Late last month the National Trust met with the digital, culture, media and sport select committee to ask for support, ideally that of the financial variety. This was particularly curious, considering the £1.3 billion of reserve funds the body has for occasions such as these.
The National Trust are not unique in their reluctance to spend their endowments on the current crisis. It has widely been accepted, according to The New York Times, that endowments “are not rainy day funds, or pots of gold to be casually raided to cover some unforeseen expense.”
For some, the current circumstance mandates the use of the funds they have sat upon for years. The Lyric Opera of Chicago, have released plans to spend $23 million of their $173 million endowment, just under three times what they would take in any other year. Anthony Freud, the company’s director, said: “This is an unprecedented situation,” defending the decision.
The New York City Ballet finds itself in the same boat. Earlier this year it had planned to take $11 million of its endowment, the more acceptable 5 per cent of the endowment. As it stands, the body will take just under $20 million.
Yet others are reluctant to spend what they have. Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, has said: “Endowments are not going to solve the problem”. Members of the Met’s chorus have not been paid since March.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York sits upon the same side of the fence. Of their $3.6 billion endowment, they will spend the standard $150 million, though the allocation of these funds is different – to be spent on survival measures including the upkeep of the buildings.
Freud’s conclusion seems the most apt: “What we’re realizing is that we can’t simply carry on as normal in the expectation that the endowment will provide us with a medium-term solution, let alone a long-term solution.”
