Page 18 - Priorities #21 2003-January

Everybody Knows Their
Benefactors Who Lead The Way Make Big Dreams Come True
The Priory’s new Performing Arts Center introduces many opportunities for benefactors to put a name up in lights. Eventually, every donor’s name will go on the founders wall.
Look around, and you will notice that all of the private schools and colleges have them. So do many treasured community resources, like New York’s Lincoln Center and San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall. Woodside Priory School is just beginning to collect them and needs more now.
The subject here is high-visibility benefactors— people who take the lead to make a community’s dream a reality. Their names appear on plaques, engraved in walls, included in signs that identify the buildings and even the streets that lead to them.
The Priory’s new Performing Arts Center introduces many opportunities for benefactors to put a name up in lights, so to speak — to “name something,” from the whole complex to a single theater chair. Right now, the items to be named are big things, like the auditorium, because “we can’t really plan for lighting or chairs until we know about the theater,” explained Jack Hundley, Director of Finance and Operations.
Many people think that buildings like the PAC are funded by large numbers of modest contributions. Actually, that’s an economic impossibility—it would take a small city, or several decades, to raise building funds that way. While a broad base of contributors is crucial over the long term, no campaign can succeed withoutafewbenefactorswholeadtheway. When Stanford or MIT plans a new, $500 million engineering wing, they need benefactors with multiple millions in the beginning. Woodside Priory, with a Performing Arts Center of $7 million, most needs leaders in the range of low six to seven figure gifts.
These early, large benefactors assure everyone that the project is definite—at least the broad outlines. With this assurance, planning can go forward, everyone can be involved, and eventually—at the Priory, at least—everyone can be a PAC founder. That is, every name of every donor will be included on the large “founders wall” in the lobby, said Wayne Davison, campaign chair.
So far, the Priory is on target with its fund-raising and construction timetable— $3.5 million is pleged to date, and meetings with architects and city officials are progressing well. Another $3.5 million must be raised in 2003 if the school is to stick to its schedule. Needed improvements to library facilities, the student center and additional classrooms can’t begin until the PAC
is completed. (For an explanation of space use, go to www.woodsidepriory.com/campaign/tour006. html. and view the slides on the “trinity plan.”)
Around the Bay Area, beloved buildings demonstrate a pattern in the names they carry. Overwhelmingly, the initial benefactors seem to have had vision and passion for the projects they launched. When they linked their names to the project, they have come to almost symbolize that passion. Example: most of us don’t remember who M. H. DeYoung is, but we link that name with public access to world class art in the museum at Golden Gate Park. Without him, that museum almost certainly wouldn’t be there.
People also “name” to honor individuals and events, and to keep memories alive. At the Priory, many of our recent benefactors have chosen to be anonymous; however, their opportunity to attach a name continues. Additional names could pop up many years from now, if they change their minds.
Often, the leading benefactors didn’t simply write a check. They planned a gift over several years, or helped create a family gift, or found a way to include corporate or foundation funds along with their own.
Anyone interested in discussing opportunities to name a piece of the PAC is invited to contact Ray Rothrock, PAC committee chair, or Doug Ayer, Director of Development. People don’t need a checkbook large or small to make that call, Ray said. PAC campaign volunteers are anxious to meet with anybody who is interested in learning more now. “People may be able to contribute more than they think—their experiences, friends, and company contacts could lead us to an avenue we haven’t thought of yet,” Ray said.
However, anyone who may have a name for that sign out front, or the fine arts gallery in the lobby, or over the stage in the auditorium, is especially encouraged to “pick up that phone now. Campaign volunteers are standing by,” he added with a smile.
Both Ray and Doug can be reached by phoning the Development office at 650-851-6101 or emailing campaign@woodsideriory.com
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