Going for the green
“It took a village,” Liz Wooster, the Bruce Museum”™s director of development, said in describing how the museum landed BMW of Greenwich”™s support for its fascinating new show, “The Olympic Games: Art, Culture & Sport.”
Because the interactive, interdisciplinary exhibit, on view through Sept. 2, bears the imprimatur of the United States Olympic Committee, museum officials could seek corporate funding only from USOC sponsors ”“ a challenge, particularly in the current economic climate. Fortunately, one of those USOC sponsors is BMW, and, as it turns out not so surprisingly, many of the museum”™s trustees drive BMWs.
“They were crucial to getting BMW”™s support,” Wooster says.
For BMW, it was a pairing akin to Michael Phelps and gold medals.
“We felt that this was a natural partnership, because BMW is the Official Mobility Partner of the Olympics,” says Joseph Solano, center operator/general manager of BMW of Greenwich.
Such a natural pairing that the car company has put one of its vehicles on display outside the museum.
The BMW nod is a big deal for a number of reasons. For one, Wooster says, it”™s the first time the museum has had support from an automotive company. For another, “it”™s always been hard to break into corporate sponsorship,” she adds, noting that funds from Lexus Nexus and MasterCard in the past were exceptions that prove the rule.
And after the market tanked in 2008, “It”™s been a big drop,” she says. “We were seeing $75,000 (per sponsor per exhibit). Now we”™re happy with $25,000.”
That has come mostly from banks and private wealth management companies such as First Republic, U.S. Trust, Bank of America, Northern Trust, UBS and JP Morgan Chase.
Wall Street”™s role in the recession that just won”™t quit us and the public”™s jaundiced response to it have meant that corporations don”™t necessarily want to appear to be frittering away money on the arts. But here Wooster, who is fighting an uphill battle in fundraising for a nonprofit, becomes her most impassioned.
“I think people don”™t understand what we do. I think they think it”™s just some art on the walls. They don”™t realize that we support the educational process. That”™s how we teach, and in teaching we make a difference in people”™s lives. We are a different way of learning.”
“The Olympic Games” ”“ which should continue the upward trend (a 52 percent increase) in Bruce attendance ”“ is one example. For the art lover, the exhibit contains some prestigious loans, including a 19th century plaster cast of the ancient “Diskobolos” from the Slater Memorial Museum in Norwich; an ancient Greek amphora depicting athletic pursuits from The Metropolitan Museum of Art; and Giovanni Battista Cipriani”™s 18th-century oil painting “The Education of Achilles” from the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The history lover will get a thorough grounding in the ancient and modern games while thrilling to such highlights as track and field star Jesse Owens stunning the Nazis at the 1936 Berlin games and Cassius Clay”™s (Muhammad Ali”™s) gold-medal bout at the 1960 Rome games. Junior science lovers will have an opportunity to feel the surprising lightness of a javelin and the unsurprising heaviness of a discus, while also learning about the relationship of body type to sports.
The exhibit is just the tip of the educational iceberg. It”™s supported by a host of programs and events.
Wooster wants to get the word out about this and one thing more: The Bruce Museum visitor ”“ highly affluent and educated ”“ is also the target customer of many businesses.
BMW of Greenwich has gotten the message.
“I can”™t speak on other corporations, but here at BMW of Greenwich we see an increase in our sales and we feel confident that this partnership is the right thing to do,” Solano said.