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12 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | OCTOBER 28, 2024 Hartford Stage Managing Director Cynthia Rider is seeking to raise $20 million for her theater's endowment fund. HBJ PHOTO | STEVE LASCHEVER Art Of The Endowment Hartford-area arts organizations look to boost funding reserves as federal aid ends zations that really hadn't built their endowments," Berman said. "Building an endowment is difficult when you're kind of hanging on by your toenails." Endowments have long been an important tool for arts and other nonprofits as a way to promote long- term financial stability. But there's been a sharper focus post-pandemic by some organizations to establish and/or beef up their nest eggs. It's especially important as govern- ment support dries up — federal ARPA funding ends this year, while state lawmakers reduced arts funding during the 2024 legislative session. "It's tough; they're coming to their financial cliff," said Amber Tucker, a partner and CPA with Fiondella Milone & Lasaracina LLP (FML), an accounting firm in Glastonbury. "ARPA funding is ending, and many of them have also received employee retention credit (ERC) funding," Tucker said of nonprofit organiza- tions. "They were able to make it through those couple of years with all the additional funding they've had, but now that funding is wrapping up." A big boost Endowments can help fill the void left by federal and state financial aid, assuming they are set up properly. There are "multiple forms of endowment," said Drew Andrews, managing partner and CEO of Hartford accounting firm Whit- By David Krechevsky davidk@hartfordbusiness.com R abbi Donna Berman knows a thing or two about living hand-to-mouth. When she was hired in 2001 as executive director of the Charter Oak Cultural Center in Hartford, the organization was a financial mess and on the verge of closing. Cultural center officials credit her with breathing new life into the orga- nization, a multicultural arts center that, as Berman describes it, does the work "of social justice through the arts." Then came the COVID-19 pandemic, which devastated the arts industry nationwide as dona- tions, ticket sales and season subscriptions plummeted. The federal government stepped up to help, including $135 million for the arts in the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) signed into law by President Biden in March 2021. That funding stopped the bleeding for some arts organizations, particu- larly those with sizable endowments that could be tapped during the hardest of times. But the Charter Oak Cultural Center, which operates on a $1.1 million budget, didn't have a large nest egg to lean on. Instead, additional help came from another, more local source: Endow Hartford 21, which was created by the Zachs Family Founda- tion as a first-of-its-kind endowment matching program to support a variety of Greater Hartford nonprofits. Berman declined to say how much Charter Oak received through that program, but said it was an important lifeline for the multicultural center, which, among other things, provides free arts programs for over 1,000 Greater Hartford students through its City School of the Arts. "It was just a lifesaver for organi- Amber Tucker U.S. CHARITABLE GIVING Charitable giving in the U.S. totaled $557.16B in 2023, up 1.9% from a year earlier. The money went to the following types of organizations: TYPE OF RECIPIENT ORGANIZATION AMOUNT Religious $145.81B Human services $88.84B Educational $87.69B Foundations $80.03B Public-society benefit $62.81B Health $56.58B International affairs $29.94B Arts, culture and humanities $25.26B Environment and animals $21.20B