Foundations are lining up support up behind efforts to set priorities for Belle Isle in the years ahead and build the Belle Isle Conservancy’s ability to make them happen.
The foundation support is positioning the conservancy to become to Belle Isle what the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy is to the riverfront.
This month, a strategic planning process to determine where early investments should be made on the island launched with support from foundations, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the conservancy.
The effort is running parallel with a study making strategic recommendations specifically for the Belle Isle Aquarium and Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory looking at the opportunities for joint operation with other key cultural assets like the Dossin Great Lakes Museum and Belle Isle Nature Zoo.
Both efforts are expected to wrap up by fall.
“Now that the conservancy is laying the groundwork for investment with more capacity, other foundations are seeing it’s a good time to invest,” said Laura Trudeau, managing director at Kresge Foundation, which provided funding to create the conservancy and provided $300,000 in operating support between 2013 and 2014.
Also spurring foundation investment is the clear resolution over who’s in control of the island, the state’s commitment to work cooperatively with the conservancy and its willingness to provide matching grants, she said. Increased coordination and more planning help make the priorities clearer, which makes it easier for foundations to come in.
“It’s just a tremendous asset, and it’s always a good idea to invest in your assets,” Trudeau said.
Strategic planning
A six-month, $110,000 strategic planning effort for the island launched this month with initial grants of $40,000 from the Detroit-based Hudson-Webber Foundation and $25,000 from Belle Isle’s state operator, the DNR.
Conducting the strategic planning is New York-based Biederman Redevelopment Ventures, which took Bryant Park in Manhattan from the city’s most dangerous park in the 1970s and 1980s to an international model of urban revitalization.
The plan is considering all of the assets on Belle Isle and how they can be used for programs, conservancy President Michele Hodges said. It will consider where early investments should be made, whether in revenue generators like the aquarium or boat house or amenities and attractors like the James Scott Memorial Fountain and the athletic fields.
For the $98,000 cultural campus plan, the conservancy has hired Detroit-based Albert Kahn Associates Inc. The plan is funded with $35,000 from the Troy-based Kresge Foundation, $50,000 from the DNR and the rest from the conservancy. While its main focus is to assess operations and formulate strategic recommendations for the conservatory and aquarium, the Dossin and zoo are also an important part of the discussion, Hodges said.
Coordinating efforts with the conservancy and possibly the zoo “just makes sense,” said Robert Bury, executive director of the Detroit Historical Society, which operates Dossin Great Lakes Museum.
There’s great value in looking at common hours, common staffing and maybe even coordinated oversight and management of those buildings, he said, since they’d give visitors a predictable experience and offer cost efficiencies.
Really ramping up
The Belle Isle Conservancy, the fiduciary for the grant funding coming to the island, operates the aquarium and oversees historic preservation and improvement projects on the island, volunteer activities and public programming like Belle Isle Summer Saturdays.
It’s been just three and a half years since it formed through the merger of four volunteer groups working on Belle Isle. Already it has matured as an organization, raising funds to support historic preservation, the reopening of the aquarium in 2012 and other priorities, Trudeau said.
“They’ve done a tremendous job taking the launching pad of the volunteers to another level” and now are thinking about their role in connection with the state’s investments, she said.
The Bloomfield Hills-based Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation last April provided a $50,000 grant to help fund the conservancy’s volunteer coordinator position through the first quarter of 2016.
And Hudson-Webber is funding the addition of a business operations managerat the conservancy with a $260,000 grant that’s also supporting the strategic plan. The new person will join the organization’s three full-time employees and a fourth employee it shares with the DNR, Hodges said.
The conservancy also plans to hire a community engagement specialist as part of the Detroit Revitalization Fellows program, she said.
High-quality parks and recreational amenities are an important component of quality of life, said Hudson-Webber President and CEO David Egner in an emailed statement.
“With the conservancy really ramping up and the new relationship with the DNR, it is an important time to think strategically about how investments on the island are prioritized to continue the park’s long history as a welcoming destination for Detroiters and visitors to enjoy outdoor activities year-round.”
Grant makers are also funding best practice benchmarking. Early this month, Hodges and the conservancy’s director of development and volunteer coordinator traveled to New York to learn from officials at the Central Park Conservancy, Biederman Redevelopment and one of the nation’s foremost parks experts, Adrian Benepe, senior vice president and director of city park development for The Trust for Public Land.
A grant of more than $10,000 from the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan supported the New York trip and will also fund the conservancy’s attendance at the City Parks Alliance national conference in San Francisco in April.
That funding — supported through a $400,000 grant from the Miami-based John S. and James L. Knight Foundation made to the Community Foundation — is part of an effort to build the capacity of leaders who are helping to revitalize Detroit, said Katie Brisson, vice president, program for the Community Foundation.
The two foundations “are delighted to see the conservancy looking at innovative approaches from other parts of the country and looking to apply lessons learned here,” she said.
“We know there are many efforts underway to strengthen what Detroit has to offer, but this type of research is what will help to make Detroit unique and innovative.”
The conservancy, which is shifting to a calendar fiscal year for 2015, attracted $751,200 in grants for the 14-month period between November 2013 through Dec. 31, 2014, according to a preliminary audit.
It reported $2.23 million in revenue and net or excess income of $720,633.
By comparison, the conservancy’s total revenue in fiscal 2013 was $1.07 million, and it ended the year with an excess of $308,711, according to its audited financials.
It’s operating on a conservative budget of just under $1.5 million this year.
The conservancy’s ability to raise more money “positions us strongly to tackle the challenge of $330 million of deferred maintenance to the island that awaits us,” as well as the eventual execution of a $250 million master plan completed for the island between 1995-1997 and updated in 2005, Hodges said.
The state has said from the beginning that its whole business model for Belle Isle is based on partnerships, said Ron Olson, chief of the parks and recreational division for the DNR.
While on the one hand the department wants to preserve and protect the natural resources and recreational opportunities, monuments and cultural icons on the island, “we also want to be realistic that in present-day times there may be things that need to be added to the island … that would make it even more rich with opportunity,” Olson said.
