PORT ANGELES — As they strive to raise the remaining $60,000 to purchase downtown Port Angeles’ shuttered Lincoln Theater, Scott Nagel and Karen Powell are also planning how to run it as a nonprofit arts center.
Nagel and Powell, married business partners who also produce the Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival every October, made an offer of $235,000 last winter to Sun Basin Theatres, the Wenatchee owner of the Lincoln.
They’ve been collecting pledges ever since toward their plan of transforming the 99-year-old cinema at First and Lincoln streets into a nonprofit venue for concerts, plays, film festivals and corporate events.
The pair have raised $175,000 in pledged donations and are now seeking foundation grants, major sponsors — and people to serve on the board of directors.
Forum this week
This week, Powell will host the first of three forums on Lincoln Theater board development.
The session, titled “The What and Why of a Nonprofit Board,” will run from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in the upstairs conference room at The Landing mall, 115 E. Railroad Ave.
“We welcome everyone,” said Powell, a longtime management consultant who’s worked with banks, colleges and nonprofit groups around the Northwest.
She wants The Landing mall sessions to demonstrate how the Lincoln’s board can represent greater Port Angeles; ideally, Powell said, it will include community activists, artists and other local leaders.
“Anyone who leads or sits on a nonprofit board can benefit from these sessions,” she added.
In her experience, people think boards are insular bodies, working in secret. The forums should dispel that.
“This process not only enfranchises people,” Powell said, “but helps others see how a board can make or break an organization.”
Fundraising
Meantime, Nagel is meeting with local business people and applying for grants, the first of which is from First Federal and due at the end of August.
He and Powell want to have begun forming the board of directors by then.
The flow of individual pledges has slowed, Nagel said. He’s turned his energies toward major gifts, from local companies on up to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s rural economic development division.
“There are a lot of grants out there for economically disadvantaged areas; rural areas,” he said.
Nagel and Powell’s next development session, “Building an Effective and Efficient Board of Directors,” is set for 6 p.m. Aug. 12 at The Landing’s conference room.
The last one, “Creating Profiles for Great Board Members,” will be at 6 p.m. Aug. 26 at the same location.
These are forums, not lectures, said Nagel, adding that he wants to hear from people with knowledge of nonprofit boards; this is a chance to interact, share experiences and ideas.
Information about a nonprofit Lincoln Theater can be found on the “Light Up the Lincoln” Facebook page and on www.RevitalizePortAngeles.org.
The latter has a link to the project’s renovation budget; architect Michael Gentry’s renderings; background information about Nagel, Powell and others on the planning team — and a pledge form.
Nagel also encourages prospective supporters to phone him at 360-808-3940.
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
