The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 111

Cos AnQdffi (limes Sunda, Ik-cembtT 13. Part I 3 Center Acts as Matchmaker for Corporate Givers, Needy Agencies Eases Scramble for Funds in Wake of Slash in Public Grants By BRUCE Times Staff Writer Molinila Peterson holds what could he a key to survival for scores of Southland social service agencies reeling under massive cuts in the public grants that created manv of t' cm. also offers help to corporations puzzling over how to get the most from their philanthropic dollar, now that federal tax laws have doubled the exemption for charitable contributions to 10 of pretax earnings. Peterson's key is the Funding In- adena, the Centro de Accion Social amassed its entire $108,000 budget this year from private sources, he said. "It would be 100 correct to say the center library made that possible, Rodriguez said.

Even with such sophisticated philanthropic data as the center's collection offers, there's no way that all nonprofit agencies cutoff from government grants will find private funds to replace them, Shakely said. (Reagan Administration officials now say a total cut off will not occur, though they do expect the private sector to shoulder more of the burden, thanks to new tax credits.) Shakely said the federal cuts will clear out thousands of store-front agencies that have run grass-roots social programs and force consoli- dations of formerly independent cultural programs in order to survive. He predicted that as many as half of the 30,000 nonprofit agencies in Los Angeles County will disappear over the next few years. "Neither the California Community Foundation nor all of private philanthropy can hope to make up rainbow," Shakely cautioned, "but we've got all the road maps." Those who have used the center are reluctant to discuss the specific grants they have received as a result, but they say they wouldn't seek funds without consulting it. "I haven't submitted a foundation proposal this year that I haven't researched there," said Cathy Brooke, director of fund development for the Pasadena YWCA.

She is responsible for digging up about $100,000 in foundation support for the Y's $850,000 annual budget. Avoids 'Shotgun Approach' At the Centro de Accion Social, which specializes in furnishing grass-roots legal aid and education and housing rights, staff attorney Nicholas G. Rodriguez said he considers the Funding Information Center indispensable. Using it, Rodriguez said, enables him to avoid a "shotgun approach" to grant application and instead "target" his approach to foundations interested in the specific programs the Centro specializes in. Though born in 1967 as a publicly funded community agency in Pas new project," said Jack Shakely, executive director of the California Community Foundation, which became custodian of the reference works in March.

"Now they can find out what successes and failures have taken place with other agencies addressing the same issues." To agencies scrambling for new sources of funds for old community programs, he said, the collection can supply dozens of precise leads and eliminate many fruitless queries. Reduced public funding for social-welfare, health and cultural programs has shoved a greater burden on the private sector, Shakely said. He sees the center's collection as a useful tool to stretch limited philanthropic funds. Center librarian Peterson conducts small weekly orientations, on a reserved-seat basis, for grant-makers and grant-seekers alike. With volunteers from the Los Angeles Junior League, the center acts something like a match maker, its resources helping to bring about compatible combinations and eliminate fruitless wooing.

"We don't want to give the idea that we're the pot at the end of the for more than a fraction of current state and federal budget cuts." Shakely said. "This makes it more important than ever that the limited funds available from the private sector be placed as wiselv as possible." The foundation, organized in 191.1 as a pool for philanthropic donations from individuals, associations and corporations, saw its assets increase $3 million in the last year, to $26 million. "But the applications for funds are up fourfold," he said. As a result, Shakely said, the foundation earlier this year jumped at the chance to take in the Funding Information Center, which had been housed temporarily at USC after UCLA was forced to evict it after Proposition 13 cut the university's library budget. Handy Repository The foundation itself, Shakely observed, can provide a handy repository for individuals and corporations seeking professional management and placement of their charitable contributions.

The foundation is made up of more than 150 individual funds that are pooled and their earnings allocated each year, either to specific agencies designated by the donors or to support programs within the donors' area of interest. (Donors also can leave allocations to the foundation, he added. Last year the foundation's grants exceeded $2 million. Its assets are managed by five banks Bank of America, Crocker, First Interstate, Security Pacific and Wells Fargo. Donors can designate which bank they prefer to manage their contributions or bequests.

Since its creation in 1915 as the nation's second community foundation (after the pioneer Cleveland Foundation), the California Community Foundation has been joined by more than 240 similar organizations. Total assets exceed $1.5 billion nationwide. Melinda Peterson gives advice to firms on philanthropic R. L. OLIVER Loe Angeles Times giving and receiving at a seminar.

to Millions formation Center reference collection, which she maintains at the headquarters of the California Community Foundation, 1644 Wilshire Blvd. The center is part of a national network of reference materials set up by the Foundation Center in New York to make available without charge its vast store of data on philanthropic giving and getting. "This can prove a particular help to organizations contemplating a business of nullifying economies in production by throwing the gains into greater outlays for salesmanship," to the point where it now "costs more to distribute things than it does to produce them." And in their authoritative 1939 study, "Does Distribution Cost Too Paul W. Stewart and J. Frederick Dewhurst noted that "spectacular gains in production efficiency have not been duplicated in the field of distribution." The reason: Manufacturers have used savings in production costs "all too often to persuade people to buy more goods rather than to reduce their price." Costs Booming require major structural reform.

The most obvious reform would be to allow retailers to place specific orders rather than passively receive what wholesalers wish them to put on sale, and for returns of unsold copies to be limited or eliminated. However, publishers say such a change would backfire. "Few retailers want to, be bothered managing such a diverse product line, and most couldn't handle It as well as wholesalers do. and if they tried, the result probably would be an over-restriction on title selection and resulting loss of sale." says Donald M. Klltman president of the Time Inc.

subsidiary that distributes People, Life. Time and the company'a other magazines. "Retail ordering probably would have a significant negative Impart on the sales of all but the 2-t or TiQ best-selling magazines, forcing publishers to sell them only by mail subscription or to kill What's more. Klliman says. mag.

azines need to maintain control over how many copies they distribute to meet their advertising rate bases and to adjust for ups and downs in the editorial appeal of individual issues. The bottom line, then, is that or-dering of magazine by retailers would reduce waste, all right. Out publishers say It also would reduce sales And that would put them out of Ktep with modrrn mass market' log PERENCHIO: Stranger Parasitic Industries Veblen's 1904 Attack Letters Most Effective Advertising Is Verbal Pitch Your article Advertisers Worry About Mounting Clutter of Product Pitches," Business Section, Nov. 29) was informative, but a long way from the true point that big and little industries have forgotten, never realized or have yet to learn: Consumption will control production (not production the consumption). The best advertising of a good product is by word of mouth, which will spread or travel as fast as any gossip will.

Advertising in our house is the first item to end in the trashcan. ERICH HOFMANN Laguna Hills I would like to praise The Times for its continuing series examining the advertising industry. In these days when the media are crammed with news of waste in government, it is refreshing to see a prominent publication question the efficiency of that most holy of sacred cows: the marketplace. FRANK JENKINS Hollywood GM Faces Selling Job The recent article about General Motors spending Downsizing of $40 Billion in Projects Causes Havoc. Doubt." Business.

Nov. 22) was interesting. If plans for new cars, engines, and transmissions are indeed being watered down and CM is reduced to building all models on three basic platforms, il would be interesting to know how much will be spent on advertising to convince us that all these basically similar products are somehow significantly different. WALTKKV1I.LE San Diego Read Offers Carefully Reading ads in the Business Section. 1 find a local firm advertising government obligations based on a ld yield.

This sounds attractive when the market is more like Wi they are 2's'T over the market. Hut in the small print, they stale the true rate-1 "t-which means that they are really giving 2'4T- below the market (and the prire paid is considerably above the market). They also offer on A -rated municipal to attract investors to call in when the A -rated market is more like 111., but do not mention the exposure to default on these bonds These are not for the average reader, only for sophiMii atel speculator ho want to reap sub stantial gain, but stand to loe their Investment if the reverse happens Walk lightly wbrn vou are attract cd by ads that offer sensational rates av atnve the market ALHKI11 KAItUKl.t. Continued from First Page provided the evening's entertainment. Williams himself sang at the wedding in the Stanford University chapel.

And the Harry James band played for the reception. "Jerry has always lived in a grand style, even when he didn't have any money," Williams said. There was ample wealth in Andrew Jerrold Perenchio's childhood. Born in Fresno on Dec. 20, 1930, Perenchio was the only child of a winemaking family.

Perenchio's paternal grandparents, both Italian immigrants, had settled in Fresno in 1920. John B. Perenchio was a fruitbroker who operated the Fresno Grape Exchange for several years, and ran the Crestview Winery from 1936 to 1944. Perenchio's father, Andrew Joseph Perenchio, became the co-owner of Fresno's Sunnyside Winery in 1940. He was associated with the winery until 1950.

when a fire destroyed several buildings. At 15, Jerry was sent off to prep school. Los Angeles' prestigious Black-Foxe Military Institute, now defunct, which attracted the sons of both movie stars and moneyed families in South America. In his senior year, his two dozen classmates elected him secretary -treasurer of the class and voted him "Biggest showman promoter," "Most humorous," and "Teller of tall tales." Early Wealth Perenchio enjoyed a $I50-a-wcck allowance In his prep school days, but his father's financial affairs took a turn for the worse. The allow-anccs stopped.

"I don't think I forgave him for three or four years. I hadn't put five cents away. I realized I'd have to go to work." Perenchio said, In a rare interview two years ago In Broadcasting magazine. Perenchio ran I catering business for fraternity parties in order to finance his studies at UCLA, But he didn't hover behind the scenes; the 19.12 yearbook shows him greeting movie star Marilyn Monroe at the Junior Prom. Perenchio ha said in his official biography that he was grossing MOO.OOQ year by the time he graduated in June of I'JH with a major in business education, One month later, he married Robin Gardner Green, a young divorcee with two daughters, After a stint in the Air Force.

Perrnrhto worked briefly for one talent agency before Joining the Munc Corporation of America (now MCA Inc.) in 1958. He stayed with MCA until it abandoned its agency business in 1962, under pressure from the Justice Department's antitrust division. With a few associates, Perenchio set up another talent agency, staked in part by a neighbor, an aunt and his wife, Robin, who had inherited her father's estate. (Her grandfather, Luther Green, was a prominent Los Angeles stockbroker, and her great-uncle Burton Green developed Beverly Hills.) In 1969, the Perenchios' marriage ended in divorce. Later that year, Perenchio married Jackie Thaxton, the divorced wife of producer Lloyd Thaxton.

Perenchio's second marriage ended in divorce six years later. He has not remarried. "He's really the most fascinating man I ever met," said Jackie Perenchio. Although they had no children, and she has since remarried and divorced, she kept the Perenchio name. "I don't think he was thrilled about it." she said chuckling, but she explained that the name seemed to suit her.

Jackie Perenchio describes her former husband as a man with "tremendous energy" who "does not relax well, because his mind is always wheeling far in advance of what he is doing." She said he once endured a three-day sea cruise by running not pacing the deck. Traveling with Perenchio on business trips was "an education that you just couldn't get" anywhere else. She accompanied him to Miami in 1969 when he interested the owners of Lum's Inc. in buying" Caesars Palace. Received Thread She was at Perenchio's side in New York when he staged the Ah-Frazicr fight, and disputes broke out over which theaters had been granted closed-circuit TV rights.

There were "threats on our lives. We had to have a bodyguard stay right In our hotel suite. It was awful," Jackie said. Despite the sporting events he promoted, Jackie objects to the promoter label on Perenchio. "He's got loo much style to be a promoter." she said, calling him instead an entrepreneur and deal maker.

Ix)ktng bark on those years. Jackie said Perenrhio'i Introduction of Clifford and Stuart Perlman. Lum's founders, to Caesars Palare "was the beginning of Ihe big deals." His $900,000 finder's fee for "an afternoon's work" made him realize that dealmaking required no more effort than he already ex- pended on behalf of his movie star clients, she said. Perenchio's association with Caesars actually has spanned 15 years. In 1966, the year the casino opened, he invested $50,000 in the parent company, and he booked clients there.

Late last year, he held talks with the Perlmans about the possibility of TandemT.A.T.'s buying their 16 stake in Caesars' parent company, Caesars World, as a $110-million investment. TandemT.A.T. broke off the talks earlier this year, giving no explanation. The Perlmans have been forced to consider selling out because the New Jersey Casino Control Commission found them unfit for association with the casino company, citing their links to two reputed associates of underworld financier Meyer Lansky. Caesars has appealed the commission's ruling in New Jersey courts, but meanwhile has contracted with the Perlmans to buy back their stock.

Dealings With Caesars Perenchio described his early dealings with Caesars during a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation 10 years ago. concerning the casino's sale to Lum's. Perenchio was not named in the SEC's subsequent complaint filed in December, 1971. charging Lum's. Caesars and 13 owners or officers of the casino with deceiving and defrauding Lum's shareholders.

In his SEC testimony. Perenchio said he first met top Caesars officials in l'JTi6 while booking two Broadway musical companies for Las Vegas performances. He was offered the chance to invest in the new casino, and agreed to buy "two points at $10,000 each." Each point represented less lhan ownership. Perenchio said. But when then -Caesars' president Nathan Jacobson warned him thai the investment could be very rtsky, Perenrhio said he decided to invest only $10,000 and his first wife Robin bought the other "point" with her own money.

Perenrhio said that by IVA he thought the casino owners might be willing to sell. He asked Allen Sus-man. one of Beverly Hills' mast powerful entertainment lawyers, "to keep his eyes open" for a posst. ble buyer. Prrenrhto told the KEC that he agreed to split any finder fee with Susman.

and eventually paid him of hi m.O-KI fee. even though Susman introductions did not lead 10 the Caesar. Lum's deal. ritase rr.RF.NCIHO, Pan IS Criticism of excessive marketing costs is nothing new. Back in 1904, leftist economist Thorstein Veblen of the University of Chicago observed in "The Theory of Business Enterprise" that "the very high productive efficiency" of U.S.

industry was leaving "a very wide margin for waste," permitting the "disproportionate growth of parasitic industries, such as most advertising and much of the other efforts that go into competitive selling." In 1925, social critic Stuart Chase in "The Tragedy of Waste" deplored "the tendency of modern MARKETING: Continued from Second Page strong effort, and our percentage of sale might not go up at all." While deploring overproduction and ovcrailolment. publishers keep cloRRing the system with roughly twice as much product as can be sold. And the introduction of labor-saving processes has hardly made a denl. Under the traditional method of handling returns, wholesalers rip the front covers off unsold paperbacks and slice the lop third off rmiR.izmc front covers, then mail the covers to the publishers for credit. All wholesalers continue to handle returns of paperbacks in this fashion.

Hut larger wholesalers such os Sunset New now have la-scr scanners to read the universal prinlurl codes on magazine covers and signal computers to keep tallies that make mailing bark the covers no lunger nee ennary. However, the scanners and computers have yet to reduce the title and allotment glut. In five years or no, whulesalern' computers will be hooked into publishers' computers, enabling allotments to be set more imkly and prerwely. Hut ii ie-mams to be seen whether the hook ops will have an impart on the overproduce over return syndrome. Vate is so much a part of the current svatrm marketing maga and paperback that signifi raotly reducing It probably would.