Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As I'm sure all of you know, the NAC was set up in 1969 to provide a federal agency that would compete at world-class levels in the performing arts of music, dance, and English and French theatre. At the time, it was consciously structured, as a crown corporation, to be at arm's length from government.
I have been chairman of the board of the National Arts Centre for the past seven years. My background is that I have published extensively on the subject of corporate accountability and have extensive experience on boards of both profit and not-for-profit organizations.
I am co-author of a book entitled Making Boards Work, and I was a member of the Dey committee appointed by the Toronto Stock Exchange to examine corporate governance in Canada. Our 1994 report, Where Were the Directors?, has had a major influence on corporate governance in this country.
My colleague Darrell Gregersen is with me today. She is the National Arts Centre's executive director of development and CEO of the National Arts Centre Foundation. Darrell is one of Canada's most experienced fundraisers, joining the NAC after leaving the major gifts program at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. Under her leadership and from a standing start about six years ago, the National Arts Centre is on target to raise $10 million a year from private sources to fund our artistic and educational activities across Canada.
We'll be able--and anxious--to answer any questions at the end of our brief presentation.
We believe in and have encouraged a policy of openness at the National Arts Centre, and the centre supports the move to bring the NAC under access to information. We congratulate the government on finding a balance between the need to provide greater levels of transparency for crown corporations and the need to protect certain types of information relating to our competitive business. That is, we support the goals of the draft legislation, but we want to avoid creating unintended negative consequences unique to our operation, consequences that would severely hamper our ability to fulfill the mandate under our act. Our concerns are in two areas dealt with in the draft act--namely, artistic contracts and fundraising.
The draft legislation recognizes that all contracts negotiated between the NAC and individual artists are presently confidential and that it is necessary to continue to provide some protection against the disclosure of the amount we pay a director, a designer, or a performer. Many leading artists would not perform at the NAC if this information were to be made public. In addition, if the fees the NAC pays for artists were to become public, it would seriously undermine our ability to secure certain artists. In other words, we operate in a highly competitive artistic milieu.
The other area where the draft legislation provides some protection is with regard to our ability to fundraise in the private sector with individual donors and corporate partners. The National Arts Centre is the only federal agency with a major strategic commitment to fundraising from the private sector and individual philanthropists. We now generate approximately 50% of our revenue from non-government sources, and we expect that percentage to go to 60% by the end of the decade. We are projecting a contribution level of $10 million a year in fundraising revenues, or 15% of our total budget annually, by 2010.
This fundraising revenue is the major factor that has enabled us to fulfill our strategic plan over the past six years, with specifically three objectives: first, to raise and maintain artist standards at world levels; second, to become truly a national arts centre; and third, to invest heavily in educational activities.
In fundraising, the relationship between donor and recipient organization is a highly personal one. The donor must believe that the institution to which financial and other resources are being entrusted is willing and able to ensure the highest standards of confidentiality should the donor so wish. Any breach of the trust between donor and recipient would severely damage the donor-NAC relationship. Individual donors often disclose highly personal family and financial information when discussing possible support for our organization.