09-22-2023, 07:55 PM
The GoFundMe campaign has now crossed $300k from 1800 donors. That works out to a rough average of $100k/day. I don't know if that is sustainable to reach the $2 million goal. However, if it is, it puts paid to the Board's contention that there was no appetite in the community to fundraise $2 million dollars.
The entire Board resigning was a surprise. I took a look at their biographies and they appeared to be pretty competent heavy hitters in the community. The Chair, Rachel Smith-Spencer seemed to know her way around donors given her day job (per the KWS website) (also, I wonder if she had split loyalties when approaching a prospective donor, but that's only speculation):
As far as bankruptcy goes, various other organizations or companies have gone bankrupt (or something similar) and come out the other side with the same name and carried on.
The entire Board resigning was a surprise. I took a look at their biographies and they appeared to be pretty competent heavy hitters in the community. The Chair, Rachel Smith-Spencer seemed to know her way around donors given her day job (per the KWS website) (also, I wonder if she had split loyalties when approaching a prospective donor, but that's only speculation):
Quote:Rachel Smith-Spencer joined the Stratford Festival as Senior Director of Advancement in October 2003. In that role, she is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the Festival’s fundraising activities including annual support of $14 million, endowed giving, planned giving and special projects including its current $12 million Relaunch campaign addressing the challenges faced during the pandemic.
In 2020, under her direction, the Festival completed a $100 million campaign to build and support ongoing operations of its new state-of-the-art Tom Patterson Theatre.
Prior to coming to the Festival, she was the Assistant Dean, Alumni and Development for the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto and participated in the completion of Canada’s first $1 billion campaign in support of the university.
She spent over 17 seasons as Director of Development for symphony orchestras in Canada, including tenures at the Toronto Symphony and the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony (1985 to 1998).
She was born and raised in Preston, Ontario and received her B.A. and M.A. from the University of Waterloo.
As far as bankruptcy goes, various other organizations or companies have gone bankrupt (or something similar) and come out the other side with the same name and carried on.