Orchestra to get $4.5 million

The Philadelphia Orchestra has received a $4.5 million pledge to its recovery efforts - the single largest vote of confidence to date in its still-evolving institutional vision.

The award comes from the William Penn Foundation, which specifically cited the orchestra's new leadership as an impetus and stipulated that the money be split into three separate allocations:

$3 million will go directly to the orchestra's emergency bridge fund, bringing to $13 million the total raised for the effort, which has a current goal of $15 million.

William Penn will provide the full $528,000 cost of the orchestra's strategic-planning process, now under way and expected to conclude around year's end.

An additional $1 million in William Penn money will help fund initiatives expected to emerge from the strategic-planning exercise.

That process will examine every aspect of the orchestra's business and artistic life, and recommend a new institutional direction.

Orchestra president Allison B. Vulgamore said the William Penn grant grew out of "many discussions" between orchestra and foundation officials regarding the path back to institutional health, and was not the result of a formal request made by the orchestra.

"The foundation has been a counselor to me since I think practically my first week [in January], and I've learned a lot from them about their hopes for the recovery of the Philadelphia Orchestra and their commitment to all the resident companies [of the Kimmel Center]," said Vulgamore. "I think in those conversations, it certainly was their initiative to contact us and discuss what would be the benefit of such an extraordinary gift at this time."

William Penn president Feather O. Houstoun listed a number of reasons for the foundation's decision.

"They put an excellent leadership team in place; they are looking hard at what all the major orchestras around the country are doing and being very flexible about what the choices and alternatives might be," she said. "It is the . . . kind of attitude and energy and forward thinking that deserves support."

The hope, Vulgamore said, is that William Penn's signal will encourage others to give. The orchestra is just now taking its campaign beyond its own board and traditional donors to the community at large.

"We have miles to go before we sleep," Vulgamore said in a Frostian allusion. "We take nothing for granted, and are grateful for each and every gift that is being considered. This is certainly the largest single grant to the recovery fund, and an important vote of confidence for others to witness."

While the official goal is still $15 million, Vulgamore said she hoped that "at this point we might see our way to $16 [million]."

The campaign was started with $2 million from orchestra board chairman Richard B. Worley and wife Leslie Anne Miller, and $1 million from longtime orchestra friend Carole Haas Gravagno.

The fund was conceived to make up for an expected $15 million in deficits for the year ending Aug. 31, 2010, and the fiscal year following. Freed from immediate financial pressures, the orchestra could forge a new business and artistic plan.

The effort is being led by a 28-member committee of board, staff, and musicians, and facilitated by nonprofit Boston consultant Technical Development Corp. Initiatives that come out of the strategic plan would be supported by a separate, additional fund-raising campaign, Vulgamore said.

At the moment, the committee is examining data gathered over the summer, she said - "research about our audience trends, both in purchasing and programming desires, pricing issues, looking at the level of philanthropy in Philadelphia, national peers' philanthropic goals, and a great deal about venue relationships."

The William Penn Foundation has a history of stepping in with support for the orchestra and its home, the Kimmel Center, at difficult moments, of which there have been many recently.

The deficits come in part as a result of poor ticket sales. Though the opening of Verizon Hall in the Kimmel in 2001 was expected to boost attendance, a two-decade-long trend of sagging attendance was only temporarily interrupted with the opening of the Kimmel.

Last season, only 74 percent of Verizon Hall seats were sold. Even fewer ticket buyers turned out; the hall averaged 65 percent filled.

Running on a parallel track to the strategic-planning process are labor negotiations with musicians and the orchestra's renegotiation of its rental agreement with the Kimmel.

The emergency bridge campaign, while providing tangible relief to the orchestra's balance sheet, is also, along with the strategic-planning data, a test of the level of philanthropic support for the orchestra.

In a memo to the board a year ago, board chairman Worley said the orchestra's annual fund-raising ranked 12th among U.S. orchestras and was "less than one-half the average for the five largest orchestras."