Haberstich: "Excuse my suspicious mind, but I can't shake the
feeling that in many cases directors and fund-raisers have OFFERED this perk
early in the fundraising game to encourage donations, rather than donors
demanding it.  Once such an enhancement has been offered, it's hard to
rescind it.  And once the precedent has been set, donors WILL expect or
demand it.  It's a self-fulfilling prophecy."

I know of cases where this is quite true, one in Missouri.

"When donors pay for discrete chunks of your institution, I don't have a
problem with seeing their names emblazoned on the chunks, although it can
get a little silly."

Well, now it depends. I worked in an office (at a museum with a corporate
name attached) that had a plaque glued on the door proclaiming it was the
gift of a gas company, or maybe it was a private autograph collector.  The
library reading room had a donor's name attached, but the facility did not.
That seemed OK to me, the donors weren't telling us what to do in the
reading room or in our offices, and the larger whole reflected the public
nature of the institution. Or maybe nobody gave enough to get their name on
it. 10 years later the corporate name showed up for $2-3 million on the
space that contained the actual galleries. Then things changed a little: we
were told that it would be in our best interests not to include anything
"damaging" about the donor, like union-busting activity in the 1930s. That's
beyond silly: that is, at the least, self-censorship and at worst content
control by the donor.

You may be told what you will include, and the tone it will take, by a donor
who gets their name on the exhibit and the gallery.  AAM's guidelines can be
seen as dangerously vague.

"A museum's careful examination and control of the content and integrity of
programs, exhibitions, and activities is essential to its public trust
responsibility."  The fact that your exhibit or program features, in rosy
light, the sponsor
for whom it is named is quite above-board and you examined the content and
took the check.


The AAM guidelines can cut both ways: "The Code of Ethics for Museums notes
that where conflicts of interest arise-actual, potential, or perceived-the
duty of loyalty to the museum and its mission must always be honored. Thus,
a museum's governing authority and staff must ensure that no individual or
business benefits at the expense of
the museum's mission, reputation, or the community it serves."

What constitutes a benefit? How much PR or goodwill does a non-consumer
product based corporation get from dumping a couple hundred thou, or a
couple mil, into  a museum? And if the duty of loyalty to the museum and its
mission must be honored, what then of the staff person who rejects
the donation that would rename the museum the "[Nasty corporation here]
Museum of [Your state here] History" and, in so doing, jeopardizes the
collections by losing the money to build the place to store them properly,
or the ability to present large exhibitions and effective public
programming? Can virtue, in fact, be damaging?

Please understand, my instinct is to not take the money  when there are
strings attached to it. Always. It seems so wrong to let donors control what
we see/exhibit or save/collect, but I recognize that there are shades of
grey.
For those of you who welcome corporate sponsorship: Be very explicit about
the relationship, and cautious of quid pro quo. Some donations are made with
no strings, some aren't. Strings can trip you up. Curators try not to take
collections with restrictions, and money is the same. Sometimes it's worth
it and sometimes it's not.

Kirsten Hammerstrom

My opinions are entirely my own.







Kirsten Hammerstrom
Curator, Rhode Island Historical Society
110 Benevolent Street
Providence RI 02908
(401) 331-8575 x124


----- Original Message -----
From: "David E. Haberstich" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, March 04, 2002 12:26 AM
Subject: Re: Corporate donor gripe


> In a message dated 02-03-03 02:27:33 EST, Deb Fuller wrote:
>
> << The irky thing isn't so much naming a theater after the company that
> donated
>  but the fact that the theater was RE-NAMED after the company that
donated. >>
>
> To me this is a very important issue.  When a corporate donor's name is
given
> to an institution or other entity which already has a name--especially one
> intended to honor someone's achievements--that leaves a very bad taste in
my
> mouth.  Removing someone's name from an institution, when the name was
given
> originally as an honor, is, in my opinion, dishonoring that person's name
or
> memory.  It's a slap in the face.  You can, after all, give donor credit
> prominently without having to rename the entity.  What would people think
if
> the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts were renamed, say, the
Microsoft
> Center, just because the corporation gave a huge gift?  And what if a big
> donor insists on having a presidential library named after himself or his
> company instead of the president?  Impossible?  Absurd?  Maybe that's what
it
> would take to stop this ridiculous spiral.
>
> Actually, I don't have a problem with new institutions being named after
the
> donor, unless the name would cause some sort of scandal or PR problem--in
> which case it would be worth considering whether the gift should be
accepted
> at all, with or without the name.  The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture
Garden
> is often cited as a precedent for naming rights by way of defending new
> "naming rights" for donors, but there's a big, big difference: that museum
> wouldn't exist at all without Joseph Hirrshhorn's collection and money.
In
> fact, the collection--since it was in fact the Hirshhorn collection--would
> have made the name appropriate even without his funding.  As I recall,
some
> of the objections at the time concerned the issue of how Hirshhorn made
his
> money--and if that had been a sufficient concern, the gift should not have
> been accepted at all (Mother Teresa's famous statement that she didn't
care
> where the money came from notwithstanding).   Renaming an existing
> institution after a big donor is an entirely different issue, I think.
>
> The galling thing about the naming issue is that a lot of museum directors
> and executives are insisting that this is the "new philanthropy" and it's
the
> only way you can get big donors to pony up.  Yet there are still enough
> instances of donors who DON'T insist on naming rights to demonstrate that
it
> ain't necessarily so.  Excuse my suspicious mind, but I can't shake the
> feeling that in many cases directors and fund-raisers have OFFERED this
perk
> early in the fundraising game to encourage donations, rather than donors
> demanding it.  Once such an enhancement has been offered, it's hard to
> rescind it.  And once the precedent has been set, donors WILL expect or
> demand it.  It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Obviously I can't prove my
> contention, but it would certainly make an interesting research project,
> wouldn't it?  Whoever started this nasty ball rolling is responsible for
> letting it bounce around in a steadily increasing number of institutions.
>
> When donors pay for discrete chunks of your institution, I don't have a
> problem with seeing their names emblazoned on the chunks, although it can
get
> a little silly.  In a visit to a West Coast museum last year, I was much
> amused to note that nearly every wall, nook, and cranny in exhibition
> galleries bore a donor's name.  I can't recall the exact wording of the
> attributions, but I believe the titles were something like "The John Doe
> Wall".  Touring offices, I half-expected to see donor's names on
wastebaskets
> and desks, although it didn't get that silly.  But the names were in the
> public spaces.  (It appeared that the naming had been the result of an
> organized fund-raising campaign.)  Notably, the names were all individuals
> rather than corporations.  While I was amused, I wasn't outraged because
this
> approach seemed logical and straightforward.  If the donor in fact paid
for
> the wall, I don't object to seeing his or her name on it.  But they
haven't
> REnamed the entire museum for a big donor--yet.
>
> When I was growing up, I noticed that each stained-glass window in my
> family's church bore the name of the donor.  But if someone had donated
> millions to the church, I think the best they could have expected would
have
> been a plaque commemorating the gift--or if they paid for a new auxiliary
> building, perhaps the building would have been named after them.  I don't
> think anyone would ever have considered renaming the whole church for
them.
> Perhaps things have changed nowadays: there may be a Microsoft Methodist
> Church (or whatever) down the road for us.
>
> Similarly, I hope museums and other cultural institutions will resist the
> temptation to rename their already-named facilities to honor big
benefactors.
>  Where will it end?  If a donor of $100 million to an institution succeeds
in
> getting it renamed for him, do we rename it again for a $200 million
donor?
> Stadium naming rights already raise the hackles of hometown fans--must we
do
> the same thing to museums?
>
> You can joke about being a "whore" to get contributions, but the name is
apt.
>  Some people claim they have to prostitute themselves to survive.  That
> doesn't make it acceptable or right.  But whether it's true or not, it's
> evidence that there's a problem crying for a solution.
>
> David Haberstich
>
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