Celebrity Series loses Bank of America's chief sponsorship
The move means the Celebrity Series, which puts on roughly 50 classical music and dance performances a year in Symphony Hall, Jordan Hall, and a host of other sites, will lose about $600,000 of its $7 million annual operating budget. The bank's name will be dropped from the title of the series.
When it acquired Fleet Financial Corp. in 2004, North Carolina-based Bank of America drew positive publicity when it announced it would continue sponsorship of the Celebrity Series. Since 1989, a series of local banks, culminating in Fleet, had been chief sponsors of the series.
During that time, the presenters have brought to Boston such luminaries as Luciano Pavarotti , the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater , cellist Yo-Yo Ma , and, last month, the Kirov Ballet.
Already, the Celebrity Series has announced it will not be able to bring an internationally renowned company like the Kirov to Boston as a result of the loss of sponsorship.
Robert E. Gallery , Massachusetts president for Bank of America, said yesterday that the decision means the bank is shifting its priorities, not that it will give less to local arts institutions. Bank of America will give the Celebrity Series $100,000 next year to soften the blow.
Still, the decision will force the Celebrity Series to look for a new sponsor at a time when corporate mergers have left area nonprofits with fewer hometown companies to target for support.
"It is a blow, and we have to tighten our belts," said Martha H. Jones , president and executive director of the Celebrity Series. Jones said she was aware since last summer that the bank was likely to pull out. "We knew this was coming. When you get a corporate sponsor, you should immediately plan for when they're going to go away."
Gallery said it makes sense for the 68-year-old Celebrity Series to become more self-sufficient, and that he believes Jones is moving toward that goal.
"These things have a life cycle, and this has been a pretty long run," said Gallery. "We're very proud of that, but every organization we work with, we want them to reach out to as broad a community as they can to develop as their funding base. No institution should be too dependent on one provider."
Besides its annual Celebrity Series sponsorship, which provides 8.6 percent of the presenters' operating budget, Bank of America has given prominently to other local arts institutions since becoming a player in the Boston market.
They include gifts of $5 million to the Museum of Fine Arts, most recently for last summer's "Americans in Paris: 1860-1900" exhibition. The bank also gave $1.5 million to the just-opened Institute of Contemporary Art to establish the Bank of America Art Lab.
Jones said the Celebrity Series will have to reduce its budget for 2007-2008 , and draw a portion of the $500,000 reserve fund . The Celebrity Series will not be able to present a major international dance company, a staple of its recent programming. She said the organization quietly started raising money several years ago for an endowment to fund its programming, and will now launch a more public fund-raising campaign.
So far, donors have promised the Celebrity Series $6 million of its $12 million goal.
Jones praised Bank of America, particularly for sticking with the Celebrity Series after buying Fleet.
"We talked to them all along about when we would be able to stand on our own two feet," said Jones. "It's very hard for a stand-alone presenter to raise [money], because we don't have a building you can splash your name on. But we've educated all of our donors and our subscribers to this [endowment] campaign. If we are successful, we will replace the majority of what the bank's ending."
Even as local arts institutions have had trouble filling seats, they have had success attracting donors who see a chance to raise their profile by putting their name on a marquee. Just last month, the New York-based
The Bank of America decision was made well in advance of Citigroup's aggressive move into the market, said Gallery.
Finding a new sponsor will be no small feat for the Celebrity Series, according to Larry Moulter , former chairman of the FleetCenter, now the TD Banknorth Garden.
"Unless you're U2 touring, without a building they're going to have to make a very convincing and substantive case that the money put in yields some multiple on the way out," Moulter said yesterday.
Paul S. Grogan , president of the Boston Foundation, said that he agrees it will be difficult to replace Bank of America. He pointed to recent struggles to secure corporate support for some of Boston's highest-profile events, including First Night and the Fourth of July concert on the Esplanade.
"The irony is that I think we're actually in a city where philanthropy is on the rise," said Grogan. "But there's a dwindling number of companies in the city that are really interested in naming opportunities like this."
Boston Symphony Orchestra managing director Mark Volpe said he had already talked with Jones about her predicament. Major corporate sponsors help to underwrite aspects of the BSO's programming, including the financial firm UBS (BSO shows at Symphony Hall), Fidelity Investments (Boston Pops), and State Street Global Advisors (Tanglewood).
"Sometimes, you have to look beyond Boston," said Volpe. "UBS is a bank in Zurich. There's also the possibility you don't replace Bank of America with one sponsor. [Jones] might have to put together a handful."
Geoff Edgers can be reached at gedgers@globe.com. For more arts news, go to boston.com/ae/theater_arts/exhibitionist. 
