• DSO’s Web of Influence

• Musician Turnover

• Where are all the Missing DSO Donors

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Posted March 19, 2011

DSO’s Web of Influence

DSO’s leaders have strong connections with the League of American Orchestras, major foundations supporting the DSO and the bank group holding DSO’s $54 M debt related to the building of the Max M. Fisher Music Center. We feel this web of connections has greatly impacted this contract negotiations.

KEY: DSO’s Web of Influence

 Since the bondholders were paid off in December, five banks have been holding $54 M of Detroit Symphony debt related to the building of the Max M. Fisher Music Center. Is the bank group just sitting patiently, holding this debt without remuneration? Or has a deal for repayment already been struck between the DSO and the bank group which won’t be announced until DSO musicians have agreed to a contract, keeping alive the threat of future bankruptcy hanging over the orchestra’s head.

Over the last year, DSO musicians were told on several occasions that the “purse strings” would open again, once we agreed to become “part of the solution.” Our interpretation –funds are being withheld until we agree to management’s solution. We know that at least one foundation, and probably others, have agreed to financially support the orchestra based on management’s expressed tactics which include: “secure increased flexibility,” and “discuss [the] contract in a new context.” These funding terms were agreed to well before contract talks began in June 2010.

In the last two years the League of American Orchestras (LAO) has held annual manager conferences titled “The New Reality” and “The Orchestra Revolution” and has increased its presence at the DSO. Jesse Rosen, President and CEO of the LAO addressed the Board of Directors in June 2009, and a “new” media town hall in April 2010. He spoke in glowing terms about the DSO’s future and how the symphony is on the cutting edge and will be a leader in the industry.

“Campaign for a New Direction” – Fund

Peter D. Cummings, DSO Board member, Chairman Emeritus, and League Board member, co-chairs a fundraising effort for the League’s “Campaign for a New Direction”. Donating $1 M himself, the $25 M fund will be used to support the League’s activities.

The DSO has hired a number of consultants with strong connections to the League of American Orchestras. Bruce Coppock was at the center of redefining the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in 2003. Joseph Kluger, former CEO of the Philadelphia Orchestra led a “new” media town hall for symphony constituents. DSO management believes that all media is PR and therefore should not be compensated per the national AFM media agreements.

DSO leaders are not only connected with the League of American Orchestras through donating to its fund, “Campaign for a New Direction,” – some are also members the League’s Board of Directors.

DSO leaders have strong connections to major foundations supporting the DSO, either sitting on their boards or having cultivated relationships. Foundations appear to have bought into management’s plan to redefine the Detroit Symphony Orchestra well in advance of negotiations. It also appears as if, in some cases, funding has been withheld until the musicians agree to management’s plans to reshape the orchestra. Again, we have been told that “purse strings” will open once the orchestra is back on stage.

DSO leaders also sit on two boards of the bank group holding DSO’s $54 M debt related to the building of the Max M. Fisher Music Center.

-The Musicians of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra

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March 11, 2011 / Updated: March 18, 2011

Musician Turnover

It’s not only the percussion section that’s leaving …

In response to the news that the DSO’s percussion section was saying, “Good-Bye,” management sent the following four years of statistics to the press, board and staff in an effort to reassure everyone that the current turnover rate in the orchestra reflected business-as-usual and there was nothing to be alarmed about.

DSO’s statistics showing that retirements and resignations have not increased:

07-08 – 2 resigned; 2 retired (total 4)

08-09 – 2 resigned (total 2)

09-10 – 3 resigned; 4 retired (total 7)

10-11 – 3 resigned; 2 retired (total 5) [6 months]

Deeply troublesome is the information management didn’t share. That is, the rate at which DSO musicians are taking auditions has exploded. Six violinists–unheard of in DSO history–took the Cleveland Orchestra audition that our own Elayna Duitman won last summer, prompting a CO manager to wonder if there was a DSO chamber music group visiting Cleveland.

Also, detailed data, not the “cherry-picked” numbers above, reveals a completely different reality – one that is worrisome for those who support the Detroit Symphony Orchestra as a world-class, “destination” orchestra.

• Since 2008, 11 musicians have voluntarily resigned from the DSO to take to work elsewhere.
• But, between 1990 and 2004, only 3 musicians resigned to take work elsewhere.

Between 1990 and 2005, the orchestra sustained a healthy, stable turnover rate averaging about three musicians annually, resulting primarily from retirements. Having won a position in the DSO, musicians simply didn’t feel the need to take more auditions. The camaraderie and quality of the orchestra’s ensemble, along with a truly competitive compensation package encouraged musicians to stay. The DSO was, in the every sense of the word, a “destination” orchestra. Musicians arrived in Detroit and settled, integrating themselves into orchestra and the community.

The DSO is a precision ensemble like the Detroit Tigers. Top-notch replacements are not always available when needed. For example: The DSO held numerous auditions over six years to find and secure Robert deMaine as Principal Cell0. Permanently filling vacancies due to retirement is difficult enough, but having to refill additional openings due to the orchestra’s inability to retain newly hired talent is a losing proposition.

Contrary to DSO management’s recent statement, voluntary departures have accelerated since 2005 and will continue to accelerate because of the vision for a diminished DSO embodied in management’s contract offers. For the first time ever, not only are musicians voluntarily leaving the orchestra in consecutive years but in increasing numbers as well. What was just a single musician voluntarily leaving in 2005 has now risen to four annually — and 2011 is only half over.

DSO musicians know that the turnover rate in the orchestra will continue to accelerate unless something is done turn the tide. Behind the scenes, management actually agrees that the exit rate will increase. Internal documents show they have provided data to funders projecting:

“… a tenure rate stable at 82% [with] attrition rates limited to 2 per year (non-retirement, voluntary departures) will ensure a destination orchestra.” – DSO DASHBOARD, January 2010

Essentially, management is expecting up to 15 musicians, 18% of the orchestra, to leave in each of the next two years – 2 voluntary, with 13 non-voluntary/retirements per year. This kind of turnover rate would be highly problematic in a “stepping-stone” orchestra let alone a “destination” orchestra the stature of the Detroit Symphony.

In addition, management told the Board of Directors’ Executive Committee in November 2009 that:

“[We] anticipate that 2-3 musicians will retire this year [2010 season], [but] as the contract changes, many more will retire.” DSO BOARD EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MINUTES – November 25, 2009

Why would management make a statement like that in 2009 unless they anticipated a debilitating strike ending in a draconian contract? How else would you get “many more” musicians retiring above the norm? These are troubling statements and troubling statistics.

Historical Turnover Rates: DSO Musicians 1990-2011

Year	Voluntary Retired	Forced Departure *	Voluntary Departure	Annual Turnover
1990	2	1		3
1991	2	3		5
1992	1			1
1993		1		1
1994	3		1	4
1995	1			1
1996	1	1		2
1997	2			2
1998	3		1	4
1999	4	1		5
2000	4			1
2001	2			2
2002	1			1
2003	3	1	1	5
2004	2	1		3
2005	1		1	2
2006	4		1	5
2007		1	1	2
2008	1		2	3
2009	2		2	4
2010	4		3	7
2011	2		4	6

* Forced departures are due to permanent health issues or loss of tenure

(August 2011 update: 4 retired, 7 voluntary resignations, total departures 11)

Some Historical Facts:

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Posted March 12, 2011

Where are the Missing DSO Donors?

In only a dozen years, 1996 to 2008, the DSO’s donor base plummeted 80% from a high of 25,000 donors to fewer than 5,000.

*Data Source: DSO’s Development Department

Why did 20,000 DSO donors disappear?

When asked what the reason was for the precipitous decline in donor numbers, Pamela Ruthven, former CFO and VP for Development, provided an explanation to the Sub-Finance Committee of Strategic Planning on July 27, 2006. She recorded the following statements:

“Over the past three years, the fundraising goals have been achieved to a large degree by extracting increasingly larger gifts out of an increasingly smaller pool of donors.”

“For the next several years, we will need to focus on increasing the number of donors (adding new donors.) This is something that we have not done in recent years, as our primary objective was to raise the most fundraising revenue as quickly as cheaply as possible, given the financial challenges the organization was facing.”

“We also discussed the high rate of turnover in the development department, some of the drivers behind it and its negative impact on our ability to efficiently fundraise.”

Where did the missing DSO’s donors go?

• Some donors inevitably moved or passed away.
• Fundraising targets were achieved year-after-year by employing the cheaper strategy of requesting larger, and as it turned out, multiple gifts annually from the most wealthy supporters of the Detroit Symphony. The core of this small pool of donors were, and still are, the DSO’s Board of Directors.
• This strategy allowed the DSO to reduce costs by not having to solicit a host of small and mid-range donors. However, when the DSO stopped asking – most of these donors stopped giving.

Development staff remained at the DSO an of average only 15 months before leaving to find work elsewhere, reducing the effectiveness of the DSO’s fundraising efforts.

Despite having identified the need to grow the donor numbers and stem the revolving door in the development department in 2006, those trends continued unabated through 2010. The donor base was allowed to erode even further and four different VP’s for development were hired between 2007 and 2010.

Now, eight years of heroic giving has stretched DSO’s board members beyond their capacity to give more, and they are convinced that Metro Detroit can no longer afford a world-class orchestra because they can no long afford one. The eighty-seven member board accounts for almost 50% of the individual giving which supports the symphony. The DSO’s wide and deep donor base has melted away.

In DSO Dashboard – January 2010, a document created with the help of TDC consultants hired by the Hudson Weber Foundation, management acknowledged that many potential donors still exist in the Metro Detroit area when they set a goal to double the size of the donor base from 5,000 donors to 10,000 in just three years.

The question is: If the DSO’s leadership recognized that this many lapsed and new donors could be cultivated in a relatively short time, why haven’t the DSO’s leadership engaged in a massive public campaign, in the last year, to reach these donors more quickly?

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Related Content

A Brief History of Development at the DSO

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