Capital Campaign

Strengthen Our Symphony

Secure the future of The Missouri Symphony

For 55 years, your Missouri Symphony has brought the magic of music to Mid-Missouri. But rising costs and unreliable funding now put that future at risk.

Operational Goals:

As MOSY celebrates its 55th anniversary, the Board and Staff want the organization to become more financially sustainable for years to come.

Why?

After using our operational reserves to recover from slow ticket sales and the pandemic, the organization is ready to become more financially solvent. MOSY can no longer maintain another fiscal year in a deficit.

How?

MOSY will look to raise funds to cover at least the next two years of the Firefly Music Festival. One summer music festival costs approximately $200,000 toprovide the number and quality of concerts that are patrons have come to expect. Without our summer music festival, many of our long-time musicians would have no reason to return to our community.

MOSY will continue to grow its endowment funds specifically for MSC students and MSO musicians, which will help offset their expenses in the annual budget. MOSY will also use a portion of the money raised to build back up its operation reserves for any shortfalls that may occur during the fiscal year.

MOSY will engage in a marketing rebrand to make the organizational more approachable and visually appealing to continue to attract new patrons and donors.

Artistic Goals:

MOSY currently has a budget of $750k. We would love to move toward a $1M orchestra.

Why?

We want to continue to expand our reach & be Missouri’s orchestra.

Goal #1: Serve the year-round community — expanding season (to a current 4-5 concert season), bigger impact and commitment to education, limited overhead increase.

Goal #2: Serve the mid-Missouri region with 4-6 regional touring locations.

Goal #3: Continue championing Missouri works. Carl Busch research and recording project. Commission projects.

Goal #4: Expanded educational impact. (State-wide YPC project, already with preliminary talks with the St Louis Symphony; and increased regional offerings.)

How?

  1. Musician’s pay: target $90, $100, $110 per service to match the level of who we want to be instead of who we can afford to be. (An additional $60-$90 per musician per concert, or $5,000 per full-orchestral concert, totaling $45,000 a year in budget increase.)

  2. Orchestra size and flexibility: so we can offer concerts that do not stop at early-romantic works. (Additional average of 8 musicians more per concert, totaling ~$30,000 annually.)

  3. Well-funded rental, library, and research budget.

The next 25% increase in budget will represent a disproportional dramatic increase in the quality and reach. We will also serve our musicians well — not only artistically continue to be one of their top choices but financially as well. With an administrative goal of operational sustainability, this is well within reach and is something we owe to our artistic constituents of the entire mid-Missouri.