Hartford Stage Launches $20M Fundraising Campaign

According to Harvard Business Journal, Hartford Stage has launched a $20M fundraising campaign, which has already raised more than $9M.

“We spent about the last year in a kind of quiet phase doing a pre-public launch, and so we're very pleased that we've had a couple of really important, large business gifts from companies like The Hartford and Travelers and lots of individuals,” Cynthia Rider, managing director told the Journal.

Stanley, Black & Decker has made a significant contribution with Don Allan, the company’s president and CEO, serving as co-chair of the campaign. He and his wife have also made an individual donation, along with 30 other individual donors.

“There had already been a lot of conversation, over many years, about the need to grow the endowment,” Rider said. “So our endowment is about $6 million-ish, and for an organization with a $10 million budget that's not particularly large and doesn't provide a large percentage of annual support.”

Hartford Stage’s annual budget is made up of 60% donations. “If we had no contributed income, and we had to support ourselves on ticket sales alone, we would have to charge $175 for every single ticket.”

“Our subscriptions are down 50% post-pandemic," but are “slowly building back over the last three years. It's just not a fast process," said Rider.

The company is also looking to bolster its education programs and fund scholarships with this campaign.

For more information on the campaign, click here.

Read the full article here.

About Hartford Stage

Hartford Stage has been led by Artistic Director Melia Bensussen and Managing Director Cynthia Rider since the summer of 2019. The theater’s mission is to enlighten, entertain, and educate by creating theatrical programming of the highest caliber that has a transformative impact on audiences, the community, and its field. Under Bensussen’s artistic vision, the theater has reimagined classics including Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness! which reopened the theater to great acclaim following the pandemic and brought more work celebrating the Latine heritages in the region, including Quixote Nuevo, the virtual American Voices New Play Festival, Kiss My Aztec!, Espejos: Clean, and Simona’s Search. Hartford Stage has produced various world premieres including the Broadway successes Anastasia and A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder (winner of four 2014 Tony Awards), and Quiara Alegría Hudes’ Water by the Spoonful (winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama). Hartford Stage’s vast education programs engage students of all ages from across the state through student matinee performances, in-school programs, theatre classes, and youth productions. HartfordStage.org | Instagram: @HartfordStage