Chamber music is an intimate art form. An ensemble can include strings, brass, piano, or all three — but unlike in an orchestra, there’s no “doubling,” two musicians playing the same melody. Plus. there’s no conductor, so the players work together to stay in time.
Wu Han and Suzanne Davidson of New York’s Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center try to conduct donor meetings in a way that’s as intimate and interconnected as the music they support.
To make the most of their combined expertise, Wu, co-artistic director and an acclaimed pianist, and Davidson, executive director, often make in-person “asks” of major donors in tandem.
Together, Davidson and Wu recently asked for — and got — the biggest individual gift for the Chamber Music Society in its nearly 50-year history: $5 million, from Ann Bowers, a retired Silicon Valley veteran who previously held roles at big tech companies, including Apple. Bowers’s late husband, Robert Noyce, founded Intel.
The gift supports a three-season residency program for musicians that’s often a springboard for their professional careers. “CMS Two,” as it was previously known, was renamed the Bowers Program on Oct. 16, when the society’s 2018–19 season launched.
Davidson and Wu shared the following insights into how they approached Bowers and what nonprofit leaders need to do when teaming up to ask for big donations.
Play off each other’s strengths.
Though each partner understands the other’s expertise, each plays a specific role. For Davidson, it’s operations: She joined the center in 2013 after leading a theatrical production company and the Lincoln Center’s School of American Ballet. Wu presents the society’s artistic vision. Wu has been with the Chamber Music Society for 13 years; with her husband, the cellist David Finckel, the society’s other artistic director, she co-founded Music@Menlo, a weeks-long festival devoted to chamber music and educational opportunities for up-and-coming performers.
With Wu involved, Davidson says, the donor meetings “are so much more powerful because of her passion.” She adds: “It’s relatively rare to have an artistic director who will go out and will educate that way for the health of the organization.”
Know the donor’s interests.
Bowers loves chamber music, Wu says. She met Bowers in the early 2000s at the first Music@Menlo, after Wu performed at the festival. (Through a representative, Bowers declined to speak with the Chronicle.) “We just immediately hit it off,” Wu says. They had many friends in common, and Bowers liked the festival’s mission.
From then on, Bowers became a key donor and adviser. She started making donations to support the residency program about four years ago, when she noticed that young musicians in Music@Menlo’s programs were being accepted for residencies with the Chamber Music Society.
Because of her ongoing support, Wu and Davidson knew Bowers might be interested in making a big gift to rename the CMS Two program and put it on stronger financial footing — a strategic priority for the organization heading toward its 50th anniversary in 2020. “CMS Two” wasn’t a very catchy name, Davidson notes, and was arguably diminishing to the artists in the residency program, suggesting that they weren’t as talented as other players.
Wu says: “Because I know [Bowers] well, I know her passion. I knew she [would] be excited by this particular naming opportunity and understand what this program’s impact will be.”
Build a strong relationship with the donor.
Over the years, Wu and Bowers have become friends. “It’s not [as] simple as just a donor relationship,” the pianist says. “It’s much more of like-minded people that are sharing similar visions of what this world should be like.”
When Davidson and Wu traveled to Bowers’s home in Aspen, Colo., in July to make the pitch for the gift, Wu asked for the donation, since she’d known Bowers longer. The $5 million sum is the most she’s ever asked the donor to give to any project — the result of trust built over time, Wu says.
Communicate results.
Donors also need to understand that their money is making a difference.
That wasn’t hard to do with the residency program, Wu says. “It was just too obvious,” she says. “We have groomed so many great musicians, we have launched so many careers, we have put them on the major stage of Lincoln Center.”
Before the big gift, Wu says she often talked with Bowers about the progress artists were making in the residency program, and what she was doing to help them. She also updated Bowers on the artists who left the program, and musicians often reached out to Bowers themselves.
Coordinate your goals.
Nonprofit officials who tag-team donor meetings need to be on the same page, Davidson says.
She and Wu say they are aligned on the organization’s goals, and that shines through in donor meetings.
“We can speak forcefully both for the artistic vision of the organization but also the business aspect of how we want to see the future, and I think that’s really important,” Wu says. “I can’t imagine having somebody coming just [to] talk about fundraising and not understanding our artistic goals.”
The fact that she and Wu have a close relationship, Davidson says, is evident in donor meetings too — and makes supporters feel comfortable. Donors understand that the Chamber Music Society’s leaders agree on how charitable donations should be spent, Davidson says: “There’s a cohesiveness there that I think is very important to someone who is making a major investment in an organization and in a vision.”
