This week, we are speaking with Sarasota Orchestra’s board chair, Tom Koski. Together, we speak about how he got into philanthropy in Sarasota, fundraising for capital campaigns as a board chair, and the massive projects he has been involved with in Sarasota County.
The secret sauce to a capital campaign? Tom say’s it is communicating the need. You take on massive projects because the sustainability of your organization is challenged without it. These projects are not “want to have’s” they are “need to have’s”.
Timestamps:
00:00 Introducing Tom Koski and how he got involved in philanthropy in Sarasota
05:48 How did you approach fundraising for the first time?
08:50 Fundraising for big projects comes down to need
13:20 How do you convince your board of the need for these projects?
14:50 How does the idea of the concert hall come to fruition? How does it move from idea to action?
23:15 What is the board chair’s role?
28:12 Why do projects like this fail?
31:00 How do the board chair and CEO work together on a big project?
32:30 Recapping with Read
Transcript:
Michael:
On this week’s episode of i501C You, I interview Tom Koski, Thomas not originally from Sarasota, but pretty close, went to Sarasota High School and that does play a role into the conversation today. Went out and worked in the technology field and then came back and has really become quite a philanthropist, very impactful in serving on many boards and is not afraid to take on big, hairy, audacious goals as a board member. So please join me as I interview my friend Tom Koski.
Hey, I want to jump in real quick. Somebody asked me the other day, what does the Corley Company do? Well, we do three things for non-profits. One, we facilitate meetings. Yes, like board retreats where we discuss governance and strategy with all the members of the board. Number two, advise CEOs and help them as they make decisions and implement actions to drive their mission. And then finally, we produce podcasts such as this one, but also for a number of nonprofits to help you get the word out, get your message out. So if you’re interested in any of these services, please feel free to reach out to Michael@thecorleyCompany.com. Now back to the podcast.
Well, welcome. This week’s episode of i501cYou, the podcast for nonprofit board members. And I had the pleasure of introducing and interviewing a friend of mine. And I’ve known for a number of years who’s really done some remarkable things in the nonprofit space in Sarasota, Florida area. Mr. Tom Koski, Tom, if you would, just tell the audience a little bit about yourself and how you came to be so active in the nonprofit space.
Tom:
Well, the short answer to that, Michael, is that I think it’s in my blood. You know, my parents were very active in the nonprofit to begin with. But my story starts in 1967, moving here to Sarasota at the ripe old age of seven years old. And by the time I graduated high school, I couldn’t wait to get out of town. It just I was like, as I have said many times, I left. I left vowing never to return. And because at the time there was nothing much for 18 year olds in Sarasota, unless you wanted to work in the service industry or in the trades or something like that, you know, I had higher hopes for myself. So I went to the New York City area and had a wonderful career in technology and was very, very fortunate to be in the early days of cellular and wireless communication. And then after that ran its course, I got into the dot com era. So basically I had a nice career in technology in New York, in California. And when my last project finished, I said, It’s time for a break. And that was 2010. And Sherry and I at the time were getting sick and tired of the winters, and we said, Well, it’s time to to become snowbirds. And so where are we going to go? So we looked all around Florida, and of course, Sarasota comes right back and for someone my age, it’s a much better town than it was for somebody at 18 years old. So we settled in quite nicely. My father had just passed away and my mother was in the process of putting her life back together, such as it was, and she was very involved in, as you know, in philanthropy and with especially the Oslo Theater, which is her favorite. She invited me to a dinner party, the president of Gulf Coast Community Foundation. She was having a get a welcome back to the snowbirds party at her place on, I believe it was Minnesota key or tacky? One of the one of the one of the keys. And there I met a very, very fascinating woman named Wendy Circus, introduced myself to her and she said, Where are you from? What are you doing? And we said, We’re just moved here from New York. She did say, I’m from New York. You know, Wendy is just And so all of a sudden we’re talking New York over here. And I said, What do you do? And she says, Well, I’m president of Samoa. And I said, Well, what’s that? And she said, Well, we’re renovating the old Sarasota High School and turning it into a museum. And I said, Well, I went to that high school and she she looked at me like I was a ghost, as if none of these people actually existed. And the next thing I knew, I’m on the board of Samoa. And my job is to herd the cats known as S.L.. Excuse me, sir. Sort of high school alumni and pick a naming opportunity. And we’re going to name the auditorium in the building, the Sarasota High School Alumni Auditorium, which we ultimately did so without blinking or knowing anything about fundraising. All of a sudden, I’m a fundraiser, so that’s how I got into it. And then, of course, once you get that, what Wendy also told me to be very, very careful because we were low hanging fruit, you know, fresh from the north, nothing to do. Freshly retired. It’s like, okay, they’re going to glom onto you like monkeys on a cupcake. So here I am. All of a sudden, I get a call from the Education Foundation. And so I joined the Education Foundation board. And then after that, it was the the orchestra. And throughout all of these, I realized that I have a character flaw that I’m either in or I’m out, and there is a 300% of me to spread around, so I can’t join any more boards. And of course, there were many, many offers after that, and I just turned them down just because just because of time. Just because of time. And now I am fully involved as board chair of the orchestra to get us a new concert hall. So that’s how I got in there. That’s how I got where I am today.
Michael:
Well, and God bless Wendy Stark, because I could just see her talking to you in her New York talk and as she roped you. And I think that’s great. But let’s go back to that. So Sarasota Museum of Art, which has subsequently changed its name, but they asked you to fundraise. You knew nothing about fundraising, which you knew was responsibility. And while you weren’t technically on the board, you were it was a board level type of position. How did you approach it?
Tom:
I’ve been in sales my entire life and sales and relationship. And while there’s fundraising for nonprofits, it’s not exactly the same as selling a widget. There are overlaps and there’s basic blocking and tackling of making phone calls, making a pitch and seeing how interested people are. So that’s that’s how I took to it. And what was interesting is I’ve found it more difficult to ask for a donation to a nonprofit than I did asking for money to buy a cell phone or to buy my wares. Just it’s psychology, you know, it’s just it’s just a psychological difference. I come from the point of view that that whatever I think is important, all of a sudden, nobody else is going to think it’s important. So it’s not worthy. But to me, it’s important. I’ve since gotten over that. By the way. Have you have. Recovered from that? So. So it’s good. But that’s that’s how that’s how I took my first start. I started attending the alumni reunions. You know, when I found out the class was having a reading and I gave a speech at them and we got some nice gifts from classes as a whole, but we also identified some people that were willing to give a little bit more here and there. And we were able to raise two and a half million dollars to name the alumni auditorium.
Michael:
Two and a half million from alumni, high school alumni at that. That is absolutely remarkable that you’re able to do that. And of course, I’m sure everybody is so appreciative now. But that was just a that was one component of the overall fundraising effort led by Wendy, as a matter of fact. So did you tether on to what Wendy and the others were doing? Did you kind of work autonomous? How did how did that come about?
Tom:
When I when I joined the program, I think it was 2011, maybe 2012, I’m not it’s in that time period, they had a 22 and a half million dollar goal to raise for the entire project. At that time they had raised $13 million. Now, remember what was going on in the years leading up to 2011? There is this thing called the Great Recession. There’s the crash, there’s all kinds of things and all kinds of pills to overcome and battles to fight. And I said to myself, I said, if this woman can raise that kind of money during this time period, I need to listen to every word she says and learn from her as best I can. And I did. And, you know, ultimately we were successful.
Michael:
No, I love it. I suspect a big part of that was just the passion, the passion in your voice when you’re talking to people. I know Wendy had passion and passion really does sell. But let me move to another project. We can either pick this the Education Foundation project or the orchestra, and I want to talk about both of them. So if you could just frame both of those from a board member perspective, give us a little bit of context and then I’ll ask some specific questions.
Tom:
Well, in all three cases, I can actually say it boils down to need what does the organization need to be successful? It’s a very easy thing to say that an orchestra needs a concert law, but strangely, it’s not intuitive to everybody. They did understand the differences between a performing arts hall and a concert hall. Why is it different for an orchestra to be in a in a in a concert hall versus a performing arts? Well, as far as the Education Foundation is concerned, that’s one of the things that I am really most proud of, is because when I joined the Education Foundation, it was basically a group of people who got together once a month, talked about classroom grants and figured out how to raise money to provide classroom grants for teachers. There are so many other things that the Education Foundation can do, which would include things like mentoring, help with fast for applications for four scholarships, providing the tools that teachers need, need providing seminars for teachers to learn new techniques and things like that. And, you know, overall help in ultimately creating students who are ready for the real world. And that’s that’s the real goal of the Education Foundation. So going back to what the Education Foundation was when I joined it, they were this group of people who were just raising money for classroom grants, having a closet sized office at the landings where the education where the Board of Education is was sufficient for that. It really was, you know, ten or 15 board members get together, they talk about it, they have lunch, they feel good about themselves. When you are doing mentoring and when you’re doing fast help and when you’re doing seminars, you need space. You need space. So about four years ago, four years ago, I had breakfast with, by the way, all of this changed when we hired Jennifer Vine as the executive director and president, which, by the way, I owe a debt of great debt of gratitude to your wife because when the previous executive director resigned, my first call was to Stacie, say, Do you have any ideas? And she said, Maybe let me call you back. And then she called me back and gave me Jennifer’s name. And it was love at first sight. So, you know, Jennifer is just absolutely awesome. And this is the most qualified person for that position. And of all the hires that I have made, both business and otherwise, that’s been the most perfect one. So at any rate, Jennifer joining, bringing all these new ideas, now all of a sudden they need space. And I sat down with Jennifer over breakfast and they said, you need to have a building of your own. And I was willing to make a leadership donation, which they used to buy property. I’m frugal, wrote and went through the process of of designing what the building would look like, worked with suites. Bachmann, their wonderful architecture firm here in Sarasota. And they went through the process. And then all of a sudden property came up about a year or so ago and downtown, which is probably a better location for them. And it was one of the Michael Saunders old buildings, and they sold the piece of property at a tremendous profit and bought this piece of property in downtown, which is an existing building that now they’re going to be raising money to renovate it for what their needs are. But the but the ultimate thing is, is that they’re going to be getting out of the because they’re not too many people view them as a subset of the Board of Education. And they say, well, your funding is all squared away because you’re part of the Board of Education. No, that’s not the case. We’re completely separate from the Board of Education. We don’t do their bidding. We work with them to accomplish goals, but they don’t own us. And I think separating them from that location is very, very key.
Michael:
But you essentially you said something you emphasized a couple of times. There was a need. So there was a need for space. So now you can go out first. You have to sell it to the board that you’re even going to undergo this process. We’re going to raise this money. We’re going to have to go buy and build. I mean, that’s tremendous amount of work from a board perspective. And then you got to get donors, but you just tie it back to that need. Was it a process to sell it to the board for the board to say, yep, let’s move forward?
Tom:
What’s interesting is the closer you are to the Education Foundation, the more intuitive it is what their needs are. So it wasn’t a hard sell to the board. However, going to the donors and finding new donors that are willing to give it, it’s not as intuitive. So what the most beautiful thing that happened in this process is we realized we didn’t really have a case for for investment. And we put together a group of people that both knew about the Education Foundation and didn’t, and we had several seminars should have called you to to to work with us on it. But we didn’t. But we worked on it and we put together an incredible case for for investment. And that’s where we are now. So we were able to articulate our mission much better now than we were several years ago. So the so the added benefit of getting into the process of what do we need to start raising money, fine tuned our message.
Michael:
Very good. So now you’re now on the board or have been on the Sarasota Orchestra and you want to build a not inexpensive concert hall, which is absolutely transformative. Can you just walk so somebody has this idea, you or Joe or somebody maybe it’s talked about, how did an idea like this come to fruition? Where then you stop laughing and go, okay, we’re serious about this, Then what are the steps you have to put in place to embark on a 5 to 10 year project.
Tom:
By which we’re aiming for a five year project. So it’s not that expensive. It’s just one big old Powerball, That’s all there. That’s all we’re trying to do. We just would. One with a large Powerball. No, but it’s it’s seriously it is a massive project, multiple hundreds of millions of dollars need to be raised. And there comes a time in the evolution of orchestras. And you can go you can look at any orchestra that plays in their own concert hall that they were homeless. They were they were going from one venue to another, such as the Sarasota Orchestra. We play in five different venues every year. Neil Auditorium up at university, the college up there, we play in Van Wezel, we play in Riverview High, we play in Holly Hall, and we play in David Cohen Hall, which we are. We owned it, but we don’t own it. We release it from the city. Yeah, but. But we control those two, those two locations. But the other three locations we have absolutely no control over. So we have to beg, steal and borrow for concert dates and fight with the band. Weasel is transitioning to the Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation. They are trying to draw in more Broadway. So we’re fighting Broadway four times that we can perform. So one problem that we have to solve, and this is a very, very serious need in all the Sarasota is concert stage time. And when I say concert stage time, I’m being specific with a concert hall, because a concert hall is acoustically perfect or has to be acoustically perfect, a performing arts hall doesn’t have to be acoustically perfect because they depend more on electronically generated amplification. So there is no acoustically perfect concert hall on the west coast of Florida. There are only three acoustic concert halls in the state of Florida and none on the West Coast. So the need is there for the west coast of Florida. Now, going back to what I was saying earlier about there’s a time in an orchestra’s presence when they did not have a concert hall. When they do have a concert hall, then they really take off. I believe that Sarasota Orchestra, and I’m not alone in this belief, is a world class orchestra. Over the summer, I had the pleasure. We’re in the midst of a of a music director search, so I’ve had the pleasure of going around the country listening to other orchestras and other conductors play in these incredible musicals. I would put our orchestra up against these other Colorado Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, New World Symphony down in Miami. I would put our orchestra up against them any any way. Now, what’s the difference between these two? But our orchestra and those are the three orchestras Concert Hall are totally our previous music director said. And it sounds almost like a quip, but she said, This orchestra doesn’t know how good they are, and the reason they don’t know how good they are is not because they’re not good, it’s because they’ve never heard themselves in a acoustically perfect concert hall. So I believe in my heart of hearts that the concert hall is an existential threat to the orchestra. We either get the concert hall and thrive, or we don’t get the concert hall and we waste away. Because what will happen to our musicians, which are that which is the real core of what we do, they’re going to find somewhere else to play. And I guarantee you, Michael, think about this for a second. If we have a concert hall, a beautiful Sarasota, and it’s an acoustically perfect concert hall and we have a world class orchestra here, we will stop losing our musicians to places like New York and Cleveland, and we’ll start getting them from New York and Cleveland. Would you prefer to live in New York or Cleveland or Sarasota?
Michael:
Absolutely. So you see, you’ve painted the need. I mean, the clearly there’s need to going back to that again. First and foremost, you said you got to make sure there’s a need. Then how do you move forward with the board, with the exit, Joe, the CEO, with the staff? How do you even start this process?
Tom:
They started with Virginia Tollman, who was a board board chair back in the early 2000. She it was her mission to get the orchestra a concert hall. And so this concert hall quest has been going on for most of 20 years. So and because of economics and because of circumstances and because of things like COVID and great recessions and other things that are beyond our control and even whether the barricades that come through, it’s a stop start process. So now we are finally we finally got to the point where we went to the city of Sarasota and we said we would like to negotiate with you to put together a master plan for Payne Park, which will include a concert hall for this Sarasota Orchestra and accused and an acoustic facility, which is another point I want to make. Other acoustic music musical organizations in Sarasota will be using. Sure. I mean, we have a we have a world class guitar organization that doesn’t have a perfect place to play. We have a choral organization that doesn’t have a place. You know, you really don’t want to amplify those things. You want to hear the analog clarity of what they of what they do. So it’s not just for Sarasota Orchestra, it’s for these other organizations that will that will use it and benefit from it. So so we went to the city of Sarasota and they turned us down. That’s right. So we thought that Payne park was a pretty good idea. Then we said, okay, where are we going to go? And we got this opportunity for this property, Fruitville Road. Wal-Mart owned it, and we found out that they were trying to sell it. And we went through negotiations with them and we were able to purchase the property.
Michael:
And then the task force within the board doing this?
Tom:
Yes. Well, there was it was it was a community task force. There were several several people that were were on the board and not on the board that were part of this process.
Michael:
Okay. And is this driven by the CEO to make sure all the the you know, the dots line up, people line up because the chair role, the role you’re in now, that’s an ever evolving role. And it has been going on for 20 years. So does the CEO really have to take command of this?
Tom:
Yes. Yes, I would say so. He does. And if you’re smart, what we wish we had was a for lack of a better term, a chair of that committee that was running the the the meetings to make sure that things were stayed on track. But the driving force behind it. I mean, you’ve been involved with nonprofits long enough to know that the the that the board really is in an adverse advisory position. They’re not necessarily doers unless they’re introducing people for donations and things like that and being involved as much as they can. They’re not doing the blocking and tackling every day. Joe and his organization has to do that. So you’re 100% right. It is our job. It can. And we are so incredibly fortunate to have him as a CEO. I joke all the time, but I’m never going to play chess with him because he is always strategically thinking about five steps ahead.
Michael:
So Joe is very wise, very strategic. Yeah, just absolutely stellar for this for a long game like this. Yeah. He was made for a project like this I, I assume. And so but you have to keep the board aligned, continue to be interested. You know things come up an article in the paper a recession. But you as board chair have to keep her with a note. We are moving forward with this. And what’s that like? How do you continue to to rally the troops, if you will?
Tom:
Well, it’s a a lot of small steps, but the key word that you’re talking about is alignment, alignment and agreement. I suppose there’s a couple of synonyms that we can use for it. But tomorrow, as a matter of fact, we’re having a special board meeting where we are discussing the small steps that we’re taking. So for instance, if there’s there are several very, very large fundraising opportunities, capital raises in Sarasota that are going on right now. And if somebody somewhere else is announcing a $10 million gift or $50 million gift or fill in the blank million dollar gift, and we’re not making any announcements, we need to know why we did it. We need to know what do we have to do before we start making announcements. And then the answer to that question is quite simply, we need to be prepared with all the answers because you don’t go to somebody and say, you know, you want to invest in a in a in a widget. Well, sure. What does it look like? I can’t tell you. You know, what is the what is the call going to look like? I don’t really know. So there are those things that need to be put together before you do the major fundraising piece to anticipate and prepare for whatever questions these major investors are going to ask, because we have some very sophisticated donors in Sarasota, and that would put them in the category of investors, not in the category of donors, because they’re investing in these organizations. They’re not given a check to say, you know, have fun. Yeah. So you’ve got it’s interesting. So really there may be different types of donors and so you’ve got those that are willing to fund the architecture firm. I’m making this up, right, Because like you just said, if you want to get the big bucks, I’ll say big bucks. You’ve got to have something to show them. But there’s an expense to get to the point of showing donors what is going to look like. Correct. And on top of that, you hit on a very, very good point. What type of building are we going to build? We’d love to make it as a landmark building that people notice, but that has an expense attached to it. For instance, going back to the Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation, they’ve hired Renzo Piano as an architect. He’s not an inexpensive architect architect, so they need to be prepared for what he is going to present to them. So it’s you know, it’s it’s a it’s an interesting iterative process that says we need to make sure that we’re we can handle the budget that’s going to be required of what we’re going to do. Now, all of that being said, my prediction is we’re going to get into this process and somebody is going to say, who’s the architect? And they say, Well, we’re in the process of getting that. Well, I’ll donate a little bit more if you use this guy or if you if you upped the level of my level, if you up the game, I’ll up my game. Look, my usual joke and I say it half joking, but it’s it’s joking. Somebody is going to buy a pipe organ for us. Somebody’s going to say, you can’t have a concert all without a pipe organ. I personally believe that, but the first design of our building may not be with a pipe organ because we may not be able to afford it. And then we go to a donor who says, You got to have a pipe organ here, right? So that’s how these things steamroll it, roll down a hill and get bigger and faster and more and more amazing.
Michael:
So as a board, as a board chair in your case excuse me, as Joe, as a CEO, you’re going to have to maintain some level of flexibility because the reality is you’re going to start in this direction, but there will be opportunities that emerge that may cause you to pivot and say, we will add that organ because of this way fast. Again, good. And I did that comment about different levels of investors and people will jump in at different points along the way that they’re early adopters and say, yep, let’s go now. Then there’s others saying, I want to, I want to see that’s going to be real and then I’ll give you my money.
Tom:
Exactly. I was an early adopter. I gave a major donation in the very, very beginning because I understand the need and I and there was that there was a need to purchase property. So I got in early and maybe there’ll be more coming later. Who knows? We’ll see.
Michael:
No, but I think that makes a lot of sense to understand that if any board out there when you’re taking on a big project, it is not linear and there’s there’s ups and downs, there’s forwards and backwards, there’s all kinds of issues. But if you keep your eye on the ball, maintain some flexibility and have a process in place, you can bring it to fruition. Now, Tom, I’m curious, as we start to whined this up, why do things like this fail? If you look at other boards that have had grandiose ideas, what are their two or three critical success factors that they don’t adhere to that causes large projects to fail?
Tom:
Need. If if if you cannot prove why you need it, if it comes across, as you know, I kind of I think it would be kind of cool if we had this You know, people are going to invest in it. But if you make a very, very good case for investment, it would be hard not to agree not to succeed. And I think in organization like an orchestra, there’s a there’s a inherent need to have the orchestra, because Sarasota is an arts community. And the idea of not having an orchestra in Sarasota is like, you know, not having oranges in in California. So I’ve just made that up. I know what I’m saying. You better say not having oranges in Florida. So we’re getting a little close to that, sadly. And you’re right. But at any rate, different topics. But at any rate, yet the the main thing is under underestimating the need and not being able to show the need is one critical tool success factor and the other is overestimating your donors. If if you really if the if the I’m going to use the word of afford, if the community can’t really afford what you’re doing and basically the word afford means that you’ve made your case and people want to buy it because the money’s there, there’s definitely the money is there. But if you don’t make your case and you don’t prove your point, that’s going to be the failure. Now, the other the other type of failure that we need to consider in this particular case is if we don’t get the acoustics right, it’s a failure, 100% failure, because that’s the reason for building the the the concert hall is. If you don’t fulfill the need to add, then it’s a failure in that a risk. But. Well, it certainly is a risk. But we’ve we’ve hired our theater planner and our acquisition gentleman by the name of David Damian Doria, who has done acoustics like the the in Iceland. The new concert hall in Iceland. He did that. We did I believe he did the I know that he did the Philips Center in Orlando. So major organizations or major concert halls. This man knows what he’s doing. So you got to plan and hire correctly the right vendors, the right consultants, right advisors.
Michael:
So last question. And as you’re going through this process, so you’re working very, very closely with the CEO. In this case, we said it was Joe McKenna. And how did you two maintain your rhythm with that one two punch each other in the face? How do you all work together? Because you’re working so closely together. You’re different ideas. I was a board chair. Keep that in check.
Tom:
I have enormous respect for Joe and the way that he treats me. I think he has at least a good amount of respect for me. We have a very open communication. We’re not afraid to say what is on our mind. We don’t necessarily have to agree. And it’s and by the way, I genuinely like Joe. I admire him and I like him as a human being. And a very, very important aspect is for board chair and CEO interaction. You don’t have to like each other, but you do have to trust each other. You do have to trust that you’re on the same page and that you and if somebody says they’re going to do something, they’re actually going to do it. And Joe and I have a very high level of trust for each other.
Michael:
Well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. The key the key to the relationship between the CEO and the board chair is that trust factor in time. You certainly fulfill that role extremely well. You’re the right person, the right time to lead the Sarasota Orchestra as board chair. And I’m excited to see what you all are going to do. And I thank you so much for sharing with us your experience on these big projects as a board member. Thank you so much, Tom.
Tom:
My pleasure. It’s a lot of fun and it’s also stuff that’s pretty good for Sarasota.
Michael:
All right. Recapping with Read and there may be only two, not the usual three, Read, what were your key takeaways with Tom?
Read:
So the first key takeaway was right at the end. Tom emphasized that the board chair and CEO, they don’t have to like each other. All that’s awesome, but they do have to trust each other. That relationship has to be a trustworthy relationship.
Michael:
Yeah, that’s so critical. Read. Good spot on on that one. And how about it? The next one
Read:
And the next point is about articulating that need to have a successful project of that size and caliber. you have to be able to articulate the need for that investment.
Michael:
Yeah. And it’s not it’s not a want. It’s a need. Things are nice to have, but if you can articulate that we really need this in order to grow. People are more than likely or more, more likely than otherwise to make a donation. So very good recapping with Read, ladies and gentlemen, and we will see you next week and 501CYou Podcast are nonprofit board members.
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