The Kimball Jenkins Estate, for decades one of the focal points of the region’s arts community, may soon undergo an obscure-sounding change in operations designed to help tackle a not-so-obscure issue: a shortage of money.
“That has been the concern for the last nine years, continuously. There has not been one year where we made a profit, or even break even,” said Steve Metzger, who has been one of the five trustees for the estate’s charitable trust since 2009. “At the end of the year, trustees all get together and kick in enough to make a break-even proposition. That’s not a sustainable business plan.”
The estate on North Main Street received good news this week when the state’s LCHIP program awarded it $200,000 to pay for half of much-needed repairs to the roof of the 19th-century home. But its organizers will have to raise a matching amount, and that won’t do anything to cover operating expenses.
With this issue in mind, members of the board asked the Probate Court, which rules on matters related to registered charities, to change the organization of the estate from a charitable trust overseen by a board of trustees to a nonprofit organization overseen by a board of directors.
“We believe at this point that a non-profit structure is better suited for what we’re trying to achieve. The mission will remain the same, but the structure of a trust is not conducive to helping us,” said Larry Morgan, a retired businessman who is chairman of the board of Kimball Jenkins Inc., the nonprofit seeking to run the estate.
The estate consists of several historic buildings, most notably the main home known as the Mansion, on more than four acres at the intersection of North Main Street and Route 202. It dates back to the late 1700s and has been a center for arts education and appreciation for many decades. The last heir of the line, Carolyn Jenkins, left it to the city when she died in 1981, with directions that it be used for cultural and educational purposes, including the “encouragement of art.”
She also left a trust fund, but it has been used up in operations. Metzger estimated that the estate has an operating budget of about a quarter-million dollars.
Kimball Jenkins Estate is best known today for its School of Art, which teaches more than 1,300 students every year, as well as an annual art camp. It also holds studios and display spaces for visual art in several buildings.
“The number of programs is so exciting and numerous, we have been negligent in not blowing our own horn enough,” said Morgan. He pointed to some less obvious programs that Kimball Jenkins creates, including “one going on now with a link about using the arts to address behavioral issues.”
Now that there is no money left in the Carolyn Jenkins trust to oversee, being a charitable trust creates several obstacles, Morgan said.
One is that trusts “generally don’t qualify to apply for grants, that type of fundraising, which are designed for non-profits.”
Another problem is that board members of trusts must be bonded and also face some oversight from the courts and the state Department of Charitable Trusts, complications that Morgan said can prove an obstacle when trying to find new board members.
Finally, he said, there’s an image issue.
“I’ve talked with potential donors. One guy said, ‘You don’t need me, you guys have a trust, you’ve got a lot of money,’ ” Morgan said. “The trust format is usually associated with liquid assets. But right now there is no endowment – zero.”
He noted that similar city institutions, such as the Franklin Pierce home and the Capitol Center for the Arts, are nonprofits.
“They all own their own building and property, and don’t have an endowment. So where we are going is pretty consistent with what you consider to be normal,” Morgan said.
The only objection to the plan was filed by Metzger, but his concern dealt with timing rather than the concept. He said he feared the nonprofit organization isn’t ready to take over yet.
“I’d like to see a new board with more experience,” he said. The board is “elected by their colleagues, but they can quit at any point. If things get tough – and they’ve always been tough at Kimball Jenkins – I can see people saying this is not going anywhere, I’m not doing this anymore.”
“With an influx of new directors, new blood, I think there’s a good future. It’s just this transition from a trust into an unproven 501c3 might be too abrupt, too sudden,” he said.
As for Morgan, he said he was optimistic about the estate’s future.
“I wouldn’t be spending a lot of time in this position if I felt there was any potential for failure,” he said.
(David Brooks can be reached at 369-3313 or dbrooks@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @GraniteGeek.)
