The three new corporate funders introduced last week by the Detroit International Jazz Festival represented a small coup for the organization.
The festival will need plenty more sponsors if its annual Detroit Jazz Festival and year-round community and educational programs are to survive long term.
Gretchen Valade, chairwoman of Dearborn-based clothier Carhartt Inc. and CEO of Detroit's Mack Avenue Records, made a highly publicized $10 million gift to save the festival six years ago. She also quietly made an additional $5 million gift about a year later when she and the festival's new management team realized the annual budget was larger than initially expected and after establishing the Gretchen C. Valade Endowment for the Arts, which operates as a private nonprofit funder for the festival.
As chairwoman, Valade and a small board of directors have discretion over disbursements from the endowment, review of the artists who are selected, budgets and other matters.
Valade also created a new operating structure for the festival, making it independent of its former operator, the Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts.
Over the past six years, the festival has spent over half of the $15 million endowment from Valade, leaving it with about $7 million.
It had total expenses of just over $2.7 million last year, up from $2.5 million in 2009. And it drew down about $1.67 million from the endowment last year and $1.62 million in 2009 to fully fund its operations.
“We had to make a decision: Do we risk the endowment and continue at the current budget to keep the festival going until corporate sponsorship comes in, or do we protect the endowment and design a festival that would work within our budget?" said Tom Robinson, who is president of the Detroit International Jazz Festival Foundation, which takes receipt of grants and sponsorships for the festival, and of Mack Avenue Festival Productions Inc., which operates the festival and its educational programs. Robinson also is CEO of Valade's Mack Avenue Records.
The festival will need plenty more sponsors if its annual Detroit Jazz Festival and year-round community and educational programs are to survive long term.
Gretchen Valade, chairwoman of Dearborn-based clothier Carhartt Inc. and CEO of Detroit's Mack Avenue Records, made a highly publicized $10 million gift to save the festival six years ago. She also quietly made an additional $5 million gift about a year later when she and the festival's new management team realized the annual budget was larger than initially expected and after establishing the Gretchen C. Valade Endowment for the Arts, which operates as a private nonprofit funder for the festival.
As chairwoman, Valade and a small board of directors have discretion over disbursements from the endowment, review of the artists who are selected, budgets and other matters.
Valade also created a new operating structure for the festival, making it independent of its former operator, the Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts.
Over the past six years, the festival has spent over half of the $15 million endowment from Valade, leaving it with about $7 million.
It had total expenses of just over $2.7 million last year, up from $2.5 million in 2009. And it drew down about $1.67 million from the endowment last year and $1.62 million in 2009 to fully fund its operations.
“We had to make a decision: Do we risk the endowment and continue at the current budget to keep the festival going until corporate sponsorship comes in, or do we protect the endowment and design a festival that would work within our budget?" said Tom Robinson, who is president of the Detroit International Jazz Festival Foundation, which takes receipt of grants and sponsorships for the festival, and of Mack Avenue Festival Productions Inc., which operates the festival and its educational programs. Robinson also is CEO of Valade's Mack Avenue Records.
