The Mendocino Art Center is losing more than $15,000 per month and is now forced to seriously consider a plan to cancel spring classes and reorganize how the nonprofit does business, board president Jean Cunnington told an audience of 32 people Monday night.
Board members said the organization will consider going into “hibernation” on Dec. 17. A special meeting will be held next week, probably Thursday, Dec. 2 or Friday, Dec. 3, to take ideas from the public and board members on how the 51-year-old MAC can — and should — continue to operate.
The board had planned to hold the brainstorming meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 1, but that date was nixed when the Mendocino Coast Recreation and Park District announced a special meeting that day at the C.V. Starr Community Center in Fort Bragg — to consider how that organization will solve its cash flow shortage beyond 2010.
“You have all heard about it with C.V. Starr, that”s where we are, in that same place,” said Cunnington.
Cunnington told the audience she had signed up for two classes, hoping in her heart the classes, which draw visitors from around the world, will be saved. But board members repeatedly emphasized that the MAC is currently $22,500 in the red, with a business plan that is unsustainable.
“On Dec. 17 we will have to look at whether we have to cancel spring and go into what we call hibernation mode. We have to face reality, we may have to cut expenses back to bare bones while we consider how to obtain significant funding to bring the art center back up and running in an efficient way,” Cunnington said.
Retired banker Tom Becker has been running the MAC as executive director for the past seven months without pay. Board members said Becker often works seven days a week, often long into the night. Cunnington said a way must be found to release Becker and pay for an executive director.
“We are losing that much money without paying an executive director. When you add back in the executive director cost, this becomes a very hard nut to crack,” said board member Mike Dell”Ara.
“If you are down low on the income scale, everything affects you. It”s that way for people and families and it”s that way for us as an Art Center, Dell”Ara said.
The hibernation period would give the MAC time to create a cushion sufficient to carry it through the year in the black, including paying an executive director, he said.
What exactly does the idea of MAC “hibernation” mean?
The board said there is no final answer to that question at this point. Some of the nine part-time and three full-time employees would likely be in jeopardy in the event of hibernation, Becker confirmed in an interview after the meeting. Art classes the MAC is best known for would be canceled, with the gallery open and housing available (although the housing has traditionally been used by those taking or teaching classes).
It was clear at the meeting that most of the seven-member board is now viewing hibernation as a solution to a crisis with no other easy answers.
“Perhaps we can raise enough money to continue and survive. But if that just buys us another six months, do we really want this?” said board member Nick Schwartz.
Marge Stewart, fine art and jewelry coordinator for the MAC, asked if an analysis had been done on the danger hibernation presents.
“There is a huge risk the art center will never open again …,” Stewart said.
“We haven”t done a numerical analysis but it is a huge risk that could very well lead to closure,” responded Cunnington … If we can”t pay the bills, we have to do something.”
Board Vice President Dr. Richard Miller suggested a key risk is that local people won”t believe how real the problem is this time because there has been talk about a shutdown many times over the past 20 years.
“People get used to hearing about it after awhile and say to themselves it”s not going to happen because it happened before.” You know what the farmer said when his cow died, it never did that before,” Miller said.
How much is needed to save the MAC from hibernation?
The audience asked that question several different ways but the answer was unclear. The immediate need is $22,500. Cunnington said an additional $100,000 is needed to get through spring — “with a strong membership drive.”
Patricia Osborne, a teacher at the MAC for more than a decade, asked for a script that identifies what is needed to continue, so she and others could take that message to the community and raise money.
“The public needs to know everything, particularly what is going on here,” said Osborne, who said she has been “beating her head against the wall” for years in an effort to educate the community about the wonders of the MAC.
Becker said that script could be developed, showing how much the Art Center means to the local economy and prestige.
“There are 233 students coming for the spring semester … they would eat 2,339 meals in local restaurants,” Becker said, offering to help develop those numbers into the kind of written script that Osborn was asking for.
Miller said that even if a single fundraising drive is a success, it might not be enough.
“Getting $50,000 or $100,000 to continue … it might almost be worse..The reason is tiding over money will keep this place doing what it has been doing for 20 years, tiding over. There will be more crises and people will keep hearing almost closed” for the next 10 years,” Miller said.
“This place truly needs to be restructured. We have to be able to relieve Tom of this volunteer work, which sometimes goes for 16 hours a day … We need to be able to hire a professional art center director, pay that person and give that person a budget. That kind of money is not $50,000 or $100,000, that is $300,000 to $500,000 or $600,000,” said Miller.
All seven board members were at the meeting and six of them spoke, with none opposing hibernation as a solution to the red ink.
Audience members questioned how the board would find more money during a time when classes were canceled, when cancellations could be expected to disappoint some and hurt long-term revenue.
For now, the MAC goes on as always, hoping for good ideas to emerge in the next two meetings.
The spring schedule of 57 workshops has been released, with some students paying this early. In past years, the schedule came out much later, as the board wrestled with the funding issue.
That”s the fate of the MAC”s magazine, which just came out and is scheduled to come out again in April. Sales people should have hit the streets two weeks ago but are delayed by consideration of plans to take the publication “off campus.” Stewart asked the board for the opportunity to present a plan to keep the magazine functioning as a MAC publication, without additional cost.
Becker explained the endless cycle of catch-up the MAC plays each year, starting with the $80,000 in revenue the spring semester would be expected to bring in. He said the MAC would spend that money before the semester starts, to cover regular expenses. Then, the instructor bills hit, which comprise about 65 percent of that $80,000.
“Then we are relying on magazine income, on income from the summer workshops,” Becker said.
“We always get in that cycle. What has happened is that revenue from the workshops has declined by about $100,000 over the past several years,” Becker said.
Charles Tomka suggested news ways to utilize the two acres in the heart of Mendocino the Art Center sits upon. Cunnington asked that he come to the meeting next week, which is all about such ideas.
The board scheduled a special public comment session at the Monday meeting but asked people with ideas to come back at the brainstorming meeting next Thursday or Friday.
The final meeting date and time will be announced this week. Contact the MAC at 937-5818 or at register@mendocinoartcenter.org for details, or to donate or become a member. Basic membership is $50, or $25 for seniors or youth.
