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Fork in the road: Creating a bigger Mattress
Thursday, April 26, 2001 By Eve Modzelewski, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
The Mattress Factory, a North Side incubator for cutting-edge art, has flourished over the last decade in the wake of national publicity and international renown. Despite the accolades, though, the venue's leaders have been cautious about any overzealous development.
But as its success became even more visible the last few years, faster growth became inevitable. And Mattress Factory directors arrived at a crossroads: Did they want the place to continue to coast along as a small nonprofit? Or did they want to make the organization bigger, more substantial and more permanent?
After conducting a feasibility study about two years ago, they opted for the latter and launched a master plan to devise a more stable existence for the Mattress Factory.
Directors started a capital campaign that included $2 million in initiatives.
And they geared up for the museum's first endowment. In December 1999, it received a $1 million challenge grant from the Heinz Endowments, which must be matched by the end of this year.
The endowment marked a big shift in strategy for the museum, which previously had to earn or find grants for every dollar of its budget, said Chester Fisher, chairman of the board.
"Foundations and organizations look at [nonprofits] as having reached maturity when they have an endowment," said Barbara Luderowski, the Mattress Factory's executive and artistic director. "Because it involves a commitment from other people."
Since the museum's inception, Luderowski has been a driving force.
She bought the old mattress factory building in 1974 and founded the nonprofit museum with curator Michael Olijnyk in 1977. And though Luderowski isn't talking about stepping down, she said accepting the endowment and making the Mattress Factory more permanent will prepare for any future shift in management.
If and when that happens, the museum will need to be financially sound enough to attract effective job candidates, she said.
Luderowski said she wanted stability for the Mattress Factory, but she's cautious about too much growth at once.
"It's basically grown from a small organization into an institution. But I don't want it to become so departmentalized that no one knows what ... anyone else is doing." Now, with an intimate staff of 11, the Mattress Factory is in no danger of becoming a tangled bureaucracy.
The museum has broken ground on an expansion project that ultimately will include new offices, more space for educational programs, a bigger gift shop and restaurant facilities in the main building.
Part of the expansion is aimed at making the Mattress Factory more self-sufficient by boosting its share of a $1 million budget from 18 percent to 25 percent. While it generates income from memberships, admissions, gift shop sales and renting space for events held by local companies, the majority of its funds comes from outside sources.
The last time the Mattress Factory expanded, 10 years ago, it quickly outgrew its facilities. "We were the victims of our own success," Luderowski said, adding that she was trying to avoid that situation this time around.
The museum, located in the Mexican War Streets, has dotted the area with its properties in an effort to increase walking "arts traffic" in a neighborhood once plagued by drug trafficking, Luderowski said.
It's a combination of community outreach and entrepreneurship, and the museum started the effort in 1986 when exhibition space was opened at 1414 Monterey Street, about a block away.
The trend has continued, and this week, the Mattress Factory plans to close on the purchase of a new building to be used for gallery space, two doors down from its main museum entrance on Sampsonia Way.
By moving into a wider area, the Mattress Factory hopes to make the neighborhood more attractive to visitors and visiting artists.
The museum also has added artists' residence space. At the end of February, it opened a five-bedroom living complex a block away from the main building.
With new residential facilities, new offices in the works and an increasingly aggressive membership campaign, the Mattress Factory believes it has taken the appropriate steps toward ensuring its future success. And once it gets through its current capital campaign, Fisher said, it will start looking more closely at how to manage the endowment.
"Having been in business for 25 years, there is a real need for stability of the organization," Luderowski said.
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