Posted on 07/16/2003 9:27:19 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
Stratford Hall hit by stock slump
Stratford Hall Plantation is counting on a $6 million fund-raising effort to help repair financial damage caused by stock-market declines.
Stratford's endowment shrank from $29 million in 1999 to about $16 million this year. The resulting loss of investment income has caused reductions in staff and programs at the historic home of the Lee family in Westmoreland County.
The new fund-raising campaign has already raised $3 million that will be used to meet Stratford's operating expenses in the next three years, said Elizabeth Dunn, director of development and public relations.
"I'm astonished how quickly we've mobilized the community of people who love and revere Stratford," Dunn said last week at a news conference announcing the fund drive.
Since January, she said, wealthy members of Stratford's board of directors have contributed or pledged nearly $1 million. The estate of a former director has given $750,000, and an anonymous Northern Neck donor gave $250,000.
In addition, a group of supporters called the Friends of Stratford is expected to contribute $900,000 in the next three years, she said.
Dunn said that over the next three years, Stratford will intensify efforts to raise another $3 million in cash from corporations, individuals and other organizations.
For example, she said, Stratford will buy mailing lists to expand its donor base from 10,000 to 30,000 names. Fund-raising appeals featuring new "Make History at Stratford" brochures will be sent three times a year to prospective supporters instead of just once a year.
"The money will be spent as soon as we get it" on Stratford's operational expenses and educational, research and preservation programs, Dunn said.
Stratford has cut its operating budget from $3.3 million last year to $2.6 million this year, she said. Much of that savings came from eliminating 17 of the plantation's 47 full-time employees.
The Stratford board has also decided to limit withdrawals from its endowment fund to 3.5 percent, compared to 6 percent in other years, she said.
In recent years, Stratford has withdrawn between $1.5 million and $500,000 a year to meet operating expenses.
The current fund drive is designed to reduce Stratford's revenue shortfalls and to allow its portfolios to rebound until new sources of revenue are developed, she said.
Stratford has begun to market its grounds, guesthouses and other facilities as a site for weddings, family reunions, corporate retreats and other gatherings.
Built in 1738, Stratford was the home of two signers of the Declaration of Independence: Francis Lightfoot Lee (1734-1799) and Richard Henry Lee (1733-1794).
The monumental brick mansion, its exquisite outbuildings and 1,700 acres of surrounding land were purchased in 1929 by a group of wealthy women as a shrine to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, who was born at Stratford in 1807.
This sounds like fraud - someone who is managing foundation money is clearly violating his fiduciary duty if he put all the capital into internet bubble stocks.
I smell a rat.
There was a very large cabin-type building on the property where we had a nice little supper on a screened-in back porch, overlooking a nice stand of woods full of fireflies or as we Southerners are known to say, "lightening-bugs".
We would love to go back there ourselves. Perhaps next Spring.
I hope all the money they need comes in.
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