MUSEUM CAMPUS — The Friends of the Parks, the advocacy group that sued the Lucas Museum out of Chicago, found itself being criticized by people including Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Rev. Michael Pfleger when the project derailed.
But the group's executive director says the fight helped raise its profile, and brought in new money from people interested in preserving the lakefront when Friends of the Parks needs their help most.
"We got lots of letters in the mail and folks sending in notes saying 'I'm sending you my $100, keep fighting,'" the group's executive director, Juanita Irizarry, told DNAinfo Chicago.
Hear David Matthews' conversation with Juanita Irizarry.
Many Chicagoans decried the group as preservers of two bland parking lots next to Soldier Field, but many others cut checks to the non-profit that took on the city's elite and won.
And that's a big deal to Friends of the Parks, which had been losing money four of the past five years, according to IRS filings.
"Our supporters saw we were turning a corner into a new era of stability," Irizarry said.
DNAinfo Chicago caught up with Irizarry to talk about what's next for Friends of the Parks, its finances, and the next big thing planned for a Chicago park: the Obama Presidential Library.
DNAinfo: How do you feel now that you won?
Irizarry: We certainly think the ultimate win-win for Chicago would have been if George Lucas put the museum in Chicago, just not on a lakefront site. So we certainly are thrilled to preserve our lakefront, but we're not celebrating that Chicago lost the Lucas Museum.
Is this a watershed moment to preserve the lakefront? Does this establish a precedent?
Absolutely. I called it "the 100-year flood" the other day. Hopefully it's the kind of thing that doesn't come along very often, but it's the type of battle that does need to be taken on because this helps people be clear that it's not appropriate to develop on our lakefront.
There were reports that your board was deeply divided by the Lucas issue. What is your board telling you now?
You really can't believe everything you read; let me be clear about that. But our board has always been committed to preserving the lakefront. Folks have different strategies about how to go about that, but there has been no question that was what we were trying to accomplish.
There are 25 members on our board. You might think there might be a few different points of view on things.
What else are you working on? What's next?
Next week we launch "Earth Team," our summer program for youths teaching them about the environment and nature, and that's the kind of thing we do all the time. We have a program called "Nature Along The Lake" that takes place during the school year, we're going to spend some time enjoying that we can focus on some of the everyday work that we do. Also: working with communities across the city to help improve their neighborhood parks as we provide support to park advisory councils and develop policy issues that arise from our interaction with folks on the ground in neighborhoods.
The Obama library is expected to be built in a park, probably Washington or Jackson Park. How will you address the Obama library when that time comes?
We have been in conversation with the Obama library folks and expect that conversation will pick up any day as it's continued over the last few months. We said we will not sue over the Obama library, but we will continue to say it should not be built in a park. It should be on vacant land, of which there is a lot nearby.
Like where the University of Chicago has been buying?
There's 11 acres of vacant land right across from Washington Park. A lot of it is owned by the University of Chicago, some of it belongs to the city of Chicago, and some of it to the (CTA).
Why sue over the Lucas Museum, but not the Obama library?
Believe me, there are folks who wanted to sue. It was decided by the board before I came on board that even though we think it's a really big problem, there were so many folks on the South Side who articulated an interest in having the library, regardless of it taking parkland, that we decided to back off on the threat of suing. If it's located in Jackson Park it's still located on public trust land (Editors note: lakefront land meant to be kept free and clear) potentially, so it does bring up some questions, but we have been talking about promoting the addition of new park land in return, and we hope that those conversations are fruitful.
How has this fight on Lucas affected your fundraising? There was a big Crain's report a few weeks back that Friends of the Parks is losing money.
Unfortunately that report was based on a really unsophisticated analysis of nonprofit organizational cycles, and the data that they used was really about the transition that Friends of the Parks went through when Erma Tranter left after she had been here 34 years. Most non-profits struggle a bit when you have a long-term executive director moving on.
We did have a dip as Cassandra Francis came on, and during that period it was not related to the Lucas Museum fight, it was related to other things.
Can you elaborate on that?
Just transition, change, programs dropped, and in the meantime funder priorities change. Whatever. These things happen in non-profit cycles.
We had already started to bounce back late in the year last year, in part as I came on board, not because it's about me in particular, but our supporters saw we were turning a corner into a new era of stability.
And our last quarter of last year was really strong, and in the last couple of months we just had all kinds of new donors and members sending in money online and checks in the mail.
Can you disclose those financials?
I'm not going to tell you exactly how much has come in the last couple months, but the month of May was 10 times the month of April, and the month of May this year was more than 10 times what the month of May was last year.
Are you still in the red or how would you characterize the state of Friends of the Parks' financials?
We had reserves that actually carried us through the difficult period that was (reported), but our last quarter of last year helped us make up a lot of that.
When you mention this big boost in May, was that one big donor or lots of small donors?
Lots of people sending $200 checks, $20 checks, $2,000 checks.
Did Lucas have to do with that?
Absolutely. We got lots of letters in the mail and folks sending in notes saying 'I'm sending you my $100, keep fighting.'
You have a background in non-profits and grant writing and things like that. What is your strategy, now that you've fought this big fight, to boost Friends of the Parks financial footing? A lot of big philanthropists supported this museum. Maybe they weren't your donors anyway.
I think you hit on something important: that a lot of these people that were not with us were not with us before, so it's not like we lost money. I think corporate philanthropy is a bit more shaky because they're more concerned about public reaction and the mayor's influence, but that's not where the core of our funding comes from.
We certainly have some corporate donors, but we haven't had anybody yet who we already knew was on board say they're not on board because of this Lucas debacle.
Who is the typical Friends of the Parks donor?
It's really all over the map. I got a check the other day from a woman I happened to know for years in Humboldt Park who's a retired Latina who sent $50 and said 'keep fighting.' On the other hand it may be someone who lives on the lakefront and is really excited about keeping the lakefront open, free, and clear. It's really a range.
What did you spend on the lawsuit?
We haven't been divulging the actual cost of the lawsuit, but our law firm is a public interest law firm that had a personal interest in this, so they have been providing services that are deeply, deeply discounted and we are eternally grateful to them for that. We are paying them, but it's not anywhere close to what their work merits.
We're sitting on a parking lot, and absent the Lucas Museum nothing interesting is going to replace it any time soon. The lakefront here is really a private harbor for rich people with boats. Why was all this worth preserving?
In 1990 there was a plan. In return for public support of the expansion of McCormick Place, Mayor (Richard J.) Daley garnered a deal from folks that included Friends of the Parks and others by committing to fully building out and actualizing Burnham Park (connecting Grant Park to Jackson Park).
However, the city reneged on many parts of that plan, including getting rid of parking spaces on the east side of Lake Shore Drive and moving them to the west side of the drive.
The city was supposed to have converted this to parkland a long time ago, so we find it quite hypocritical for the city to now blame us for this parking lot they have so ferociously preserved because of the revenue that it generates for them. That's the real story.
What will Friends of the Parks do to change that?
We have found that the city of Chicago finds money for parks when it cares. In a very short amount of time the 606, Northerly Island and Maggie Daley Park have all been unveiled.
So where there is political will for a park, we get a park. We decided to go back to that Burnham plan and think about what was supposed to have been done here and get back to that conversation.
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