Jerry Bisgrove could have set up a charitable fund to feed the poor when he decided to share some of his financial fortune in 2007 with his hometown of Auburn.
But he wanted a bigger bang for his buck.
So the Arizona philanthropist’s charitable foundation plowed more than $4 million into the fledgling Finger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival. Organizers of the multivenue summer festival, which debuts this year, hope to turn Auburn into a musical theater mecca that draws more than 150,000 visitors annually, creates jobs and revives the city’s economy.
Bisgrove said the potential economic payoff to the community from backing the festival is much greater than it would be with a traditional charitable cause, such as feeding the poor.
“This can generate jobs and millions of dollars,” Bisgrove said. “I like my upside better.”
Bisgrove, 66, has helped spark a wave of entrepreneurial philanthropy that’s having a big impact on Auburn. His Stardust Foundation and two other private foundations with Auburn roots — the Fred L. Emerson Foundation and the Schwartz Family Foundation —have put up more than half of the $10 million raised so far in startup funding for the festival.
The philanthropic activity surrounding the festival bears little resemblance to traditional charitable giving.
For one thing the festival is a riskier-than-usual investment for foundations.
Dan Fessenden, executive director of the Emerson Foundation, which has put nearly $1.5 million into the festival, said foundations are taking that risk because of the project’s potential economic impact.
“In a community like Auburn we need some double-digit returns,” he said.
The wave of philanthropy also is different because the foundations are doing much more than writing checks. They are active participants in the project, not passive spectators.
“It’s not just about writing a check and looking across the table at the organization you’re funding,” Fessenden said. “It’s about rolling up your sleeves, sitting on the same side of the table and saying, ‘How do we make this successful?’”
Guy Cosentino, Auburn’s former mayor, serves as Stardust’s executive director. “We connect the dots,” he said. “We’re always looking for strategic partnerships which can develop jobs and deal with pressing issues of the community.”
Private foundations put up the money to bring in experts from the University of North Carolina to evaluate the feasibility of the festival. The study estimated the festival could create more than 400 new jobs and generate an annual economic impact of $30 million.
Stardust snapped up vacant buildings in downtown Auburn along State Street to make way for redevelopment of an area where many of the shows will be staged.
When Auburn razed the vacant city-owned former Kalet’s department store building on State Street in April, Stardust and Emerson paid half the cost.
Construction is expected to begin on that site this spring on a $7.8 million, 384-seat performance center scheduled to open in 2013. The Schwartz Family Foundation of Pittsford, founded by the family of former Auburn Mayor Maurice Schwartz, donated more than $1 million for the center, a key component of the festival.
Stardust and Emerson officials also persuaded the State University of New York to become involved in the downtown performance center project. SUNY has agreed to pick up half of the project’s cost so Cayuga Community College can use the building during the festival’s off-season.
“They are using their boards and their connections to leverage more support for this,” said Meg O'Connell, of the Allyn Foundation in Skaneateles, which chipped in $50,000 toward the cost of the festival feasibility study. “They are very much the leaders and drivers behind this, and they are getting people to collaborate, convening people around the issues and trying to pull partners together.”
The festival also is spurring commercial development. Syracuse-based Pioneer Cos. is building an $11 million Hilton Garden Inn hotel and conference center on the edge of downtown Auburn to help accommodate the anticipated influx of tourists.
Stephen D. Cannerelli / The Post-Standard The Hilton Garden Inn is being built at the intersection of State Street and Route 5 in Auburn in anticipation of the Finger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival.
The type of philanthropy under way in Auburn is not unprecedented, said Peter Dunn, president and chief executive officer of the Central New York Community Foundation.
Other foundations have served as catalysts for community change. In Syracuse, for example, the Gifford Foundation provided startup funding for the Near West Side Initiative, an effort by Syracuse University and other parties to revitalize the poor neighborhood on the edge of downtown Syracuse.
What makes the Auburn situation different is that several foundations are working together on the same project for maximum impact, he said.
“Auburn is fortunate to have a number of foundations with resources to execute on an opportunity like this,” Dunn said.
Emerson, with assets of $75 million, is one of the largest and oldest private foundations in Central New York. It was founded by Fred Light Emerson, whose family owned the former Dunn & McCarthy shoe factory in Auburn.
Emerson donated the land on the north end of Owasco Lake to Cayuga County in the 1940s to create Emerson Park. The Emerson Foundation is paying $4 million for an expansion and modernization of the park’s historic pavilion.
The Schwartz Family Foundation was created with money the Schwartz family made in the scrap metal business.
Jerry Bisgrove’s Stardust Foundation, the biggest philanthropic force behind the festival, is a relative newcomer to the area.
His late father, John Bisgrove Sr., started the trucking company Red Star Express Lines in Auburn in 1932.
Jerry Bisgrove originally wanted to be a Catholic priest. He enrolled in a seminary, but left after six months.
“One of the reasons I was going to go into the priesthood was to make the world a better place, but there were other plans in store for me,” he said.
He and his older brother, Jack, both ended up working in the family business. Jerry Bisgrove eventually bought out his brother’s share of the Red Star.
The company grew to a fleet of 2,000 trucks before Jerry Bisgrove sold it in the 1980s for more than $100 million to an Australian company. He moved to Arizona in 1991 and started a real estate company, which made money buying up land for housing development on the cheap from failed savings and loan associations. Bisgrove plowed all of the profits from the real estate company into the Stardust Foundation, which has since given away more than $100 million, most of it in Arizona.
“My foundation was founded on the basis that in order to do systemic change, you had to require of the nonprofits and the community you work with accountability to a business plan, measurable results, leverage and sustainability,” Jerry Bisgrove said. “I don’t make grants, I make investments.”
In Arizona, Bisgrove’s foundation has forged a reputation for taking risks and doing things differently.
He was the catalyst behind South Ranch, a 200-home affordable housing community a few miles outside of Phoenix. It is the largest Habitat for Humanity community in the country.
Bisgrove said Habitat officials were initially skeptical about his idea of developing a Habitat project of that size.
“They said, ‘You can’t put all these people in one place,’” he said.
The project turned out to be so successful it has been touted as a national model for affordable housing.
“That sort of changed their mindset,” he said. “If we do something that is crazy and it works, then everybody wants to jump on board.”
In 2007 the Bisgrove brothers started the Stardust Foundation of Central New York, funded with money from Jerry Bisgrove’s Arizona foundation.
Jerry Bisgrove said their motivation in starting the foundation here came from a lesson they learned as children. “To whom much is given, much is expected,” he said.
Stardust has pledged $15 million in the Auburn area. Money has gone to many organizations including Auburn Hospital, Champions for Life sports center and the Central New York Community Foundation.
It also has funded the Stardust Entrepreneurial Institute, a business incubator and training center for entrepreneurs; it’s housed in a remodeled historic building on State Street in downtown Auburn across the street from the proposed 382-performance center. The institute is a partnership between Stardust and Cayuga Community College.
Jack Bisgrove, who lives in Auburn, is president of Stardust Foundation of Central New York. Jerry Bisgrove said he takes a hands-off role. He’s familiar with the foundation’s activities here, but said he only offers his advice when asked.
“I’m 3,000 miles away, so I don’t try to control everything,” he said.
The musical theater festival is the brainchild of Ed Sayles, producing director of Merry-Go-Round Playhouse and the festival’s artistic director.
Merry-Go-Round produces a series of large-scale musical theater shows in its 501-seat playhouse in Emerson Park during the summer and early fall. It also operates a touring youth theater program that performs at schools.
Stephen D. Cannerelli / The Post-StandardEd Sayles, producing director for Merry-Go-Round Playhouse and producing artistic director for the Finger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival.
Sayles’ idea was to expand by staging a variety of musicals simultaneously in four different theaters. He was inspired by the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. That festival produces plays of George Bernard Shaw and other playwrights of Shaw’s era in four theaters.
The Shaw festival of plays attracts about 200,000 people a year to a community smaller than Auburn.
Sayles said there is no other musical theater festival in the nation, so Auburn’s would be the first.
Sayles pitched his idea in late 2006 during a brainstorming session of community leaders representing nonprofits and businesses. The goal of the meeting, convened by state Sen. Michael Nozzolio, R-Fayette, was to identify ways to improve Auburn.
Sayles’ idea was well received, said Fessenden, of the Emerson Foundation, who was at the meeting.
“It was quickly understood that it wasn’t simply about art and culture, but something much bigger and stronger ... that could catalyze a whole new level of prosperity for the community,” Fessenden said.
Sayles’ timing was perfect because Stardust had arrived in town and was looking for philanthropic opportunities.
Stardust and the other foundations quickly jumped on board.
In addition to the Merry-Go-Round Playhouse, the festival this year will use two other theaters within walking distance of each other downtown — the 199-seat Auburn Public Theater at 108 Genesee St. and the 125-seat Theater Mack at the Cayuga Museum at 203 Genesee St. The nearby 384-seat performing arts center will give the festival a fourth venue in 2013.
Organizers say between shows theatergoers will visit local restaurants, shops and other attractions.
Initially the festival expects to draw theatergoers from this region. The goal over time is to draw people from a much broader geographic area and get them to stay three or four days.
Without the philanthropic backing, Sayles said the festival may not have ever gotten off the ground.
“What I was going to try to do, we probably could not have afforded to do,” he said. “This is divine intervention.”
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