$52M Is Fundraising Goal For Gettysburg Foundation
By Deborah Fitts

GETTYSBURG, Pa. — The nonprofit foundation that plans to build a new visitor center and museum at Gettysburg has hiked its funding goal by more than $10 million, to $52 million.

The new total represents a considerable leap from the $39.3 million figure that has been employed in calculating the cost of the new facility. Foundation spokesman Barbara Sardella said the increase includes a $10 million endowment, a new feature that was felt necessary "to ensure that we are consistently presenting quality programs to the public."

Another $2 million was added in order to meet the results of increased construction costs since the numbers were first crunched, in 1997, and to accommodate expanded plans for restoration of the 356-foot-long Cyclorama painting. Plans now call for replacing the painting's sky, which was removed years ago, and recreating a three-dimensional diorama that originally enlivened the foreground.

The foundation was formed by York-area contractor Robert Kinsley, who was chosen by the park to carry out the unusual public-private project. The foundation will build and operate the complex for 25 years and then hand it over to the park.

Sardella said Kinsley had originally considered establishing an endowment, but decided to pursue it when it became a priority of the foundation's newly named president, Robert Wilburn. The park approved the amended funding plan Dec. 19.

Sardella predicted that the money would be used in case of "shortfalls" from the income-generating entities in the new facility — the Cyclorama, Electric Map, film theater, and food service. The endowment could also be used to mount traveling shows or present other "quality programs," she said.

Despite the increase, the foundation is being required by the park to stick to its original plans to borrow no more than $12 million from commercial lending institutions.

Sardella noted that the final cost of the project is likely to total $65 million to $70 million, including the cost of borrowing. Interest on the commercial loans is to be paid back from the income stream.

A feasibility study now under way and expected to be completed in mid-March will indicate "where the potential donors are," Sardella said. Fund-raising is expected to start shortly after that. Ground-breaking could come in two years.

The foundation has retained JMH Associates, a Washington, D.C.-based fundraising consulting firm. Wilburn said the firm "offers us a streamlined and targeted fundraising approach without the administrative expenses of a large development staff in-house."

The increased funding level was announced during a two-day meeting Jan. 10-11 in Gettysburg by the Gettysburg Museum Advisory Committee (GMAC), a group of museum professionals and nationally known historians and educators who are charged with hammering out the new museum's "story line." The committee will meet again this summer to continue its work, Sardella said.

According to Sardella, Kinsley has donated $3.5 million to the project and anticipates adding another $1.5 million, with the funds coming from his charitable Kinsley Family Foundation. Kinsley will not attempt to recoup that money, which will be on top of the $52 million being raised, she said.