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The United Performing Arts Fund was created in 1967 to support the Milwaukee Ballet, Milwaukee Symphony, Repertory Theater, and the Florentine Opera.
Today, the fund supports more than a dozen performing arts organizations, but they're not distributed equallywhich has caused tension between them, Wisconsin Policy Forum President Rob Henken tells the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
"On other hand, there's an argument that a range of different performing arts groups also play an important role, and the funding pendulum should swing their way," Henken says.
"What we are suggesting is that because of this increasing reliance on philanthropy that likely cannot continue, the time has come to try to get everybody in a room, so to speak.
It's going to have to be a big room, and it's going to have to be a big difference."
The UPAF was originally designed to support only the Ballet and Symphony, Henken says, but it's now looking for a new executive director and "the leadership of UPAF as well as many of its prominent corporate donors...
are wanting to look at the distribution formula and whether it should be changed," he says.
"One of the key problems here is who would be empowered and charged with getting all of these very proud organizations that have
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