has become the ticket to the arts’ survival. “As the arts become more businesslike, they become more sustainable,” Hobdy says. “Donors are interested in artistic and operational performance. [BRAF] donors are very compassionate about giving because they are personally engaged with these organizations, which are the cultural foundation of the city. They have queried about the health of the arts organizations in these economic times. ”

Besides benefiting from business acumen and the largesse of the community, both Gordon and Hobdy see the potential of the city’s arts to become an economic catalyst with a downtown cultural district as its anchor.

“There’s a whole cultural industry [that shares an audience]—restaurants, hotels, historic properties—that drives the cultural economy,” Hobdy says. “By supporting the arts that strengthen our economy, I think we will get better and become even more resilient.”

Learn more about the arts and how to support them at these Web sites: artsbr.org, brso.org and braf.org.