The Georgia Music Hall of Fame, which appeared in danger of closing by year’s end if it could not raise $225,000 in operating funds, will remain open and will continue to interpret the state's rich musical heritage from Macon.
“We’re committed to staying behind Macon because we’ve seen an outpouring of public and private support,” said Jim Gillis, chairman of the state hall of fame authority, which met in the central Georgia city Wednesday.
Gillis said $139,000 has been raised since a July board meeting in which closure was threatened, and enough cuts have been made to place the facility “ahead of the $225,000 mandate.” The hall has enough funds now to operate at least through the end of the fiscal year in June 2010, he said.
The board plans to launch a $15 million capital campaign early next year, when fund-raising events across the state are also expected to be announced.
Opened in 1996 in a $6.6 million building just off of I-16, the hall has been scrambling for support in the face of state cuts. It attracted only 27,075 in 2008, and a state audit last year projected it would need a significant spike in visitors, to more than 140,000 by 2012, to become self-sustaining.
Gillis said the state currently supplies about 70 percent of the hall's operating budget, and the board expects further cuts in the coming legislative session. But Macon area elected officials have been rallying around the museum, with several, including state Sen. Robert Brown and Macon Mayor Robert Reichert, expressing their support to the board Wednesday.
The Macon area delegation to the General Assembly backs a Bibb County hotel-motel tax increase that would help fund the music hall, the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame and the historic Douglass Theatre. It will be voted on in the coming session.
“We’ve seen a lot of people talk about trying to move the hall to Atlanta, and while that would most likely lead to some larger attendance numbers, we feel the overall cost of moving and then raising money to operate [would be greater] than raising an endowment to keep it here,” said Gillis, an Athens-based investment adviser. He added that for all the buzz about a possible Atlanta move, no one has ever approached the board with a concrete proposal.
"The museum is in a period of readjustment, not unlike most businesses and nonprofits in this economic climate, but we can achieve our fund-raising goals," said Lisa Love, executive director of the museum, who cut the operating budget for the current fiscal year from just over $1 million to $888,000, trimming full-time staff from nine to three. "I want to secure this museum’s future in Macon while continuing to support Georgia music initiatives statewide."
About the Author
