Making the Impossible Possible: The story of Lynchburg’s (pop. 79,697) 30 million dollar dream.

A colleague of mine recently shared that he asked Chat GPT to write a case statement for a historic theatre in a small city. I did the same and here is part of what I got back:

“Investing in the restoration of the historic theatre in [City Name] is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to preserve an important part of the city's history, while also revitalizing the area and providing a host of economic and cultural benefits to the community. With a solid investment plan in place, and a commitment to sustainable and responsible operations, this theatre has the potential to become a cornerstone of the city's cultural scene for generations to come.”

Chat GPT is correct, but I can share from personal experience and observations of the wider American arts and community planning sectors that building belief around this statement can be difficult. In Season 1, Episode 6 and 7 of the Small Town Big Arts podcast, I speak with a group of key community leaders in Lynchburg, VA, where at the Academy Center of the Arts, we were able to build belief, raise funds, and complete a 30 million dollar construction project on a historic theatre originally built in 1905 and that closed in 1958. Proudly, we re-opened the theatre in 2018 after it had been closed for over 60 years.

Now, I want to pull out some of what Chat GPT put together in the above statement and dive in a bit. To begin, “Investing in the restoration of the historic theatre in [City Name] is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to preserve an important part of the city's history, while also revitalizing the area and providing a host of economic and cultural benefits to the community.” Easy enough, right? Well, if you are in a smaller community you know that building belief around all of this can be very difficult. This was the case for our project in Lynchburg. I joined the Academy Center of the Arts in 2015 and by that point the capital campaign to restore the theatre had been underway for 17 years. So clearly, it was very hard.

So what changed in the final three years of the campaign? In Season 1, Episode 6, a common theme arises from our conversation and this was community credibility. How does an organization gain credibility with its community? Well some of that depends on your community and its constituents but I do believe most communities share some common barriers to credibility. The first is trust. Whether we like it or not many in the arts are on the outside looking in when it comes to local politics, business development, real-estate development and financial investment. Of course, this is a broad statement and I know there are exceptions but the Academy was not. Sackett Wood, a former Academy Board President said that often he heard back from potential donors that the project was a “boondoggle.” (Noun meaning: work or activity that is wasteful or pointless but gives the appearance of having value.) So how did the Academy’s theatre go from being a “boondoggle” in the eyes of the community to having credibility? Well, it was incremental but it was by building a board that included individuals with two important qualities. The first was strong community reputations outside the field of the arts and second was expertise that would aid the project directly.

One by one, servant leaders in the community were recruited to take on critical parts of the fundraising, construction management, historic tax credit acquisition, and financial planning. This didn’t happen over night but as more joined the project, momentum was built and more and more joined. As more community leaders with strong reputations outside of the arts joined the project, the belief from the corporate, government, and private donor sectors increased. The project went from being a “boondoggle” to being a viable project. In 2018 fundraising completed and the theatre was restored with zero debt… and the servant leaders had fun and grew a deep connection to the Academy as an organization.

Going back to Chat GPT: “With a solid investment plan in place, and a commitment to sustainable and responsible operations, this theatre has the potential to become a cornerstone of the city's cultural scene for generations to come.” As the team of servant leaders grew, so did cultural changes to the institution. When I arrived at the Academy in 2015, the financials were in shambles and there was a culture of austerity built on years of faulty strategic plans. It was the project itself, both the fundraising and the construction that changed the organization, helping it meet the moment of the building we were about to occupy. As an organization we were pushed to the meet the moment and rise to the level of those that were supporting the project. Our finance committee meetings became transparent and pro-active, our strategic planning had be savvy and researched to answer the questions of tax credit investors, local government, and local corporations investing in the project, and our programming had to live up to what we said it would be, a wide ranging inclusive catalogue that provided real economic impact to our developing downtown.

In our fifth year of operating the theatre (with over 2 years of pandemic interruptions) we are in a place where our trust in the community has grown and we have in place effective board governance. We also have a skilled and dedicated staff and comprehensive strategic planning process. We are not out of the woods yet, but know the path to long term health. Referencing Chat GPT, “this theatre has the potential to become a cornerstone of the city's cultural scene for generations to come.” To meet that potential we will need a considerably endowment. Today our endowment sits at about 2.5 million. I firmly believe that if our institution is going to remain resilient for decades to come, we will need to see that endowment grow by about 10 million dollars. Not easy, but we now have the community trust and the vision to see a path there. This is all thanks to our small community “boondoggle” and making the impossible, possible.

I also imagine that the subject of endowment growth will be featured on Small Town Big Arts sometime in the near future…