With corporate donations and state funding down from last year, Repertory Dance Theatre had already rejiggered its budget. Programming was cut across the board, said RDT marketing director Cynthia Yeo. So, too, were the company's trips to southern Utah schools for educational performances.

What RDT did not cut corners on was its annual "Charette: The Search for Utah's Iron Choreographer," held last week. The event, intended to show the process of making dance as well as creating friends and potential audience members for the company, casts a handful of local choregraphers in a friendly competition to create a work on deadline. With the event over, Yeo breathed a sigh of relief.

"We actually did well this year," Yeo said, crediting the company's "friends-and-family" ticketing effort for reeling in as many people as possible. "People are still interested in and willing to support the arts. Where we're getting hurt is with corporate donors and state funding."

The strategy at Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company is a little different. With corporate donors down by almost half, and without an in-kind donor for the company's annual fundraiser, there was serious discussion of canceling the event altogether.

"We spent two hours hashing out the options," said David Pace, Ririe-Woodbury's development director. "Then we got feisty about it all. We decided this was nuts. We would not just lay down and die."

The fundraiser would go on, albeit scaled back. The lavish European street fair scenery of Ririe-Woodbury's "Cabaret of Fools" gave way to a humble, Depression-era speakeasy with a back-door entrance. With humble décor and a menu sparked by Depression-era recipes, the new theme would save the company money, but still offer donors the luxury of "Al Capone meatballs," egg salad and martinis.

Ririe-Woodbury is hardly alone. As the national economy settles into an era of diminished expectations, arts organizations of all stripes have scrambled to adjust.

"I don't think any of us have ever lived through a time like this, let alone as directors of arts organizations," said Terri Orr, executive director of Park City Performing Arts Foundation, which underwent a staff reduction in December from 11 to eight staff members, with 5 percent salary cuts across the board. "It's a whole new frightening landscape for all of us."

And in trying economic times, many in the nonprofit world have rallied around the time-honored advice of nonprofit arts guru Michael M. Kaiser. Maintain the strongest programming possible, advises Kaiser, president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., and look to diversify funding sources.

For Utah arts organizations, that means considering offerings with a fresh set of eyes, looking to staff for more talent and resources, and, yes, scaling back fundraising events while searching for additional funds with renewed determination.

At the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, the annual "Art in Bloom" fundraiser scheduled for May 15-17 remains on track, but director David Dee said the museum is also counting on grants from other sources, such as the National Endowment for the Arts. "We're projecting very conservatively, but we're energetically looking for new incomes," Dee said.

The Salt Lake Acting Company's annual production of "Saturday's Voyeur," a robust generator of ticket sales slated this year for June 3-Aug. 16, has long served as a fundraiser by itself. This year Nancy Borgenicht, SLAC's interim executive producer, said the company will expand ticketing options and programming to catch additional dollars.

Next year, the theater company will launch a "Wednesday's Soup Kitchen" series during its play runs, which will offer a midweek show with soup-and-wine dinner plus discussion, for an additional $5. The recently launched "Facebook Matinee" on the fourth Saturday of every month offers special discount tickets for what Borgenicht calls the company's "Facebook army." A children's play, actors' collective projects and late-night cabarets are also in the works.

"We refuse to be paralyzed," Borgenicht said. "We're just moving forward with great positiveness because we believe the soul needs to be fed." It helps, she said, that SLAC engaged in some belt-tightening ahead of the financial-fallout curve, cutting four staff members late last December.

Plan-B Theatre Company has cut its budget by at least 20 percent this season, said Jerry Rapier, producing director, but thanks to several donors the small professional theater company is well positioned to start raising money for next year with a May 30 fundraiser. The event, "And the Banned Slammed On," will present five short plays based on incidents of censorship or attempts at banning certain activities in Utah during the past year.

Plan-B is also eyeing bigger fish, in the form of the $50 million in NEA stimulus funds for arts organizations attached the recent passage of President Barack Obama's stimulus package. The company plans to apply for a $25,000 grant, while larger organizations qualify for $50,000 grants.

The public might underestimate the ripple effect of such money on local economies, but it's no coincidence that the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center is surrounded by restaurants. "The owners of those establishments know that when we do well, they do well," Rapier said. Still, he laments: "We're looking at the 2009-2010 season as the leanest in every way."

Not all fundraising challenges for Utah arts organizations are identical. Orr notes that for years Park City's 130 nonprofit organizations have relied heavily on the resort town's real-estate community, as opposed to the traditional charities and families of wealth that Salt Lake City nonprofits have drawn on over generations. The result, though, is that the silver lining becomes more visible.

"When some longtime marketing dollars fall out, some new individuals have been quietly, but in a significant way, stepping up," she said. "We're learning now that there is an emerging generation of philanthropists here."