DRONE’S-EYE VIEW. The future site of the Confluence Arts Center, right foreground, is next to the mixed-use building rising on South Barstow Street, center, in downtown Eau Claire. Image: COREY DRIVAS/MARKET & JOHNSON

What once seemed a nearly impossible challenge – raising $13.5 million in private donations for the proposed Confluence Arts Center – is nearing reality, and fundraisers are optimistic that the goal can be reached soon. The campaign recently passed $10 million, and a critical challenge grant will bring in another $1 million if smaller donors pitch in half a million dollars before year’s end.

“I think it’s monumental,” Kimera Way, president of the UW-Eau Claire Foundation, said of reaching $10 million. “My belief was that once we got over the $10 million mark, it would be a tipping point. People would see that this is a project that’s got legs and is going to be successful.” Sometimes, she explained, donors are reluctant to make pledges unless they are assured that a project will reach fruition, and this project is now headed toward a spring 2016 groundbreaking.

Like the Confluence Project itself – a public-private partnership to create a university-community arts center plus a mixed-use building – the fundraising effort originally faced skepticism from some in the Chippewa Valley. “I know when we started, people said to me a lot, ‘You’re not going to raise that much money in this community,’ ” Way said. However, over the past three years, the skepticism has dissipated as a multifaceted fundraising effort has tapped business and individual donors.

“My belief was that once we got over the $10 million mark it would be a tipping point. People would see that this is a project that’s got legs and is going to be successful.” – Kimera Way, UW-Eau Claire Foundation, on Confluence Project fundraising

An illustration of that success: One part of the initial fundraising effort was the 50 with 50 campaign, which aimed to get 50 individuals or families to make pledges of $50,000 each. After surpassing its goal, this group was renamed the Century Club, and so far 80 pledges of a hoped-for 100 have been obtained.

“For a population our size and for our economy, we’re way outperforming the norm,” noted Wallace Rogers, coordinator of the fundraising committee.
Other than a number of university and hospital campaigns, the Confluence Project is believed to be the largest community fundraising effort in Eau Claire’s history. Since plans were unveiled in 2012, donations have continued to add up, despite a convoluted path for the project, including dual city and county referendums in April 2014 and uncertainty over state funding, which was added, removed, and added again to the state budget. The state’s $15 million commitment is now law, while the city and county have committed $8.5 million toward the $40 million project.

The next challenge comes in the form of a $1 million pledge from an anonymous donor who will make the donation if an additional $500,000 can be raised by the end of the year. While other efforts have tended to focus on larger individual and corporate donors, the new “It’s Time” effort is casting a wider net.

“The ‘It’s Time’ campaign provides a way for everyone who wants to see the Confluence Arts Center happen to step forward with their gifts,” said Jill Barland, a co-chairperson of the fundraising committee. “Contributions of any size are needed and welcome.” In other words, potential donors who’ve been procrastinating now have a good reason to finally fill out pledge forms: The challenge grant will essentially triple their money.

Because the Confluence Arts Center will be a shared facility, fundraising has been shared as well. About $4 million in pledges have come through the Eau Claire Community Foundation, said Sue Bornick, the foundation’s executive director. The rest has come through the UW-Eau Claire Foundation, where Kimera Way believes the collaboration will have the collateral benefit of showing that the community can work together on major projects.

“At every step of the way when we have met with controversy or resistance or disappointment, it in a way has galvanized people,” Way added

To learn more about the “It’s Time” Campaign, visit communityfortheconfluence.org or eccommunityfundation.org. To find out how to make a donation, contact Sue Bornick at the Eau Claire Community Foundation (715-552-3801 or suebornick@eccommunityfoundation.org) or Kimera Way at the UW-Eau Claire Foundation (715-836-5180 or waykk@uwec.edu).