Audience Development, Successful Opera GM, and Toxic Colleagues.
For many of you, the fall semester is soon to start. I hope you, your colleagues, and your students have enlightening and insightful discussions about arts management over the next few months.
This month I came across three stories that demonstrate how we can see theory put into practice. The first article walks you through a case study of how one symphony successfully implemented an audience development plan. The second article is a profile of the Santa Fe Opera’s successful General Manager. I wrap up with an inside view on the people-problems that can arise in a fundraising operation.
As we move beyond August, we will probably have opportunities to talk with our students and colleagues about the hot topic of monument removal. I plan to share a few articles with you on this subject next month. However, it seems to me that the removal of monuments is an entry point to a much deeper discussion on cultural heritage, public art policies, and arts programming in the context of evolving social, political, and legal environments.
Audience Development Case Study
Aubry Bergauer has created an engaging account of how the California Symphony has achieved remarkable success with its audience development initiatives. What arts organization would not be overjoyed to have a 71% increase in subscription revenue or a 41% increase in donated income? The article is short on hard data though. I didn’t find many before and after numbers to help me see what the real changes were as a result of this plan. Regardless, this article has a wealth of information you could cover when talking about Chapters 11 and 12 (Marketing, Fundraising) in Management and the Arts. I also urge you to go to the link that is in the article about the Orchestra X project. There are many good ideas about how to better connect with audiences in that posting too.
Santa Fe Opera GM Profile
The profile that was in the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper about Charles MacKay is a good resource for students about an arts leader and manager who successfully guided a world-renowned opera company through the 2008-09 recession and beyond. Under MacKay’s leadership, the opera’s net assets and endowment grew significantly. His early journey working at the SFO also helps us gain an appreciation for how opportunities present themselves and the importance of being receptive to them. Sadly, his leadership and management styles are only briefly mentioned, but we get a glimpse of why he was a successful GM. It appears MacKay will be retiring from SFO having made a positive difference. On a personal note, it appears he and I worked at SFO at the same time in the early 70s. My love for opera came out of working there three seasons.
When the Fun Goes Out of Fundraising
The last article this month is not situated in an arts organization, but it offers a helpful picture of how complicated and difficult it can be to work with people. Most of the examples of dysfunctional working relationships rang true to me. I have worked with ethically-challenged colleagues, seen people taking credit for work they didn’t do, and have worked for people who were unqualified for the position they held. This article would be good to include when students read the chapter on fundraising. Chapter 12 takes you through the basics of the fundraising process, but it doesn’t touch on the realities of working with people who don’t make your job easy. One seldom seeks dysfunctional work environments, but based on conversations and coaching session I have had with former students, having some strategies and tactics at the ready to deal with difficult people would be wise.
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Audience Development: The Long Haul Model
A New Paradigm that Solves the Problems of Audience Attrition, Churn, and Aging
Aubrey Bergauer, California Symphony, August 14, 2017
The problems in the orchestra world of declining audiences, aging audiences, and audience turnover have been well articulated, belabored even. In response to these problems, we as a field often talk a lot about incremental gains and successes such as an orchestra that sold 5% more tickets than last year or trimmed expenses enough to balance the budget. Make no mistake, these are big successes under the current model, but when we know as an industry that our fixed costs will continue to rise and outpace the operational tweaks and incremental revenue gains we can achieve, the model needs to be reexamined. This is a post about solutions.
This post discusses first what the current/typical audience development model looks like, followed by reasons why organizations do it this way (spoiler alert: there is a long list of explanations in support of the traditional approach, which are barriers to change for many organizations), and ending with counter points on how and why changing the model is worth it, namely because there is big money on the table, which in turn allows us to better serve our mission.
Charles MacKay will exit as head of Santa Fe Opera
James M. Keller | The New Mexican, August 11, 2017
Charles MacKay, the general director of Santa Fe Opera since 2008, will step down following the 2018 summer season, ending a decade-long tenure marked by artistic and financial successes in an era of shrinking audiences at other opera companies. He informed the company’s board of directors of his decision during a board meeting on Friday afternoon, and shared the news with the company’s full staff in a gathering convened immediately afterward.
“It seems like a magic confluence of milestones,” he told The New Mexican in an interview. “At that point, I will have completed 10 years as Santa Fe Opera’s general director, and 20 years of cumulative service with the company, since I spent 10 years working here early in my career. Next year will be the 50th anniversary of my first season with Santa Fe Opera.”
A graduate of Santa Fe High School, he began his career in 1968, at the age of 18, playing French horn in an offstage ensemble for a Santa Fe Opera production of Der Rosenkavalier and serving as orchestra assistant. It was the company’s first season at the new theater that had been built following a devastating fire that destroyed the original opera house the previous year.
Welcome to Fundraising Hell: When Relations With Colleagues Turn Toxic
Holly Hall, Inside Philanthropy, August 17, 2017
She was the director of the annual fund at a small Midwestern college. He was director of planned gifts.
What should have been a productive professional relationship soured into a bitter, on-the-job rivalry that eventually prompted the annual fund director to resign?
The annual fund director—who asked that her name be withheld in order to speak freely about a tough professional issue—says that the planned giving director refused to collaborate with his colleagues and had no fundraising training.
But that didn’t stop him from pushing for a big raise. “He told our boss he had another offer, which was untrue,” she says. “He lied to get more money. That was the beginning of the end for me.”
Fundraisers like the annual fund director, who’s now vice president of development at another academic institution, can turn to a wealth of books, conferences, and other resources about maintaining good communications with donors and volunteers.
Far less common is candid information on dysfunctional communications between development officers and their colleagues on staff or on the board. Toxic internal politics can wreak havoc on an organization’s fundraising and the careers of development professionals, yet there is very little public discussion about ways to avoid such dilemmas—and how to solve them when they arise.