At Kennedy Center, Trump Inherits a Tough Job: Fund-Raising

In just one week, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington has been completely transformed.

President Trump purged the center’s board of all Biden appointees and installed himself as chairman, ousting the financier David M. Rubenstein, the center’s largest donor. The new board fired Deborah F. Rutter, the center’s president for more than a decade. At least three other top staff members were dismissed.

Performers have dropped out in protest amid fears that Mr. Trump’s call to rid the center of “woke” influences, drag shows and “anti-American propaganda” will result in a reshaping of programming too narrowly aligned with the president’s own tastes.

This concern — that the center’s tradition of pluralism, free expression and classical art forms is in jeopardy — has dominated conversation about its future. But just as relevant, experts say, are questions about its financial stability.

Though the abrupt takeover by the new administration might suggest the center is an arts adjunct of the federal government, it is actually a semi-independent nonprofit.

It operates under the Smithsonian Institution as a public-private partnership, and only a small portion of its $268 million budget — about $43 million, or 16 percent — comes from the federal government. That subsidy is not spent on programming but is earmarked for operations, maintenance and repairs of the property, which is federally owned.

All the rest of the income either has to be earned — through ticket sales, space rentals, parking fees, food vendors and licensing fees — or donated by individuals, corporations or foundations.

“It’s a very hefty fund-raising challenge,” said Michael M. Kaiser, chairman of the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the University of Maryland, who served for 13 years as president of the Kennedy Center. “How many of the donors and ticket buyers are not going to renew their giving or their purchase of seats in the new environment?”

Ms. Rutter said in an interview that managing the organization was “much more complex than anyone really understands,” noting the need to cultivate relationships with artists; oversee staff, fund-raise and arrange programming; and work with Congress and the White House.

“You have to really deeply care and nurture every aspect of it,” she said. “It is not a casual thing.”

She noted that the center, like many arts organizations, faces serious financial pressures. Its endowment, at $163 million, is relatively small for an institution of its size. Carnegie Hall, for example, has an operating budget that is less than half that of the Kennedy Center but its endowment is roughly twice as large.

“The Kennedy Center is meant to be a beacon for the arts across the country,” Ms. Rutter said. “I just hope that it can be sustained.”

Fund-raising had been robust under Ms. Rutter and Mr. Rubenstein, the ousted chairman. The center took in nearly $141 million in contributions and grants in the fiscal year ending in September 2023, the most recent year for which the institution’s tax records are available. That year, the center began a fund-raising effort to bolster its endowment.

Mr. Rubenstein, a founder and chairman of the private equity firm the Carlyle Group, is expected to honor his gifts to date. He has given the center well over $100 million over the years and helped raise considerably more, making his largess potentially difficult to replace.

It is unclear whether Mr. Trump would assume any part of the fund-raising role typically embraced by chairmen, and it’s hard to see how he would have the time, given his day job. Mr. Trump is more likely to delegate that task to other board members, who may find that the president’s policies have alienated some of the center’s longtime supporters but potentially attracted others who had regarded the center as an elitist institution.

“The center is now a division of the White House,” said E. Andrew Taylor, an associate professor and director of the arts management program at American University in Washington. “This might make donors think twice about contributing to the federal government.”

But Karen Brooks Hopkins, who long served the Brooklyn Academy of Music as its president, said she didn’t think it would be difficult for Mr. Trump as chairman to find donors, despite the overhaul.

“You are not going to have a problem fund-raising, because people will give money based on the fact that he may be asking them for it,” she said. “As we’ve seen, he is a very successful fund-raiser.”

Over its 54-year history, the Kennedy Center’s biggest donors have been both Republicans and Democrats. The billionaire investor Stephen A. Schwarzman, a supporter of Mr. Trump, gives at least $1 million annually. So does the energy magnate Roger Sant, who is married to Representative Doris Matsui of California, a Democrat.

The Mellon Foundation has long supported the center. Large corporate donors include Boeing and Booz Allen Hamilton.

Major donors were reluctant to discuss their sponsorship plans going forward.

The development department at the Kennedy Center has a staff of roughly 70, a number that reflects the scope and significance of the fund-raising effort but also one that is likely to draw some scrutiny from a White House whose willingness to cull staff has been more than aggressive.

A White House spokesman declined to discuss specifics of whether the Kennedy Center’s spending was a matter for review. But Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement on Tuesday that “the Kennedy Center learned the hard way that if you go woke, you will go broke,” an apparent reference to the fact that the center ran a $1 million deficit last year.

Later on Tuesday, a White House official released a statement that said: “Overall the mission at the Kennedy Center will be consistent throughout the administration, making sure it’s serving the American taxpayer correctly, making sure we’re uprooting any D.E.I. or woke ideology, and making sure we clean up waste, fraud and abuse.”

The bulk of the Kennedy Center’s revenues — $121 million — are derived from ticket sales and other forms of earned income, such as space rentals and the fees paid for broadcast rights to performances and other events.

The center hosts more than 2,000 engagements each year and runs a variety of education programs, which also generate income. The center has expanded its offerings in recent years in an effort to reach new audiences, with genres like comedy and hip-hop now side by side with classical music, ballet and theater. The campus includes three large performance halls and two midsize theaters.

Also income-producing are two major broadcast events: the presentation of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor and the Kennedy Center Honors program, which celebrates prominent people in the arts with a black-tie telecast.

CBS said in a statement that it would broadcast the next honors program as planned in December. The broadcaster’s 10-year agreement with the Kennedy Center expires after this year.

Netflix, which streams the Twain prize ceremony held in March, did not respond to a request for comment.

Two financial bulwarks for the center have been their flagship companies, the Washington National Opera and the National Symphony Orchestra. Even with the new leadership, the opera and the symphony are expected to maintain a regular performance schedule at the center. The symphony will lead a long-planned tour next month in Florida, including a stop in West Palm Beach, not far from Mar-a-Lago. The musicians issued a statement last week saying they were “proud to perform for our patrons, our community in our nation’s capital, and the country at large.”

There have also been protest cancellations by performers, though not yet on a scale that would suggest a significant financial impact. The actress Issa Rae, who was set to appear next month at the Kennedy Center for “An Evening With Issa Rae,” canceled the engagement because of what she described as “an infringement on the values of an institution that has faithfully celebrated artists of all backgrounds through all mediums.”

On Sunday, the Alfred Street Baptist Church, a prominent Black church in Virginia, said it was canceling a planned Christmas concert at the center because its new leaders stood in opposition to the “longstanding tradition of honoring artistic expression across all backgrounds.”

Mr. Trump’s supporters, however, say the administration will have no trouble finding entertainers eager to perform at the center who will draw big crowds. Calling into a meeting of the new Kennedy Center board, Mr. Trump said last week of future programming: “We’re going to make it hot.”

Some conservative groups have suggested in recent years that the federal government should stop providing aid to the center, but Mr. Trump has not weighed in on whether to continue to provide funding at the same level. The Kennedy Center did not respond to a request for comment about how Richard Grenell, a Trump loyalist who replaced Ms. Rutter, might approach the funding issue.

Mr. Grenell raised concerns about the center’s finances on X last week, detailing a meeting with the center’s chief financial officer in which, he wrote, she acknowledged that the center had “ZERO cash on hand.”

Some arts professionals say that the Trump administration may be underestimating the amount of experience and expertise required to run and finance an institution like the Kennedy Center.

“There is knowledge and relationships that are important to the functioning of a performing art center,” said Reynold Levy, the former president of Lincoln Center and a philanthropy expert. “To the degree that they are gone and the Kennedy Center maintains its mission, it’s going to be severely handicapped.”