Getting Involved . . . On Every Level

By RYAN G. VAN CLEAVE | Photo by Kelly Kearns

Peter Miller & Martha Harrison

Peter Miller and Martha Harrison arrived here from San Francisco in June 2015 and they both consider it one of the best decisions they ever made. Sarasota is a cultural mecca, they note, but perhaps its greatest asset is its size. Here, people can connect and be part of what’s happening far more easily than in places like San Francisco or New York City, two cities that Peter, a tech guru and entrepreneur, knows well.

“We’ve grown into things slowly,” he says about their relocation to Sarasota. “Some people dive into the deep end quickly. We’ve waded in more slowly.” Their first real connection in the local philanthropy community came from a meeting with Iain Webb of The Sarasota Ballet. As expected, the former Royal Ballet dancer and current Director of the Ballet wowed them, as did the quality of the company. “We’d heard they had a good reputation, but when we went to see the Ballet, we were blown away. It was magical.” Peter joined a Sarasota Ballet task force, and soon after, he became a member of the Board. To this day, he and Martha remain fervent supporters of all that they do.

But Peter and Martha didn’t stop there—they waded deeper into the pool of possibilities.

They then connected with Ringling College of Art and Design. With 40+ years of appointments in higher education faculty and administration in three different states, Martha yearned to stay part of the world of academia. And Peter’s love for film—being both a film buff and writer— made the Ringling College partnership a natural one. Why that college versus any of the others in our area, though? “The people at RCAD are fun, creative, and passionate,” Martha says. “Those are the type of people we want to be around.”

They first became members of the Film Department’s Founders Circle, a group established to help film students work with professional filmmakers as part of their education. Then Peter and Martha extended their commitment to education by joining the new creative writing major’s Creative Writing Advisory Committee which supports young writers through networking, mentoring, scholarships, and writing opportunities, “We’re very excited about the creative writing program. It has a  huge upside,” Peter says, “because it’s all about story. And without story, we don’t have film, animation, graphic novels, or much else. Story is vital.”

While The Sarasota Ballet and Ringling College remain two of their main areas of focus, they do have other outlets. One of these is Selby Gardens, where they’re part of the Chairman’s Circle—a group that “supports the activities that are the bedrock of Selby Gardens’ mission,” according to its website. And Martha works with the recently launched Designing Women Boutique (DWB) Groundworks program, where anything donated from high-end handbags to entire estates via that liaison sends 60% of the proceeds to that organization. Martha’s specific liaison area? Ringling College, of course. “We donated a lot of things to the DWB Groundworks Program when we moved,” she adds. “It’s an easy way to give without writing a check.”

Martha’s national reputation in teacher preparation continues to keep her involved in designing and implementing workshops for teachers with a focus on arts integration in Washington, D.C., California, Tennessee, and Florida. She’s on the Board of Trustees of University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee’s PAInT (Partnership for Integration of the Arts in Teaching) initiative, a statewide center that provides infrastructure for university partnerships that support arts-integrated teaching.

Participation doesn’t stop in this family with Martha and Peter. Their Maltipoo, Bailey, is a registered service dog that goes out to hospitals and assisted living facilities as a therapy dog on a regular basis. Bailey’s sweet temperament is a hit every time. “Some people won’t leave their rooms at The Pines unless they know Bailey’s there,” Martha notes.

When asked where the impulse for giving back comes from, Martha immediately mentions her mother, Madge Harrison, who held the highest position in the American Cancer Society available to a non-MD. “Her 1986 fundraiser for ACS raised more money than in any other year,” Martha proudly notes. Plus in Martha’s career at places like the University of Tampa and University of South Florida, she wrote and was awarded grants that netted millions of dollars of support for educational programming. “That type of giving was taught to me early on through demonstration by my parents.”

Peter and Martha aren’t interested in simply offering up financial support when it comes to helping out. Sometimes the best support comes in other ways, such as how Martha bakes for the Ballet. On days when there’s a matinee and evening show, she and others in the Friends of the Sarasota Ballet feed the dancers. Martha says that “they really appreciate it. They come off stage from the matinee performance and there’s a big spread of food ready for them.” Martha handles the baking, while others tackle main dishes, vegetables, and other parts of the buffet.

While there’s no doubt that Peter and Martha have a new but profound connection to Sarasota—“It’s our home, our community,” they repeated throughout the interview—they have plans to do even more. They intend to launch a new foundation late this year or early 2019. This new endeavor strikes at the core of what they value as philanthropists: education and the arts. 

It’s going to be named after Martha’s only daughter, Jennifer Harrison, who succumbed to lung cancer in 2016 while working in LA as a paralegal for entertainment lawyers. Jennifer always loved writing and wanted to transition from her successful career in law to become a full-time writer, yet she struggled to do so despite support from Peter and Martha. “We saw how difficult it was for her to try to make that transition,” Peter says. “One of the areas of focus for the foundation will be to identify and support people who are in transition between one career and another. Especially into a writing career.”

“It’s our way of honoring Jennifer,” Martha adds. Gulf Coast Community Foundation will help them figure out how best to provide resources to budding writers and creative people like Jennifer who want to make that career shift. “We’re still working on the specific mission,” Peter says. To that end, they’re soliciting advice from Jennifer’s lifelong friends in Boston, SF, and LA, who all knew Jennifer and are equally committed to the success of this new foundation.

“Bottom line? We love Sarasota,” Peter declares. “Besides all the wonderful things about it that we all know—the weather, the people, the culture—what it gives people like us is a chance to participate in ways that simply wouldn’t be possible elsewhere. It’s unique—we’ve never lived in a place that has this kind of quality of life as well as the potential to participate so fully.”

For more information on how you can help, visit sarasotaballet.org; ringling.edu; designingwomensrq.org; usfsm.edu; and gulfcoastCF.org.