Paul Stewart, who succeeded Doug Adams as president of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, wants the DSO to solve its multimillion-dollar budget-deficit problem by raising $150 million over five years. That would represent a huge increase in fundraising compared to the recent past, when scaring up $6 million-$8 million annually was a challenge for the symphony. It would also “resolve the orchestra’s funding issues for a generation,” Stewart says.
Is it a realistic target, though, given the sputtering economy? Stewart thinks it is, based on the early thinking of a big national fundraising consultant called CCS, which he says has been working with the symphony for about six months. Ideally the dough would bolster the DSO’s so-called Great Orchestra project plus add funds to the symphony’s endowment, Stewart says. The endowment stood at about $96 million recently, down from $120 million a few years ago.
