Oh Canada!

Hi John from your former colleague! Actually the creating of a sizable endowment was one of the 2 main positive achievements of the renewal process that the CPO undertook. They established a goal of 25 million, which is in line with what funders believe the minimum size of an endowment should be: 4 times the budget of the organization. Coming out of receivership, our budget had slipped to 6 million, so 25 became the goal. What happened is a group of 15 well-connected and well-heeled individuals decided that they would establish a fund for the CPO. This was in addition to the CPO Foundation. Through some incredible individual donations, some of which were matched by the Federal government’s program called “tomorrow starts today” which matches dollar for dollar up to 2 million, both the Foundation and the Friends fund went from 0 to around 20 million dollars in 4 years. So they are close to their goals and in fact have set a new target of 50 million.

But yes the Federal gov’t needs to change the tax rules for NFP arts organizations. They have been lobbied in that regard by virtually every NGO in the arts: Canadian Conference for the Arts, OCSM, Orchestras Canada, etc. The Canadian public has to make it a voting issue – that is the only argument a politician understands – the need to support an issue that will get her/him elected. It’s a tough sell when health, education and environment get in line. In any case, the endowment funds that the CPO now have, have contributed significantly to our revenue.

The challenge that the community then faces, however, is donor fatigue, where the orchestra is trying to fundraise for operating versus endowment. The new CEO with the CPO has managed to create what she calls a “cabinet,” which consists of representatives from the Foundation, Friends and the CPO to make sure that we aren’t stepping on each other’s toes. This still pales in comparison to our U. S. colleagues in ICSOM orchestras where endowments sit at over 200 million, but if you apply the usual 10th rule of Canada (30 million people) versus the U.S. (300 million), the CPO is on target with its endowment.