March 22, 2013
The Montreal GazetteMarch 18, 2013
By Pat Donnelly
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MONTREAL — The Segal Centre endowment fund has received a $2 million boost from the federal government.
This matches dollar for dollar the $2 million the centre raised from the private sector for its endowment fund for the 2013 fiscal year, principally from the Alvin Segal Family Foundation.
James Moore, minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, made the official announcement Monday morning at the Segal Centre, following a weekend spent exploring the cultural diversity of Montreal.
Moore said he attended the UFC mixed martial arts match featuring welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre on Saturday night, watched the St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Sunday then took in the Jutra Awards at Place des Arts in the evening. That he was greeted by a brief jazz recital by pianist Taurey Butler at the Segal Centre on Monday seemed to be the icing on his cake.
Moore cheerfully extolled the virtues of Montreal, saying it was one of his three favourite cities along with his hometown of Vancouver, and Quebec City.
“This is a city that has done extraordinarily well over all the years and continues to shine on the world stage,” he said.
Before announcing the $2-million federal contribution, he praised the Segal Centre for making the arts accessible to an entire community, for presenting programs for all ages, and for featuring artists from across the country and around the world.
The Canadian Heritage Endowment Incentive program, launched in 2001, was designed as an incentive for private donations towards the arts.
The Segal Centre has had an endowment fund since 2006 and has benefited from this program before (last year to the tune of $1.6 million), but this is the first time it has attained matching contribution status.
The total amount that any organization can receive through this program is capped at $10 million, Moore explained.
Thus far, only three Canadian arts institutions have hit the $10 million ceiling: the Stratford Festival, the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and The National Ballet.
Segal Centre CEO Manon Gauthier said everyone at the Centre is proud to see that the federal government is investing in its future. But this is not an operating grant, she explained. Only the interest from the endowment fund is put to work in the annual operations budget.
“About 17 per cent of our current revenues comes from the interest generated by the endowment fund,” she said. “This is helping at the operations level because we get so little in public funding from all three levels of government towards operations. We only receive six per cent from public funding across all three levels of government toward operations.”
Ticket and subscriptions account for 25 per cent of Segal Centre’s annual budget and another six per cent comes from Combined Jewish Appeal, but that leaves an additional 47 per cent that has to be raised from individual donations and corporate sponsorships each year.
Money for the endowment fund is raised separately.
“Since its founding in the late 1960s, the operational side of the organization has been chronically underfunded,” said Segal artistic producer Paul Flicker. “We would not be where we are without the endowment fund.”
Montreal’s other major English-language theatre institution, Centaur Theatre, does not yet have an endowment fund, although its current development director Haleema Mini says plans are underway to create one. Centaur receives 33 per cent of its annual operations budget from government sources.