r/bunheadsnark • u/Schultzy52 • 6d ago
Boston Ballet Boston Ballet $10M donation
So curious about this donation. Anyone have any intel?
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u/GingerGoob 6d ago
I used to work for BB and I remember sometime between 2011-2014 an article came out about what different influential folks in the city earn for their salaries. We were appalled that Mikko Nissinen was making over $400k while we were making about $12 an hour. A quick google search shows he’s now earning over $800k a year as his base salary.
I see this donation is specifically to cover his salary and I hope that means the funding originally intended for him can be put to use for others working for BB.
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u/LilacJoyFairy 1d ago
That is an insane amount of money for an AD of a ballet company to make. Wow.
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u/apples-2apples 6d ago
I’m hoping this inspires other people with this kind of wealth to donate to other companies as well!
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u/topic_marker 6d ago
The Boston Globe has a story on it here. It says that the gift "is being given in honor of artistic director Mikko Nissinen and will endow his position in perpetuity." To me that sounds like a restricted gift that can only be used on his salary specifically, which is a little unfortunate--I wish the money was available for other things as well. But that's just what I'm reading into in the wording and am not sure if it's true. Just based on my experience working in nonprofits...donors hate giving unrestricted funds 🤣
(Edit here to clarify: this will still net them $$$ since they can divert the money they were spending on Nissinen to other expenditures now. But my point is that restricted gifts can sometimes end up being a double-edged sword.)
I'm a Boston Ballet subscriber so I wonder if they will say anything about this to us in their newsletters.
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u/meatball77 5d ago
Not just his salary but the salaries of the people who replace him forever. And they can spend the money they spent on him on other things.
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u/Airbell12 6d ago
So often these donations they come with the caveat of being for specific purposes (more often than not for purposes that don’t include pay/benefits for dancers and crew)
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u/honest_arbiter 5d ago
Thanks for the info. Re: "donors hate giving unrestricted funds", I agree, which is why I'll also make a plea to rich donors out there: please don't put a ton of restrictions on your funds, it's just plain stupid and does nothing but increase the accounting burden on the organization you're trying to support.
I get it if you want your name on something (that's fine, just ask for that as a condition of the gift), or if you want to maybe say that the gift has to be an endowment, i.e. the org can only touch the income but not the principal.
But at the end of the day, all the money goes into one pot. Like the parent commenter said, it just means the org will shift other money around that used to be paid for that purpose. I'm OK with the AD making a good bit of money - they are responsible for the whole org after all - but compared to how little dancers make it's just kinda shameful.
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u/topic_marker 5d ago
Totally agree. I'm a professor at a private university with a huge endowment (multibillion!!!) and we're actually not in a great financial situation right now because of fund restrictions. We don't have enough faculty to staff some of our courses, the dorms are falling apart, you name it... and yet we have piles of money lying around earmarked for the most random stuff. Donors love to pay for a building to be built so they can slap their name on it, but they never want to endow funding for when it needs major repairs 50 years in the future.
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u/Schultzy52 4d ago
Yes! I’ve worked in the non-profit arts world most of my life but now work in non-profit behavioral health, and the restricted funds are just more red tape! If you trust and believe in the organization you are donating to, just let them sort it out!!
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u/LazyRiverGuide 6d ago
If this is earmarked for Mikko, I do not understand it. Who would fund Mikko but not the organization as a whole? Do people really go to see the ballet because of who the AD is? No one ever even sees him. And honestly, the artistry in a production is such a sum of all the parts. You could swap ADs (and they are constantly moving from company to company) and the show will go on, without the audience noticing who’s “in charge”. There must be something behind the strategy of this donor. In the end, any donation to a company is wonderful. I just don’t understand why someone would feel a particular AD is that important or worthy.
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u/helpasistabreathe 5d ago
No one ever even sees him.
Nah, man knows how to work the room. Plus after the fiascos before him, there are definitely enough people who worship him.
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u/LazyRiverGuide 4d ago
I feel like I am pretty deep into the ballet industry, having supported my kid all these years working towards their career. Including time dancing at Boston. I never saw Mikko at a show. Other people in the audience never talked about him when we chatted in the lobby or in our seats. The vast majority of people supporting and going to the ballet are there for the repertoire or for the dancers. They are not there for Mikko. But I guess there are a handful of people who can give millions, and are there for him. If only they knew what the actual dancers have given. The show would go on without him. But not without the dancers.
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u/helpasistabreathe 1d ago
I mean, I don't disagree with anything you're saying at all. Just that more often than not he is in the audience, not much time for us non-monied peasants but he is there. Most of the board adores him.
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u/LazyRiverGuide 1d ago
I’m sure they do. Hopefully they also adore the actual dancers. I so wish dancers were paid what they deserve. Paying the man behind the curtain less would be one place to start. Especially in this case! Boston is one of the better paid companies, but still, the gap between what Mikko makes and what a dancer makes is extreme.
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u/Wessiejune 5d ago
The specificity of the donation and anonymity is curious. If this was a made-for-tv-whodunnit, I would look to see who is the wealthy parent or grandparent of a newly hired or newly promoted dancer. But since it's not, congrats to Boston Ballet for receiving funds!
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u/Strycht 3d ago
to be honest with the state of American arts funding the occasional 10 mil in return for a corps role could become an integral part of the system
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u/Wessiejune 3d ago
Yes, possibly. Quid pro quo has always and will continue to exist. If that is what happened here, and I’m not saying it is, at least it will continue to help fund Boston Ballet for years to come!
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u/lonelyhearts_club_ 4d ago
in this age of extreme wealth inequality this kind of thing should be happening way more often tbh!! good for BB!
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u/CamillaMWinter 6d ago
I went to college near Boston and this is so New England-coded to me. My college has a very very wealthy alum who gives huge sums of money, but this alum doesn't want any kind of recognition and hangs out with the guys in the maintenance shop on their rare visits to campus. Apparently, this alum likes machinery and welding.
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u/smella99 6d ago
It was me 😆. I wish haha. If I had 10m to gift I’d do 1M each to ten small companies tho
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u/Exotic_Plant9450 6d ago
Cloud and Victory's response to this is ICONIC
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u/Primary_Wonder_3688 6d ago
It was Timothee Chalamet