Nonprofit

Not wanting to see the Senator Theatre closed on their watch, city officials are offering $320,000 to keep it open - provided the 70-year-old movie house is turned into a nonprofit business. "The Senator Theatre is a Baltimore icon," Deputy Baltimore Mayor Andrew Frank said yesterday. "It's ingrained in the psychology of Baltimore. ... Its closing would be felt in ways that would be manifest throughout the community." Frank outlined the plan Monday in a letter to Senator owner Tom Kiefaber, who has warned in recent weeks that the landmark theater, deeply in debt, could close without financial help.

A Dunkirk man has won the annual $10,000 raffle conducted by the Shady Side Rural Heritage Society. Jim Scheidel's ticket was drawn at the West River Heritage Day Oyster Festival Sunday at the Capt. Salem Avery House Museum in Shady Side. Scheidel retired from the Air Force in 1977, then worked for defense contractors at Patuxent River military base until 2001. He has lived in Dunkirk for 21 years. He and his wife collect antique and classic cars, some of which have been shown at the museum.

The nonprofit group hoping to redevelop the Memorial Stadium site passed another hurdle this week when its financing plans were approved by Baltimore officials.The Govans Ecumenical Development Corp. (GEDCO), which wants to turn the site into a senior center and YMCA, presented a proposal outlining the financing for the plan to the city Department of Housing and Community Development on Monday.The nonprofit, church-based group won a city government-sponsored competition this year with its proposal to turn the storied stadium site, former home to the Baltimore Colts and Orioles, into a campus including housing for low- and moderate-income senior citizens and a 45,000-square-foot YMCA for all ages.

I SPEND A LOT OF time telling people how to be consumers: what to buy, where to buy it, how to upgrade, how to get the best deals. In fact, as a technology columnist and editor, sometimes I worry that I've turned into the announcer at a gigantic consumer rodeo.Not surprisingly, this frenzy reaches its peak during the month before Christmas. Last week, for example, The Sun's Plugged In section -- which I edit -- devoted two full pages to gadgets, games and online shopping sites. It's one of the most popular sections of the year, and we're proud of it.Or I was until this week, when I opened a press release from a start-up company called Webforia, of Bellevue, Wash.

Names in the newsDean L. Johnson, mayor of Annapolis, and Edward Casey, executive editor of Capital-Gazette Newspapers, have been named to the board of Annapolis Life Care Inc., a Maryland nonprofit corporation that owns and operates Ginger Cove retirement community.

Hampstead will sell its interest in the town's historic depot to the nonprofit Hampstead Train Station Committee, which has agreed to restore the building and maintain it as a museum and visitor center.The price is $9,200, which the committee would pay in quarterly installments over 10 years at 5 percent interest. No closing date has been set, but the town and committee have come to an agreement, and are waiting for lawyers to draw up a formal contract, said Kenneth Decker, town manager.Both parties have agreed to conditions set by the town to ensure the integrity of the project.

WASHINGTON -- Settling a legal question that had been open for two decades, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously yesterday that the Federal Trade Commission has the power to regulate the economic activities of nonprofit groups and associations.The fact that a group earns no profit on its own, the court said, does not bar FTC oversight, if the organization engages in activities that affect the profits and economic interests of members.But, in a separate part of the ruling, the court decided by a 5-4 vote that any FTC inquiry into whether those activities in fact harm competition must be full and thorough.

Leaders of small nonprofit groups that try to solve social problems juggle many jobs in arenas of perpetual need, a balancing act that can be a crucial factor in change at the top.Executives might switch agencies because their skills are in demand. Others might get weary of the grind."In the same breath, you make long-range plans and you put out fires," said Sandra R. Sparks, head of Greater Homewood Community Corp., which promotes literacy and community improvements."You do many things," Sparks said.

A collection of public and private organizations has a new program that aims to stop youth violence at its roots by making resources for troubled families more effective and accessible.Maryland Youth Initiative 2000, based on a program in Prince George's County, includes plans to compile a statewide directory of services available to families and to work with nonprofit agencies to improve options for families.Organizers hope the initiative can combat the cycle of violence they say has resulted in a 47 percent rise in arrests of juveniles from 1990 to 1996 and a one-third increase in violent deaths among Maryland youths ages 10 to 19 from 1993 to 1995.

FOR A NUMBER of years, the Baltimore Housing Partnership was held up as a model of what a nonprofit developer can achieve in cooperation with governments and the private sector. It kept expanding and taking gambles. In the end, it overextended itself so badly it is now going out of business.The partnership's collapse is a wake-up call to the nonprofit-development sector -- just like the demise of the City Life Museums last year was a red flag to the museum community. Being classified as nonprofit for tax purposes does not mean that an organization can live in defiance of fundamental economic laws.

Would you take a $100 chance on winning a $1.6 million house? Organizers of an estate home raffle in Baltimore County are betting as many as 35,000 people will step up to buy a ticket, compelled by the unusually big prize - a 5-bedroom mini-mansion on an estate lot in Phoenix - and the chance to help out a local charity. House raffles such as this one have been used as fundraisers by a handful of nonprofits for years, and they are a growing phenomenon as home sellers caught in a recession look for creative ways to stand out and nonprofits seek alternative funding.

For almost two decades, the story of the Senator Theatre has been Baltimore's longest-running cliffhanger. Will owner Tom Kiefaber be able to stare down the multiplexes and continue showing first-run films? Will the theater's creditors call in their loans? Will a deep-pockets benefactor emerge, with enough cash to keep the movies unspooling and the popcorn popping? Will the city's oldest continually operating movie theater live to show films another day? After years of nerve-wracking anticipation, it looks like the final chapter is about to be played out. Kiefaber, some $1.2 million in debt, has been frantically searching for a nonprofit organization that would be able to take over the theater.

State lawmakers, using a system of patronage that persists in Annapolis despite tight budgetary times, are seeking to direct hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to projects at nonprofit organizations they help run. In Baltimore, Del. Hattie N. Harrison has requested $75,000 for the Historic East Baltimore Community Action Coalition and an affordable housing development. The Democrat is president of the nonprofit, and her son, Phillip, is employed as a counselor there. Sen. Robert J. Garagiola, a Montgomery County Democrat, wants as much as $250,000 to expand the BlackRock Center for the Arts, a theater and teaching venue where he sits on the board and his daughter takes jazz classes.

I remember the last movie I saw at the Patterson Theater in Highlandtown. Actually, I don't remember the movie itself - at that point near the end of its life, it was a second-run theater charging a dollar or two - but I remember keeping an eye on the floor as much as the screen so I could lift my feet if a rat skittered by. Today, the theater is vibrant and bristles with artistic rather than verminous activity. It is the home base of the Creative Alliance - the quirky arts organization that sponsors classes, shows and festivals on everything from screen painting to burlesque performance - which took over the shuttered theater about six years ago. "It was a huge, empty, old box," Megan Hamilton, the program director of the alliance, said of the theater, which had closed in 1995.

The Senator Theatre's bank has notified the city and the owner of the historic movie house that it intends to foreclose on the property. The North Baltimore landmark could stop showing films as early as next week and be sold at auction next month. Owner Tom Kiefaber had been in talks with the city to turn the long-struggling theater into a nonprofit community center that would offer a range of activities beyond movies. But in a letter dated Friday, 1st Mariner Bank informed Kiefaber of its intent to foreclose, potentially derailing the nonprofit plan.

Growing up in northern Homeland, I saw my first film at the Senator Theatre at 10. I went four times in four days to see Dick Tracy and got sick from eating too much popcorn. During breaks from college and the Peace Corps, I regularly took in screenings at the historic theater and made an effort to be an ambassador for the Senator, as Tom Kiefaber advocated to patrons before each performance. I even took part in the 2007 campaign to save the Senator from the auction block, going door to door in the neighborhood to collect small donations and get the word out to area residents.

Salary: $84,000 Age: 55 Time on the job: 15 months How he got started: After moving from Detroit to Baltimore to take a teaching position, Doran found that his job had been given to a recently laid-off teacher. So instead he went to work for a nonprofit organization as its director of camping and recreation. He then worked part time for another nonprofit, the Maryland Center for Independent Living, while attending the University of Baltimore to earn his master's degree in public administration.

Days after the city offered to save the Senator Theatre by turning it into a nonprofit business, owner Tom Kiefaber said he is working with the mayor's office to finalize the deal "as soon as possible." But gaining nonprofit status would likely mean big changes at the historic theater. As a nonprofit, it would not just show movies; it would need to provide educational and cultural programming as well. The new status would also mean a new role for Kiefaber, who would give up day-to-day control of the movie house, which has been run by his family for decades.

Saving the Senator Theatre would be an uncommon gift to Baltimoreans. It would be a boost for the social and cultural life of the city and help the popular Belvedere Square marketplace continue to thrive. Bailing out the prickly owner of the historic theater with a city loan is less appealing, but the proposal deserves a serious review as a last-chance effort to keep the movie house in business. City officials have rightly conditioned a $320,000 interest-free loan to the debit-ridden theater on its conversion to a nonprofit organization.

Not wanting to see the Senator Theatre closed on their watch, city officials are offering $320,000 to keep it open - provided the 70-year-old movie house is turned into a nonprofit business. "The Senator Theatre is a Baltimore icon," Deputy Baltimore Mayor Andrew Frank said yesterday. "It's ingrained in the psychology of Baltimore. ... Its closing would be felt in ways that would be manifest throughout the community." Frank outlined the plan Monday in a letter to Senator owner Tom Kiefaber, who has warned in recent weeks that the landmark theater, deeply in debt, could close without financial help.