San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
NONPROFITS
said.
The Briscoe’s total budget for next year is $4.5 million, down by a third from 2020. It’s reduced staffing to 26 employees from 37.
Surprise success
TheWitte gala brought in $1,066,000. That was down several hundred thousand dollars from last year, but the haul exceeded museum officials’ expectations.
“I can’t believe we got to $1 million. We were so happy!” said Marise McDermott, the museum’s president and CEO.
The money makes up around 12 percent of the museum’s annual budget.
McDermott said the museum was lucky that coronavirus cases only began surging after the event because the city could have stopped it. “Safety first,” she said.
The city gave theWitte permission to hold the party after museum officials outlined their safety plan, including the 12-foot-by-12foot corrals socially distanced from each other.
“We got rid of the cocktail tables, so there was no milling about,” said Heather Russo, the Witte’s chief of advancement.
“We did not do the silent auction with big displays. We got rid of all of those pieces, so that it became: Come in the door, go straight to your corral.”
No one was taking any chances.
Five San Antonio police officers and security guards walked around the grounds on the night of the gala. Their purpose: to remind the partygoers to keep their masks on when visiting other corrals or going to the restrooms. Every now and then, a mingling guest had to be reminded to wear his or her mask.
The guards, the corrals and the social distancing were “all critical” to approval of the plan to hold the event live, said Michael Shannon, San Antonio’s development services director.
Shannon’s inspectors signed off on the plan, which the mayor
and the city manager then approved.
The sold-out event was limited to 450 guests, only one-third of last year’s turnout.
Hundreds of other attendees picked up their dinners at the museum and chowed down at porch parties. Each porch-party group paid up to $5,000 for the food and to watch the Witte auction and concert virtually. Parties were organized at homes throughout greater San Antonio.
The auction itself raised $256,000. The take included a $31,000 winning bid for the naming rights to a taxidermy mountain lion that will be placed in one of the natural history museum’s
dioramas.
Other auctioned items included a three-day dove hunt at the Paloma Pachanga Hacienda Lodge in Hondo; an evening at Lee Michaels Fine Jewelry with champagne, petit fours and a $1,500 jewelry gift certificate; and a stay at a working olive orchard in the Texas Hill Country.
Russo said it was important for the event — theWitte Museum’s 50th anniversary dinner celebration — to occur in person, with bidders feeding off one another, the competition increasing the amount of money raised.
“It was a very invested, passionate audience,” Russo said.
The annual dinner dates back
to 1970.
For many attending in person, including public relations executive Meredith Howard, it was their first fundraising event since March.
“I would say the evening gave us a sense of optimism that we continue to host these events in a safe way,” said Howard, who co-chaired the event with her husband, Mike Howard.
Many in the audience were captains of the oil and gas industry. Mike Howard runs San Antonio-based Howard Energy Partners, which owns natural gas and crude oil gathering systems.
With COVID-19 cases increasing again in San Antonio, Meredith
Howard said, “We have to be mindful of the bigger picture, but it was nice to be outside with friends celebrating our city in a safe way.”
Still, Meredith Howard said many felt safer attending the event virtually with friends. That included her mother, who has a weakened immune system.
Scotty MacDaniel, who hosted a porch party with her husband, Clifton MacDaniel, in Terrell Hills, said the at-home gala gave them an opportunity to support the museum “in a way that felt safe and comfortable.”
Scotty MacDaniel said not only did she and her husband enjoy the company of eight friends, but
it was more affordable than attending the main event at the museum. The couple opted for the least expensiveWitte gala package — $3,000 for 10 seats, or $400 a ticket for each member of the porch party.
TheWitte will survive, but funding challenges remain.
The museum has cut its 2021 budget to $8 million from $10 million in 2020. To keep exhibits and programs intact, it has cut staffing to 65 employees from 86, and museum executives took a 30 percent pay cut. McDermott’s pay reduction was 50 percent.
It’s not just the two-month closure that has hurt museum revenue. Its event space, the
Mays Family Center, has lost 400 rentals since the beginning of the pandemic, a $2 million loss in revenue.
While the gala was a big success, McDermott said, the money collected this year would be slightly down from 2019 because donors are also contributing to essential services during the pandemic, including health and education initiatives.
“There’s so much need right now,” she said.
Another issue for theWitte: the oil industry collapse. Many of the companies and individuals who support theWitte are tied to the energy business.
“The Eagle Ford Shale, a
source of enormous wealth, is gone for now,” she said.
Garden party
The San Antonio Botanical Garden is also hoping to hold a live event next year.
The organization canceled its May gala after it closed on March 18.
Sabina Carr, the facility’s executive director, said she and her team had too little time to plan the event virtually, but that more than 99 percent of guests donated the cost of their ticket to the botanical garden.
“The gala became COVID relief,” she said.
The garden received $201,000
in donations without holding the gala, similar to its 2019 tally for the event.
Next year, Carr hopes to bring in $275,000 from the outdoor gala, which would account for
3.9 percent of its $7 million budget.
She is already planning the fundraiser with COVID-19 in mind.
“This pandemic is not going away anytime soon,” she said. “We’re still going to be dealing with it throughout the year of 2021 — particularly the first half of the year.”
To encourage social distancing, she plans to spread the gala throughout the 38-acre garden, instead of seating guests in one area.
“So it will be food stations and different types of entertainment throughout,” she said. “You can roam and feel like you are spread out a little more.”
Carr hopes holding the event live will increase fundraising, but there is one potential hitch: The gala may depend on city approval.
For its part, the San Antonio Zoo held its fundraising gala virtually last month — with surprising results.
Although it raised $700,000 at the Oct.1 event, $200,000 less than last year, it netted more proceeds, said Tim Morrow, the zoo’s president and CEO.
The virtual gala’s theme this year was the Roaring ’20s. The video entertainment showed Morrow and the zoo’s rhino mascot “Cowboy” being chased through the facility by two Keystone cops.
Behind the lion cage, the two enter into a fictitious secret speakeasy to listen to the Dirty River Jazz Band. The concert was broadcast from the Jazz Texas nightclub at the Pearl.
Some guests at the virtual gala received box dinners and drinks, but Morrow said the cost of providing the meal was only onethird of the $300,000 the zoo spent in 2019 for the more elaborate, catered gala dinner.
Like at theWitte gala, Morrow said many guests enjoyed the event at porch parties. Tickets for tables of 10 started at $5,000 and went up to $35,000.
The gala, however, plays a smaller part in overall funding at the zoo than other cultural institutions, given the zoo’s $26 million yearly budget.
Morrow said large tents on the zoo grounds housed the gala in prior years but weren’t feasible in 2020 because of the need for social distancing. He said the zoo does not have extensive open grounds like theWitte Museum gardens.
“We couldn’t have 1,000 people in a tent,” he said.