Opera Orlando’s new $1M endowment provides major boost
Helen Leon is turning 90 this year but she’s the one giving a gift: A major donation that will allow Opera Orlando to take the next step toward becoming a lasting player on the Central Florida cultural scene.
Leon’s $1 million pledge to the nonprofit will be used to start an endowment fund — a financial gift that keeps on giving. With an endowment, an organization has a perpetual source of income by spending only the yearly interest or other disbursement and not touching the fund’s principal.
“This will make sure we have sustainability as a company. It’s for our longevity,” said general director Gabriel Preisser. “We consider ourselves lucky we connected with Helen. She’s an amazing woman.”
Leon was motivated by a love of good music and what Preisser and his team are doing.
“It’s exciting to be involved in something that’s developing,” she said. “It’s really important for Orlando to have the culture.”
And her interest goes beyond the artistic to the civic: “It’s very important to have culture to attract businesses to the city.”
With the establishment of the endowment, Opera Orlando joins a relatively small group of
endowed cultural nonprofits in Central Florida.
According to data gathered by the Central Florida Community Foundation in December, 17 groups had endowments. Of those, about half had endowments of more than $100,000. They included Orlando Ballet, with $143,000; Osceola Arts, $352,506; the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, $602,645; and Orlando Shakes, $949,792.
Just four groups had endowments of $1 million or more: Orlando Science Center, $1.45 million; Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, $2.45 million; Orlando Museum of Art, $5.27 million; and the Rollins Museum of Art, $10.24 million.
Endowments are a clear sign of a strong nonprofit sector in a community, said Mark Brewer, president of the Central Florida
Foundation, which works to improve the region through strategic, high-impact philanthropy.
“As nonprofits think about their post-pandemic sustainability, an endowment is a strategy many are re-embracing,” Brewer said. “Arts donors are specifically interested in creating endowments that will provide a sustainable, diverse revenue stream for organizations they love and want to be strong post-pandemic. The Central Florida community is more robust with arts organizations powered by endowment.”
Of course, the greater the size, the more an endowment pays out each year — so organizations are always looking for new donations.
Opera Orlando hopes to grow its new endowment to $10 million in time for its 10th anniversary four years from now. Leon’s contribution already has the ball rolling with other potential donors, according to Preisser. That makes Leon happy.
“Until there’s a starting point, someone who already has done it, it takes a while for people to get involved,” she said. “Now, people will see someone was willing to do it. It opens their minds.”
Mindful of opera’s history in Central Florida — overtaken by debts, a previous opera company went out of business in 2009 — Opera Orlando already has taken steps to protect its endowment: It will be run by a separate foundation with its own board of directors. That way, the Opera Orlando board can’t be tempted to gamble with the all-important principal — something that happened with the defunct company.
“Unfortunately, when things got tight, they burned through their endowment,” Preisser said of the previous company, Orlando Opera. “This way, our board has no control over it, and our board can’t say that they need it as a loan or anything.”
The new endowment and the financial safeguards put in place should reinforce the message that the company is here to stay, Preisser said. Since its inception in 2016, Opera Orlando’s annual budget has grown from $250,000 to $1.6 million — and it has finished each year in the black. Its latest production, “Rigoletto,” opens April 22 as the company’s first opera in the new Steinmetz Hall at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.
The show already has sold more tickets than the company planned, Preisser said.
“People weren’t sure about Opera Orlando. I’ve heard people say, ‘The other company closed, do we need an opera company?’ ” he said. “Now it’s, ‘How do we take it to the next level?’ ”
Leon did not put any conditions on the endowment — “I trust them to do what is best,” she said — and Preisser said the money it generates would be used for the day-to-day business of running the company, as well as growth in outreach and other programs.
“I think it’s very important that we get young people interested in going to the opera,” said Leon, who lived in New York City most of her adult life and frequently attended the Metropolitan Opera there. “I’m thrilled to see it grow.”
She did have one request: That Preisser sings at the opera’s May 21 gala, at the Alfond Inn in Winter Park, where Leon will be the guest of honor.
“it’s kind of nice to have an opera singer sing to you on your birthday,” she said.