Movie theater comes into focus - Lincoln Financial will be founding sponsor
Concord Monitor (NH)
September 14, 2006
Author: SARAH LIEBOWITZ
Monitor staff

A major donation from Lincoln Financial Group will pave the way for independent films on Main Street. The $250,000 gift makes Lincoln the founding sponsor of Red River Theatres, giving the company a strong presence in what would be one of Concord's leading cultural institutions.
The donation, which will be announced today, brings Red River's fundraising total to $1 million. The group has until next summer - when the cinema is scheduled to open - to raise the remainder of the $1.8 million in construction and start-up costs. The cinema would be Concord's first venue for independent films since Cinema 93 shut its doors eight years ago.

"Many of us believed from the beginning that the project would somehow, someday become a reality, and I think it's really wonderful that the project's been embraced by the community," said Emily Rice, chairwoman of Red River's board of directors and a lawyer at Orr & Reno. "It's really Concord's project."

Lincoln's donation also marks a turning point for Red River's fundraising efforts. For months, Red River volunteers have focused on cultivating large-scale corporate and individual donations. With more than half of the cinema's cost in the bank, the group's leaders will turn to Concord residents and film aficionados, in an attempt to generate donations large and small. It's "an opportunity to put a more public face on the remainder of the fundraising effort," Rice said.

For Philadelphia-based Lincoln Financial Group, which is relatively new to Concord, the donation is an opportunity to put the company's stamp on a prominent local project. The gift also shows that despite the company's out-of-state headquarters, Lincoln is committed to local giving, company officials said. The company is one of Concord's largest businesses, with 645 employees.

We "view Red River Theatres as an economic engine for the city, much like the Capitol Center for the Arts and the Concord Community Music School," said Charles Cornelio, senior vice president of shared services and chief information officer for Lincoln Financial Group.

Last year, Lincoln National Corporation bought life insurer Jefferson-Pilot Financial, which had a Concord office, for $7.5 billion. Jefferson-Pilot merged with Lincoln's insurance group, called Lincoln Financial Group; the move was finalized in April. In 1997, North Carolina-based Jefferson-Pilot bought local insurer Chubb Life. Some job cuts followed.

When Jefferson-Pilot took over, some community leaders viewed the move with trepidation. Chubb Life wasn't just a major employer. It was - as the top corporate contributor to the Capitol Center for the Arts - a major donor. And the acquisition reaped some changes. Jefferson-Pilot went from being the Capitol Center's top contributor to a major sponsor.

But overall, the company remained committed to community giving, donating to groups such as the Concord Community Music School, Canterbury Shaker Village and the Friends Program, said Byron Champlin, assistant vice-president and program officer at Lincoln Financial Group. He previously worked for Chubb Life and Jefferson-Pilot.

In part, Champlin said, the change was symbolic. Although Jefferson-Pilot continued to support local groups, the Chubb Life acquisition "indicated to the nonprofit community that they could not rely on that number of large, deep pockets."

Lincoln has continued the tradition of local donations, Champlin said. The Concord office has a charitable contributions committee, which vets proposals from local nonprofits. The committee has the authority to grant awards up to a certain amount. Due to the size of the Red River contribution, the Lincoln Financial Group Foundation board of directors signed off on the project.

Red River isn't the first group to benefit from Lincoln's generosity.

"They let their local people make the decisions. To me, that's obviously the best of all worlds,"said Liz Hager, executive director of the United Way of Merrimack County. When Hager heard about Lincoln Financial's merger with Jefferson-Pilot, "our first question when a big change like that occurs is, what does it mean? We've been happy ever since," she said. Last year, 92 percent of Lincoln's employees in Concord contributed to Hager's group.

In return for Lincoln's contribution, the largest of the theater's three cinemas will boast the name Lincoln Financial Group Cinema. The theater, which will be located in the Capital Commons building on South Main Street, will sport two cinemas with 35-mm projection equipment. One will seat 170 viewers, the other 113. The smaller cinema will have a stage for lectures and presentations. A screening room with DVD equipment will seat 45.

Movies will grace the theater's screens 363 days a year.

The theater's fundraising path hasn't been easy. In February 2005, board members told Capital Commons developer Michael Simchik the group couldn't raise enough money. But the Capital Regional Development Council helped Red River (named for the John Wayne Western of the same name) with financing and securing space in the building.

In June, Red River met a fundraising deadline for a grant contingent on business support. The $300,000 grant from the Community Development Finance Authority gives businesses tax credits in exchange for donations to the theater. Other groups -including ProCon Construction, one of Capital Commons's construction managers; A & B Lumber; and Main Street Concord -have contributed $120,000. Individuals have donated $330,000.

Other hurdles have sprouted. Red River leaders anticipated that the cinema would cost $1.2 million to $1.4 million. Once construction bids came in, however, the price ballooned to $1.8 million.

But Rice, for one, isn't fazed. "I feel very, very confident that there will be a theater open on Main Street within the next year," she said.

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