More Fence Sitting Needed!

I’ve taken up “fencing” working as an Administrator and Music Director, I see more clearly one problem that orchestras need to address, and NOW!…..

For the past year I have been dividing my time as a conductor/Music Director and as a Marketing and Development Director  for Missouri’s largest community Theatre company Springfield Little Theatre, a tremendous organization.  I guess one could say that I have taken up “fencing” since  I’m straddling both sides of the business; Artistic and Administrative.  I know I’m not the first by a long shot to do this and I’m not going to go chapter and verse about the differences.  Instead I want to focus on one experience I had recently which put into sharp focus what Orchestras and the Arts are up against which is the disadvantage they have in fundraising.  It’s larger than anyone could have imagined…and I have at the very least anecdotal proof!

Why is fundraising such a struggle for orchestras?

Part of the problem is a siege like mentality.  How many times is this phrase uttered “how can we compete with (insert Cancer, Homelessness, Aids, Hunger etc…)?”.  There is a defeatist approach as if to say that the arts only get the crumbs that are left after the health and human services (not to mention religious causes) have taken their share.  We don’t fundraise per se, we scavenge.

It has nothing to do with the cause, it has everything to do with ability, here’s my proof:

My Theatre company sent me to the Association of Fundraising Professionals annual conference last month in San Diego.  It was an awe inspiring 3 days, and the amount of information and techniques on display were overwhelming.  The greatest fundraising/business minds were giving classes, people such as Stephen Pidgeon, Marcus Buckingham and many others who are veritable rockstars in the fundraising world.  There was something missing however.  Out of 4000 attendees,  from what I could see scanning the list there was only 1 yes only 1 orchestra development director (only 1 Opera company and only 1 other theatre company).   We as arts fundraisers are stuck in the Model T world of fundraising whereas everyone else is learning to drive a Ferrari!

Beat their cause? No,  JOIN their cause!

This was a conference not about the cause (although there were philanthropists there also) but about fundraising itself and what to do, how to reach, and how to ask.  There was no discrimination as to which cause you represented and that is why it was so inspiring.  There was a mutual respect amongst all attendees.  At lunch we would sit randomly at round tables and everyone would introduce themselves.  During one lunch I sat with someone from the Alaska Wildlife Foundation, the development officer for the USC Law School (in the middle of a $200M capital campaign), a couple of large hospital foundations, and other prolific causes.  When it came time for me to introduce myself, I jokingly said “we do shows!”.  There was a silence that followed and then someone piped up and said, “so you are trying to make people’s lives better, well then you are one of us”.  I was gobsmacked,  just like that I was welcomed in with open arms, I was one of them!

Professional fundraisers truly have a sense of community, they share ideas, experiences, techniques, I spoke one on one with people who had implemented successful crowdfunding campaigns, social media development campaigns and so much more.  There were no secrets only a sharing of ideas and they wanted to know mine also.  This was just at lunch, the talks and seminars supercharged the experience.

Our “problem” is actually one of our advantages:

One of our catch cries is “ticket sales only account for a 33% of our income”, we use that day in day out but what I learned at the conference is almost everyone else in the fundraising world has to raise 100% of their income.  They only wish they could count on that third!  It turns out that they have something very powerful though which translates into success, and that is the power of emotion in fundraising and an up to date and progressive approach.  The arts are good at emotion and being progressive on stage, and we think that it is enough to sell itself.  Quite clearly it isn’t, we need it off stage also which was the overriding message at the conference.

Don’t listen to grandfather…Peter was right all along!:

The whole time I was there I kept thinking, where are the arts fundraisers?  The people who were there think globally, they don’t think of how to get as much of the pie as they can,  they think collectively of ways to make the pie bigger, so that there’s more of it for everyone.   In the arts we don’t think that way, we’re not global, state wide or even city wide, we insulate ourselves protecting our disappearing turf.  We build a fence and we lock the gate, it’s time we “went out into the big green meadow”, the wolves are gone!