Arts Groups Fret the Woes Of Big Donors
By David Segal and Jacqueline Trescott
Washington Post Staff Writers and Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 18, 2008; Page C01
Katy Clark knows that this is a deeply awkward moment to ask Lehman Brothers for $50,000 — a bit like showing up in the smoldering aftermath of a Road Runner explosion and asking for a match.
But two years ago, the then-flush investment bank gave Manhattan’s Orchestra of St. Luke’s 50 grand for a music education program, and as the organization’s vice president of operations, Clark is hoping that in its death throes, the company just might cut one last check. She has traded a few e-mails with her Lehman contacts in recent days, but she hasn’t raised the subject.
“Timing is everything,” she said. “They need time to figure what’s coming next.”
With Wall Street in a shame spiral, “What’s coming next?” is a question that has everyone in the arts community taking big, anxious gulps. Lehman may never hand out another charitable dime; the immediate future of the firm’s philanthropic foundation, like everything else about it, is now a matter of bankruptcy law. But the fear isn’t limited to those groups that were getting money from corporate America’s recently deceased and badly wounded. There’s agita all around.