Latest / Arts Unscripted with Monica Holt / CI to Eye | Bridging the Marketing-Development Divide

Transcript

CI to Eye | Bridging the Marketing-Development Divide · Arts Unscripted with Monica Holt

0:09
Hi everyone. Dan here.
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It's almost the end of the fiscal year and many of us are wrapping up
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performance seasons, launching big fundraising pushes,
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and keeping a close eye on whether we'll hit our goals.
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And at the center of all that? Marketing and development.
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These teams are working toward the same big picture goals, bringing in revenue,
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deepening relationships, and moving organizational missions forward.
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But too often they end up operating in silos: on separate timelines,
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using different tools,
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and talking to the same audiences in totally different ways.
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And when that happens, no one's work is as effective as it could be.
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So we wondered,
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what happens when you intentionally start breaking down these silos?
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When teams don't just share goals, but also share plans,
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data and ownership of the full audience journey? In today's episode,
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I'll sit down with Cincinnati Shakespeare Company's Director of Marketing,
0:59
Jeanna Vella, and Director of Development, Sara Clark. During the pandemic,
1:03
Jeanna and Sara's department started working more closely out of necessity,
1:08
but what began as a response to crisis turned into a lasting shift in how they
1:12
collaborate.
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That collaboration continues to fuel results across ticket sales and
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fundraising, and it's something they actively nurture day in, day out.
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Together,
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we'll talk about why silos between marketing and development are so common,
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the unique strengths each department brings to the table,
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and how to tackle common challenges like miscommunication and competing
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priorities.
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If you've ever felt like marketing and development are running parallel races
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instead of just moving forward together,
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then this episode offers a ton of inspiration for what's possible.
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Let's dive in, shall we?
1:56
Jeanna and Sara, welcome to CI to Eye.
1:59
Thanks for having us.
2:00
Yeah, thank you so much.
2:01
So we're going to talk about the relationship between development and marketing,
2:05
but before we get started, you're both kind of Shakespeare nerds.
2:09
What's your most controversial Shakespeare opinion?
2:13
Well, I think mine is that I'm actually not a Shakespeare nerd.
2:16
That's the controversial add.
2:18
I was a music person and now I've worked at Shakespeare companies for 17 years,
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so I think it has gotten in there a little bit. So I don't know.
2:26
That might be my controversy is that I think you don't have to be a Shakespeare
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nerd to market Shakespeare effectively and very well.
2:32
I love it.
2:33
Oh, I don't know if I have a controversial Shakespeare opinion. I mean,
2:37
I've been doing this almost 20 years now with the company,
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and so I think I am in general less precious about it than I was when I
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kind of first came out, I was like, no, it must be this and text must be that.
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And you can never change a single thing,
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even though this word has fallen into complete obsolescence and means a very
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different thing now. And so yeah,
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I think I just am more relaxed about it than I used to be.
3:00
Amazing. Love it. Mine is that it's fine to say Macbeth.
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Ah, that is a hot take.
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I'm not that crazy.
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But I don't out of respect for people who do care about that.
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Let's start by setting the stage.
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What did the pandemic look like for Cincinnati Shakespeare Company?
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How did it impact your operations and revenue?
3:21
Sure. So I'm sure everybody listening has their version of this story,
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but this is ours. So here in the state of Ohio,
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the governor put forward the ban on mass gatherings over a hundred on March
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12th, 2020.
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And effectively that shuttered our doors where we were.
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We had just announced about a week prior, a brand new season,
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and sold what Jeanna? $200,000 in advanced subscriptions to it?
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Something like that? We had ordered all of the posters,
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they had all of the dates on them.
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We pre-printed all the materials. That was the first time I'd ever done that.
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Every show was cast. We were ahead of the game. We were so excited, so ready.
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We were two weeks into a five-week run of Kate Hamill's adaptation of Jane
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Austen's Pride and Prejudice,
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which at the time was set to break all of our single ticket records.
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Every data point that we had said that this was going to be the bestselling show
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in the company's history. And we were four days into rehearsing
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a much anticipated production of Hamlet when it all came down.
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And in the end we ended up staying closed for
4:20
579 days.
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The theater was dark and we had to make some hard decisions really,
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really fast. So on March 12th,
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we probably had 60 or 70 odd people on the payroll.
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That was two dozen full-time staff, plus part-timers, plus actors, designers,
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front of house, bartenders, everybody that it takes to make a theater run.
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All of those contractors were let go on day one and two weeks later,
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10 full-time staff followed.
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So we went from about 70 people to 12 and just kind of
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buckled down and tried to make it through the next 600 days.
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Well, and I think the thing to add too is Sara,
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you had taken on the role of Director of Development...
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...About 12 weeks before that.
5:02
Yeah.
5:03
Right before that. That's right.
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It wasn't like we were all preparing for 600 days of closure, either.
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It was like, what will the next week, what will the next two weeks [be]?
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And that's what made a lot of the decisions so difficult as well.
5:17
Well, exactly. We kept doing season announcements and yeah,
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there was no way to know, but had they said, okay,
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you're going to be closed for two years,
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we would've done things totally differently. Yeah, it was the unknown.
5:28
That was one of the hardest parts about it.
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Yeah,
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we had also just passed a board approved budget and business plan a couple of
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months prior,
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and so we were moving forward with that and the announcement of the new season
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and we ended up having to redo that twice over in four different versions.
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We essentially took that business plan and made a plan A, B, C,
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and D for the entire business based on when we could reopen the theater,
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which was the biggest unknown.
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And were there any key turning points as you began to reopen?
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Was there a break point of now we're open, or was it gradual?
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It was gradual in the sense that we knew we needed to start rehiring people,
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getting things back in.
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Basically we turned the cog off and we needed to start the gears again.
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So that was a little bit gradual. But besides all of the logistical things,
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if you remember, we had to check vaccination records and status and masking.
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Besides all of those operational nightmares and challenges,
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we just had to figure out who are we welcoming back?
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Because I think we can all look at ourselves and say,
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there's probably things that are different about us now post-pandemic just as
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people,
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and the types of things that we do for fun or the types of things that we do
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outside of our homes.
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So the audience was just going to be very different and look very different.
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And so that was the big thing to say, who are we welcoming?
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What do they need now? And that was a whole different group of people,
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even if it was the same bodies coming in,
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the things that they needed had changed. So relearning that,
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listening to that new audience.
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And I would say some of that work definitely still continues to this day,
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as we're learning the habits and things that people expect about their
7:00
experience out is different now.
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The numbers from your last three seasons are really impressive,
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especially compared to what many other organizations have experienced.
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What do you think made that rebound possible?
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So I think we had as good a footing going into a great global crisis as we
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probably could have had.
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We're not a particularly old organization and we're not a particularly large
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one. So just for context, we're in our 31st season.
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There's a lot of organizations in the city who are 50 or upwards of
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hundred-year-old arts organizations,
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and we're just kind of under a 4 million budget here in Cincinnati, Ohio.
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So kind of middle of the line.
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We didn't have the big multi tens of million dollars endowment
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invested that a lot of older and more storied organizations could lean on.
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That's the whole point of that is to be able to lean on it in crisis.
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But what we had done is in the lead up to being able to execute the capital
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campaign and the building of our new building,
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which happened about three years prior to 2020,
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is we had done a lot of advanced work to make sure that our financial controls
8:04
were really, really strong.
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That sort of the understanding and ownership of the business,
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not just at the top and at the board level,
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but throughout the leadership and the staff was really strong.
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And we'd strategically built up some cash reserves and some facility funds.
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So we were in a good enough position.
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And that combined with making hard decisions really fast,
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having to let go of a lot of people,
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essentially kind of insulated us up until we were able to really maximize those
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relief opportunities. That started to come once we were three, six months,
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a year into this.
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And then we really capitalized on the time that we had without doing shows.
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We were in these kind of zoom rooms and thought, well, if we had all this time,
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what is something that we could work on together?
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And that was really where kind of what we call our staff innovation took place
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when we really started to rebuild the development side of our ticketing database
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and really integrate those teams because our team went down to one in marketing,
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two in development. So the three of us joined forces and thought, well,
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let's just lean into this. What do you need? What do I need?
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What can we do together? How can we capitalize on this time?
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And we set off on taking time -- in this case, the big one was our database.
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Really getting development up to snuff with that with our marketing was a huge
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investment of time and we had the time to do it.
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So we tried to capitalize on that.
9:26
Yeah, I think that's one of the most striking,
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exciting parts of your story is the way that marketing and
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development are working together, and that's not always the norm.
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Was there just an aha moment of, hang on,
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we should all be working together a lot closer going forward,
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not just for this database?
9:43
Well, yeah.
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I think we realized looking specifically when you're stripping it all away and
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you don't have shows, it's the same people.
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Trying to think about folks as patrons or donors, it just didn't make any sense.
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If you think about it,
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we had ticket buyers that had now become donors because they said,
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please take our tickets back or we're not going to come.
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And I don't necessarily think patrons were thinking, oh wait,
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I'm taking my ticket buyer hat off and putting on my donor.
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That's not how people feel about their experience.
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So why were we operating as if those were very separate groups of people or
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those groups had different needs? They really didn't. They were really combined.
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It's just not as linear as people want to think it is. Sometimes it is.
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Sometimes someone will actually go from first time attendee,
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maybe they didn't even buy a ticket,
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maybe their friend brought them and then they buy a single ticket and then they
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subscribe and then they make a small donation and then they make a major
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donation and then they write us into their will.
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That's kind of the standard progression that we learn.
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And I'm sure there are people that are like that, but in our joint experience,
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most people come in somewhere else or they surprise you,
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they'll start as a hundred dollars donor and then all of a sudden they're a
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hundred thousand dollars donor because they had a moment,
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they wanted to make an investment, it was right time, right place.
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Or they might have come in as a donor because they believed in something we were
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doing outside of the building,
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like our education programs or free Shakespeare in the park,
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and they've never even seen a show here.
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And so the win on them is to get them to come to a show,
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to make them a first-time buyer.
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So I think that myth and that sort of passing through,
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because if you're structuring your plan that way,
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that means that one department's not even looking at people until a certain
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point. Development shouldn't come in and say, okay,
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I just want to see people that have been here a bunch of times,
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only subscribers. I mean, that's one group,
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but you're missing out on everyone and it's a little intimidating,
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but it could be anyone in the world. Anybody could enter that path at any point.
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But keeping in mind that it's not linear,
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I think it's sort of freeing because there's all kinds of different strategies
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that you can do and you don't have to focus on the first one.
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You can focus on all of them in different ways.
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And now I think the important caveat there is,
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that doesn't mean that all communications go to all people because all people
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can enter at any time, right? No,
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it's the opposite because I think we acknowledge that people can enter into that
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continuum at any point.
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Jeanna and I are jointly really strategic about who we're talking to,
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about what, when.
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So we absolutely segment and target communications within the base.
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We just don't kind of fall in a silo of you're on this side of this linear
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spectrum and I'm on this side of it.
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What is your team really good at and how does those strengths compliment the
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other team?
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Something that I think marketing professionals are amazing at
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is really understanding voice of the customer,
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understanding that while we are a charitable organization,
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while we have a mission and we do mission-driven work,
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we're also a business and we need to not make a lot of assumptions about
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what our folks need and want.
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We need to actually ask them and put the work into listening there.
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I think marketing teams are really great at infrastructure,
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working within systems and creating operating systems and
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standard procedures that just help us only have to make a hard decision once and
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then we sort of know how things can operate. Jeanna in particular,
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and marketing folks I hope in general, are also data geeks.
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They understand the power of making a data informed decision
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and the strength of sharing that with more than just their department and how
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that can really empower all of us. And then just branding,
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creating a cohesive identity so that no matter what sort of external
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communication you're doing, everybody is speaking with the same voice.
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And what I've learned from development professionals and Sara in particular is
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the value of small moves.
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So often I'll hear these stories about someone that they've stewarded for
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years that hasn't donated for -- again, in marketing, I'd be like, great,
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we need to move on. We have a show that's closing.
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So that value of those small moves, the long game, and really thinking, well,
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how can I bring that same kind of strategy to marketing that works in
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development. And storytelling! Marketing,
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we often get very short amounts of characters to tell a story.
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Development sometimes gets a little bit longer in those grants or those long
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conversations, essentially building a story with a donor.
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How is development taking the time to build that story and really bring people
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into it to find their own place inside that story?
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And development has a curiosity.
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They always want to learn a little more about wait,
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what are they doing down in the scene shop?
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Because that might be something that I could find a sponsorship for or funder
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might be interested in that. Or actually now that I'm down here,
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I see that you have a need, maybe I could find some money for that.
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So slowing down sometimes in marketing,
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putting that development mindset on could really help us see ways that we
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weren't thinking about before,
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just looking at something through a different lens. So I think by finding those,
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we kind of call 'em our superpowers in each other,
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only benefited both of us to see those things.
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And it feels like there's a lot of overlap in terms of listening.
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It was just like how you listen data versus story and how
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they can really ate each other there.
15:01
So let's talk about what collaboration actually looks like in practice at Cincy
15:05
Shakes. How do you stay in sync? Are there any specific tools,
15:10
routines, communication practices that have helped your team stay aligned?
15:14
Definitely the Spektrix was the big piece because that was one of our biggest
15:18
challenges, was just data integration issues.
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So getting us together using the system the same way was huge for us.
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So we have active Spektrix users from both of our teams,
15:30
but you can set up reports that just basically get emailed out to the whole
15:34
team. So we have people that don't even touch the system,
15:36
but in the morning they might get a report that we've talked about and decided
15:40
that helps them see where we are in sales or where we are on donations.
15:43
We've got a great one that says major donors that are attending this weekend.
15:47
The box office should know that. The production team should know.
15:50
Everyone should know those things.
15:52
And that was a marketing tool that we're using for development,
15:55
and that goal that they're trying to reach by making sure we're covering all the
15:58
donors at all the levels.
15:59
Yeah, I mean even just taking that basic idea,
16:03
I create a slide deck,
16:05
a 15 slide deck for the box office staff every year that it's like these are the
16:09
names and the faces of the 15 people that if they walk through that door,
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you need to know who they are.
16:15
That just comes from that kind of general ethos of,
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we all share a responsibility for this. We're all fundraisers,
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we're all marketers, we're all performers,
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we're all responsible for the people's experience that come into our space.
16:28
And then look, I know nobody wants another meeting on their schedule,
16:31
but there are two that we have put in place that we think are actually
16:35
incredibly valuable and productive to being able to get these two departments
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synced up. One of them is, we start the week like 11:00 AM on Monday,
16:43
and Jeanna and I both meet with our producing artistic director who is the
16:47
executive director of the organization. And I think it's incredibly valuable.
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I mean between Jeanna and I, we essentially manage all of the company's revenue.
16:54
So Jeanna manages all of the earn side, I manage all of the contributed side,
16:59
and as opposed to us having one-on-ones with our artistic director and then
17:03
having to play telephone and translate and nobody really knows what everybody
17:07
else is doing, we just do it together.
17:10
And it's a way of both allowing us to be aware of and just
17:14
develop some sort of basic empathy and understanding for what this other part of
17:18
the business is going through at a particular moment,
17:21
but also to be able to offer a really valuable outside perspective and go, well,
17:25
I understand that maybe this is the best practice over here,
17:27
but have you thought about this?
17:29
This is maybe how I would approach that particular thing.
17:31
And I think we have found that to be really, really practical and valuable.
17:35
And then the other thing we've set up is a Dev Comms meeting.
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So we kind of made up this department called Development Communication,
17:41
Dev Comms,
17:42
and it's all the members of the development team and all the members of the
17:44
marketing team. Weekly meeting, we close the door, it's just us.
17:48
We get to really look at everything we're doing,
17:51
look through every line and product that we have coming up,
17:54
and don't tell any of my other meetings,
17:57
but this is my favorite meeting because I think we get the most accomplished.
18:01
That's usually an hour of our week that really does set us up for the next week.
18:07
I am definitely one of those people that's like, not another meeting,
18:09
please can't this be an email.
18:12
But those are two that have been very successful for us.
18:16
What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in this endeavor?
18:20
So I think a lot of challenges that marketing and development teams face,
18:24
it's really just sort of a misalignment of priorities and
18:29
timelines and it gives you the sense that your goals are in conflict with each
18:33
other, even though that's not actually true.
18:35
So we alluded a little bit earlier to this idea of marketing is really good at
18:40
the immediate game, the thing in front of them, and that makes sense.
18:44
Their timelines are shorter and tighter than ours.
18:47
The show is going to open and it's going to close and you can't market it once
18:51
it's already closed. So we have to have an understanding of that,
18:55
whereas as Jeanna said,
18:56
development can be a much longer process and it's a series of moves over weeks
19:00
or months or years to get to the ultimate goal that you're trying to achieve.
19:05
And there's a natural tension there. And that's just something that I think when
19:09
you acknowledge it and you have empathy and understanding for how those two
19:13
things need to sync up together, you can start to be practical about it.
19:17
So that might look like something as simple as making sure that if your two
19:21
departments are doing basically all of the external communications with your
19:25
people, you want to make sure that they're synced up,
19:26
that you're not cannibalizing each other,
19:28
that you're not overloading your people or going too much time without talking
19:32
to a certain group. It really is just having the conversation and going,
19:36
we have the same big goal, but we currently have different short-term ones,
19:39
so how do these two things link together?
19:42
And then what is the tactics and the steps that get us to the ultimate
19:46
achievement?
19:47
And once you have gone through one season at least,
19:50
you start to realize where are my busiest times? Where's my tension points?
19:54
So for marketers or for me in particular,
19:56
the season announcement's always our busiest time because it's setting up a lot
19:59
of things for that coming season. So it's good for development to know that,
20:03
because it wouldn't be a great time to come to us with a new idea.
20:06
They might get stressed,
20:10
that kind of reaction from the team, and they might look and go, well see,
20:13
I tried to work with marketing but they shut me down. It's like,
20:17
were we thinking about the timelines and things they were doing?
20:19
Because people aren't always so good at communicating that.
20:22
They just feel overwhelmed and it's just a feeling that you think is going to
20:26
last forever. What I always like to say to my team is,
20:29
keep hard days in perspective. It's not always this level of pressure all the
20:34
time,
20:35
but being able to know when each other's hard days are just makes collaboration
20:39
more effective. And then you can swing in and say, Hey, I have time.
20:42
This is a lighter time for me. What can I do to help you out?
20:45
We've been doing that just now.
20:46
We're sort of both involved in a show we've got on the stage.
20:49
Sara's directing it, I'm playing in the orchestra,
20:52
and we have a big fundraiser we have coming up,
20:54
so we were just sort of swinging between each other.
20:56
What can I do to cover you here? How could we work this out?
20:59
Yeah, it feels very deep. It feels like a culture.
21:02
It's a change in mindset towards collaboration.
21:05
How did you build that buy-in with leadership? With the box office? Like,
21:09
all levels of the organization?
21:11
I think a lot of it started with --
21:14
in the years just prior to the launch of our capital campaign,
21:17
we really had some cleaning house to do in terms of our own operations.
21:21
So I mean there was a time 10, 15 years ago when I first got into development,
21:26
I did it by writing grants.
21:28
I was a grant writer first and I used to have to meet monthly with the board
21:31
treasurer to look at when this $5,000 was expected to come in because it
21:35
impacted cashflow. That's not us anymore.
21:39
And how we got from that to where we are now is really spreading
21:44
ownership and accountability of the business
21:48
throughout the leadership.
21:49
So when we get a budget or a business plan rolled out,
21:53
it's not the first time we've seen it. We built it.
21:56
The leadership's responsibility is to kind of set strategy and vision and
22:01
the overall slate and then it goes out to Jeanna and to me and to our
22:05
production manager and to the head of our education department and anybody who's
22:08
kind of owning that portion,
22:10
be it revenue or expense or a combination of the two,
22:13
and the subject matter expertise then builds that from the ground up. We say,
22:18
this is what we think we can raise, this is what we think we can sell,
22:20
this is what we think we can spend. And then it's a conversation,
22:24
it's a practice.
22:25
So that sense of transparency and accountability is built into the ethos of the
22:30
company.
22:30
And then I think we've just managed to take it sort of a step further with our
22:34
specific teams.
22:35
And I think really what makes that work is the transparency piece and that does
22:39
start top down. So we're very open about if we're having a financial challenge.
22:43
I mean, especially in the pandemic, it was a lot of, here's the numbers,
22:46
here's where we are, we want everyone to see.
22:48
There is no benefit to hiding that or obscuring that from the team.
22:53
And it's funny,
22:54
we have this board in the kitchen where we have our sales goal and then where we
22:58
are to meet that goal and the amount of people that are blown away that we would
23:03
publicly put that information out there. It is surprising to me like, well,
23:08
I want everyone to see where we're at and where we're struggling.
23:11
Sometimes it's not good news.
23:12
Sometimes it is a show that's struggling and we have to manage that to say,
23:16
well, here's the things that we're doing and here's what's happening.
23:19
But by being transparent about it,
23:20
everyone's on the same page and then we can rely on our team and they can be
23:24
accountable to help build those goals.
23:27
Nothing is sort of obscured from everyone. Everyone knows what's going on.
23:30
Yeah, it sounds very refreshing when you made that move.
23:33
It must have felt almost like a relief to have all that transparency.
23:36
Oh yeah. I'll never forget, at one point,
23:39
I got a budget rollout and I looked at it and I went,
23:41
I can't apply for this grant that you say is going to bring in $20,000 this
23:45
year. They're on an every-other-year cycle.
23:47
And it's just one small example of what happens.
23:49
And it doesn't mean that leadership is bad or uninformed,
23:52
it's they're not the subject matter expert in your part of the business.
23:56
You are. So part of your job is managing up, down, and sideways,
24:00
and then all of us put this thing together.
24:02
I hear from other marketers sometimes that they sort of get the goals and they
24:06
bring so much anxiety, and I can see that. We would never do that.
24:10
No magical thinking.
24:11
I understand that you needed to make this much to make your budget,
24:14
to make your expenses work,
24:15
but we can't get there and it does no one any good to hope that we
24:20
could. So let's look back and build this budget together. Realistically,
24:25
where are some places that we can push and where are some places that we can
24:28
pull back on expenses? Not to say we don't have stretch goals,
24:32
we're always trying to reach for more, but by using the data,
24:36
we can make really good guesses on where we think we're going to be and we need
24:40
to do that, basically look at the expenses and if it doesn't match up,
24:43
then we go back to figuring that out.
24:46
You went through a website redesign, right?
24:48
Yes. Yeah, just recently with Hotfoot.
24:51
Great.
24:51
How was that process in terms of your two departments and what you need from the
24:55
website?
24:56
We do a lot of work with website redesigns and we're constantly trying to get
24:59
people to talk.
25:01
Tell people what you need from the website and also what the website needs to do
25:04
from a patron slash donor point of view as well,
25:08
rather than our department's point of view. How was that process?
25:12
Well, it definitely started with, we know we needed a new website,
25:15
which has sort of become a thing that you need to be looking at every three
25:18
years if not more. And as I've been with the company for about 16 seasons,
25:23
this was my fourth website redesign and every time we do a new one, I loved it.
25:27
And then towards the end, I hated it every single time,
25:30
so we need to change this. So I've been talking about needing a new one,
25:34
and Sara actually --
25:35
her team was able to find a funder to support that new work because again,
25:39
that's a sort of new capital expense.
25:42
The cost to do websites now has grown so much.
25:45
And again, development's a long game. It was a funder who was actually,
25:49
I think the last capital gift in the capital campaign,
25:52
but they only do gifts every three years. And they gave me a call and said, Hey,
25:56
it's been three years since your last one, what do you got? And I said, well,
26:00
I have a website among some other things.
26:02
But that was definitely a big part of it.
26:05
And so I led the project, but in collaboration with development to say, okay,
26:09
what tools,
26:10
I know exactly how I think that the ticket path should go for our patrons,
26:15
so I'm going to bring some of that knowledge,
26:17
that frictionless experience and make my suggestions to development about how
26:21
could we make your path even better,
26:24
and making sure those two things were integrated so they were done at the same
26:27
time. When we were looking back at basically --
26:31
we sort of built out that site map, that was a great opportunity to go, okay,
26:34
wait a second.
26:35
We had this sort of fun structure with what if we break that down and simplify
26:39
this, whatever.
26:40
So we sort of use the same sort of questions and debates that we were having
26:44
with ourselves in marketing in development to say, how could we improve this?
26:48
And I think it led to even more clarity on how we could think about our annual
26:52
events, individual, monthly, however we were thinking about it,
26:55
that can become reflected on the website and then I could work with our web
26:58
developers to make things more clickable and fun and kind of gamification of
27:02
some things.
27:03
Yeah, I think that process too was a great example.
27:06
It really highlights what we were talking about before,
27:07
which is not everybody chooses to interact with the organization for the first
27:11
time in the same way. So if you're designing a website and you're going,
27:14
everybody's first interaction is they're going to buy a single ticket,
27:17
then that's the lens you're going to design a website on.
27:19
Whereas if you acknowledge that there are probably a few ways,
27:22
maybe somebody came to a gala as a guest and now they want to go buy a ticket or
27:26
maybe somebody saw that we take these donor trips and now they want to see what
27:30
we do on our main stage. So it's making those accessible and honestly,
27:34
it was fun. I mean I remember pulling Jeanna into my office and I had --
27:37
it was like A Beautiful Mind.
27:39
I had post-it notes and the path of here are the pages and here's how they lead
27:43
and can this link to that?
27:44
And it was really lovely being able to think about that and to have a thought
27:48
partner in it to create what we created.
27:51
I could look back and go, okay, what you're saying is this, right?
27:55
The two of us can have that shorthand,
27:57
having worked together for a long time or kind of pushing back and questioning,
28:01
well, what if it was this or what if we tried it this way?
28:05
I think that kind of comes to my ethos that I shared at Boot Camp too, which is:
28:08
stop being so precious about your kingdoms and your own things that you're
28:12
working on and really let someone else in.
28:14
Because when they're looking at something, when you're breaking it down --
28:18
because you think about websites, it's like, well,
28:19
we should probably have a corporate foundation page and an individual giving
28:22
page and it's like, well, wait a minute, let's break that down.
28:25
Why would a foundation come to the site? What would they be doing on there?
28:29
Whatever.
28:29
So it was just a chance to kind of break things down and really stop being
28:34
precious about how we'd always done it and think about different ways of doing
28:38
it.
28:39
And it makes for a more coherent website.
28:40
Sometimes I look at websites and it feels like there are three different
28:43
websites written in completely different ways. It's just so --
28:46
Because they probably were.
28:47
Because they probably were. Exactly. So when you have this collaboration,
28:51
I think one of the things you said here was you said, don't be so precious.
28:55
I love that message as well of collaboration because it requires a dropping of
29:00
ego and it requires a little bit of vulnerability as well.
29:04
Oh yeah.
29:05
I mean I think when you establish that, right,
29:07
it actually allows you to make braver and riskier decisions because you're
29:12
able to put a suggestion or an idea into the room without going, oh god,
29:17
Jeanna's going to hate this. You know what? I'm just not going to say it.
29:20
Or vice versa. It's like, I don't think that's a good idea.
29:23
I feel like I need to say something and here's why.
29:26
And being able to create that culture of we are all on the same
29:31
team, we're all talking to the same people,
29:33
we're all trying to deliver on the same mission.
29:35
And if those things are true and we have sort of a base understanding of empathy
29:40
and enjoyment of each other, then great.
29:42
That's a place from which we can actually push and disagree and have conflict
29:47
and it can still be okay and hopefully result in a better product on the other
29:50
side.
29:51
Yeah, I think to have that creativity,
29:54
you need a basis of psychological safety in your workplace because
29:58
creativity does not happen without,
30:01
and ideas aren't shared without a base level of I'm safe here,
30:06
I can say a bad idea and it'd be okay.
30:09
Yeah, absolutely. And I know that's probably the number one barrier.
30:12
A lot of people maybe listening right now say,
30:15
I don't feel that with my development department or my team.
30:18
And what we would always suggest to folks is just do something tomorrow.
30:23
What's the one step you can make?
30:25
Can you send an email congratulating them on something they did?
30:28
Can you go to that fundraiser that you're not really involved in but just to see
30:32
how it goes?
30:33
Or can they come to your talk back that you're doing after a show and just show
30:38
up? Take a step forward? Because I truly believe people,
30:42
especially people in this business, we all want to have fun.
30:46
We all have a sense of humor about it.
30:47
We all care very much about what we're doing.
30:49
So how can you tap into that on each other's teams and what's the first thing
30:53
you can do to build that bridge?
30:55
What are some other examples of this in practice?
30:58
So one that comes to mind, just thinking about our season announcement,
31:02
we do an online auction as one of our three major special events in the year,
31:06
and this is something that I started,
31:09
it was the first year we were still kind of all remote in the pandemic,
31:11
so we've only been doing it I think now we've completed four of them,
31:15
and the first two were at different times in the year.
31:17
I was kind of trying to find the perfect time in the calendar. It's like, oh,
31:21
when is there not a whole lot going on?
31:23
Or when can I maybe capitalize on holiday giving?
31:26
So we tried a few things and then last year it was actually Jeanna's suggestion,
31:30
recognizing what is unique and special about the way we do an auction is we're
31:34
really good at building these kind of unique packages that combine something
31:39
donated,
31:40
maybe a special experience from a community partner or a neighborhood group,
31:43
and then pairing it to a show we're going to do on our main stage that maybe is
31:47
thematically linked. And so it kind of comes with CSC tickets,
31:50
it gets them in the door,
31:51
it gets us more invested with that person who's not thinking of themself as a
31:55
donor yet, and then also kind of works with the community.
31:57
And Jeanna came forward and is like,
31:59
why don't we actually do it with the season announcement?
32:01
Because the problem with doing it later is one,
32:03
you're missing out on a third or half the shows you can be able to create
32:07
packages around. And two,
32:09
a whole bunch of people have already bought tickets when we did that first big
32:12
push. So it's not as compelling to go, you get six of this and that, blah, blah,
32:16
blah, blah. We tried it for the first time last year, it went well,
32:22
but I was like, oh, I'm not quite sure if this is it,
32:23
but I want to give it one more.
32:24
And then we took the learnings from that and did it again this year,
32:28
knowing more and the overall balance of things and packages and numbers
32:33
and operations and it worked beautifully.
32:36
It's really a nice solid event. And then again,
32:39
going back to those operations and those protocols,
32:41
this is something that now I can take and pretty much run without too much
32:45
stress on Jeanna's team who is in their most intense time of year.
32:49
Yeah, I remember when I suggested, I was like,
32:51
I'm going to regret suggesting this because this is not the time to add a thing.
32:55
But I really, because again,
32:57
I see the benefit of this auction happening during this busy time.
33:00
We're getting so much PR and people are really looking at what we're doing with
33:05
the season, and I love now that they have two call to actions.
33:08
They can subscribe and or they can participate in the auction.
33:12
So leaning into that was like, all right, I'm seeing this.
33:15
I know had it gone the other way and development had come and had maybe not
33:20
bought any rapport with us yet and say we want to do our auction with season
33:23
announcement, marketing would panic. Bad timing.
33:26
Forget about it.
33:27
But by kind of coming to the natural conclusion together,
33:30
it just made the most sense to do it that way.
33:33
And then we just strategized from there, how can we work ahead?
33:35
How can we make sure as our small team, we see it coming? It wasn't a surprise.
33:40
We knew we could work up onto it and we were able to execute it that way and I
33:45
think it's the right place for that particular fundraising a bit.
33:48
Yeah, I like that you went back to it after a year as well and kind took those
33:51
learnings. Sometimes good ideas like that,
33:53
especially with collaboration where there's maybe a little bit of friction just
33:57
because of natural different silos,
33:59
sometimes it requires giving it enough go and doubling down on the idea a little
34:04
bit.
34:05
Well, and Sara was just talking about that about,
34:07
one thing she's learned from me is just try it.
34:10
Yeah.
34:12
Sara's so smart and so very detailed on the work that she does,
34:16
but sometimes I'm like, let's just try it. If it's not great -- what is that,
34:20
'good is the enemy of great'? It's like, well, great is the enemy of good.
34:23
Yeah. You can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
34:25
Sometimes we've just got to put something in place and then we have something to
34:28
react to. One of the things I tell my team is you can't edit nothing.
34:31
So when I'm thinking about a proposal or a letter or a grant,
34:34
just get something out there and then you've got something you can tweak with.
34:38
And I have to kind of apply that mindset to some of these bigger projects.
34:43
And the other one too was, we have an annual gala. A lot of people do.
34:48
It's called The Revel,
34:49
and usually it's sort of 'Revel in Romance' or 'Revel and Rollick' or something.
34:52
It sort of is themed every year,
34:55
and it actually started looking very traditionally like a fundraising event.
34:58
It was not even in our building,
34:59
it was in a fancy ballroom somewhere and we were always trying to program it.
35:04
We'd have to kind of come up with performers or we got kids in there to do
35:08
stuff. Thinking about again, any standard fundraising event.
35:12
And in the pandemic was the first time that, again, that Dev Comms team,
35:16
we thought, okay, so we're creating a show for this event.
35:20
Do you know what we have a lot of? Shows. We already have a lot of those.
35:25
Why don't we stop making a new show and use the shows that we have.
35:29
So the first one we did was with our park tour, because it could be outdoors.
35:32
This is like 2021. Things are sort of reopening.
35:35
We did a picnic-style,
35:38
our free Shakespeare in the Park Midsummer performed,
35:40
and people sat at little tables and watched.
35:43
And then the next year we moved it indoors to the theater along with the show.
35:48
If Sara, you want to talk about a little bit how that event has transformed now?
35:51
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, what I love about it,
35:53
I'm not a big fan of event fundraising in general because it's such a high cost
35:57
to raise a dollar and it can be so burdensome, especially on small teams.
36:00
It takes up a lot of time and capacity for what is often sort of a one-off
36:04
experience with a person,
36:05
which is antithetical to how I think about philanthropy and stewardship and all
36:09
of those things. So if we were going to design an event,
36:12
I want it to be something that one,
36:14
I can actually show off what we're doing so I have a better chance of retaining
36:19
and stewarding that first experience into a more long-term investment.
36:23
And then I also want something that feels like us that doesn't feel like every
36:28
other person's fundraising event.
36:30
And knowing that I can lean on Jeanna and recognize that we can use the same
36:34
company that created all of the beautiful brand created for the shows,
36:38
they're also going to create it for the event and it can exist as its own thing
36:41
and also feel tied to it and it feels like us and it's just a really,
36:45
really nice -- I hate this word, but I'm going to say it --
36:47
synergy. Everybody's got the same goal, right?
36:50
Yeah. I always think with these donors, they have a million fancy meals.
36:56
They're not here for another fancy meal.
36:58
They're here because they like Shakespeare --
37:00
Event chicken.
37:01
Nobody needs another rubber chicken dinner.
37:03
Right?
37:03
It's like,
37:03
I want to throw a party people actually want to come to because it feels like
37:06
us. And it's a tricky audience, a gala audience. Because it's often people --
37:11
I've got people in my gala who've been here for 30 years and people who are
37:14
walking in my door for the first time. That's a tough audience to program for.
37:18
And so being able to rely on this joint team to kind of help us walk
37:23
that line I think has been really, really productive and effective.
37:27
And we've actually had people tell us, you guys do these events really well.
37:31
Like, will you come do ours? And we're like, absolutely not.
37:33
That sounds exhausting.
37:34
And we certainly have people that are like, this isn't my event.
37:38
I'm not into this.
37:39
That's absolutely true.
37:40
And that's okay, but it's ours.
37:42
It's truly a CSC event and the people that love us and know that really enjoy
37:47
this one. So even Sara who doesn't necessarily love big events,
37:51
I think this one's found a little way into her heart here a little bit.
37:54
It has.
37:58
Why do you think the silos between marketing and development are so common in
38:03
arts and cultural organizations?
38:04
So we just figured this out.
38:06
We did.
38:06
Oh, good. Okay.
38:07
Well, because we were talking about it and Jeanna's like, well,
38:09
I mean sometimes we're literally physically siloed when you just don't interact
38:14
with people. You've got this wing of the building,
38:15
especially in big organizations, big shops, and I said it's like, yeah,
38:19
that's true. But then that's kind of also true for any team.
38:22
It's like that's why there can be tension between admin and production or
38:25
between the production and the cast or whatever. Just speaking as a theater,
38:30
I think with marketing and development in particular in the arts,
38:33
it has to do with the sort of shared business model that we are
38:38
basically 50-50 earned revenue -- so ticket sales, subscriptions,
38:43
education, concessions, merch -- to contributed -- so individual giving,
38:47
sponsorships, grants, government funds, things like that.
38:50
And there is a natural tension there.
38:52
It's not like if I were to go work development at another nonprofit agency,
38:56
I'm probably 90% of the revenue. If Jeanna were to go and do marketing for P&G,
39:01
her responsibility is to the shareholders.
39:03
It's just to sell the product and here it's both. We have to be the business,
39:08
we have to earn your dollar.
39:10
And also we are a mission-driven organization with a 501(C)3
39:14
and a charitable purpose.
39:17
And so I think in between those two things,
39:21
that is sort of the underlying tension that these two departments can feel like
39:25
they have conflicting goals when actually they've got the same one.
39:28
And that is very unique to arts and culture. We were sitting here like,
39:31
what other industry has this problem?
39:34
And I'm sure somebody can think of more,
39:36
but very clearly arts and culture is definitely one of them that has this
39:40
competing imperative,
39:41
which is sort of ill-advised as a business model and can make things tough.
39:45
But that kind of feeds into that idea of how do you measure success?
39:49
It can't always just be ticket sales. We think about three lenses.
39:54
There's sales, there's donations, and then there's mission.
39:58
And we can say something's successful if it was positive on two of those.
40:02
So maybe some play we did didn't necessarily sell a lot of tickets or had lower
40:06
sales goals, but it really hit our mission and it really excited funders;
40:11
that would be a success. And maybe we're doing a show,
40:15
some silly something at Christmas, some fun farce.
40:18
Is it really pushing our mission along? A little bit. Who doesn't love to laugh.
40:23
But it's more for ticket sales, and that's okay. You have this mix of things,
40:28
but if you try to do things that hit all three all the time -- and you can,
40:33
but if you try to do that every time, that's just -- that path to badness lies.
40:37
So it'll be really tough to do.
40:40
Yeah,
40:41
I love the idea of remembering the mission as something that ties everything
40:45
together as well. Though I think it was a couple of Boot Camps ago,
40:50
we were focused mostly on the why,
40:54
remembering why you exist in the pandemic.
40:55
We've been in this sort of survival thing for two or three years at that point
41:00
and were -- I think a lot of organizations were forgetting that, hey,
41:04
we have a mission, we have a 'why do we exist'?
41:07
And once we refocus our efforts towards that why,
41:12
then we actually function a lot better as an organization because we have
41:15
purpose, we have a drive forwards,
41:17
and we communicate that a lot better when we double down on that.
41:21
And that's actually true in business too.
41:23
That's Simon Sinek and 'The Power of Why' and 'The Infinite Game.' It's like
41:26
even for-profit companies do better when they're actually trying to reach
41:31
for that vision and the purpose isn't to win,
41:33
it's to perpetuate the game to make everybody better.
41:37
Yeah.
41:38
Another thing we looked at in the previous Boot Camp that we did was hospitality
41:41
and understanding everyone's journey from the moment they first interact with
41:45
your organization to the moment they leave and after, going forwards.
41:50
And it seems like you have a 360 view of the entire
41:54
organization and that journey. Can you speak to that a little bit?
41:57
Yeah. That has become more and more important since the pandemic.
42:02
As people broke the habit of going out and seeing shows or going out and doing
42:07
something outside of their home, getting them back into that habit,
42:11
you have to promise them a good experience, a comfortable experience.
42:15
They want to know that if they're taking their time and their money,
42:18
that it will be a good time and that could be challenging if you're not
42:22
communicating what people can expect about a show,
42:25
if you're not learning about blind spots that maybe you don't see about some
42:28
space in your building or the seating being uncomfortable or I couldn't find the
42:32
bathroom, all of those things, if somebody can't do those things,
42:36
no matter how amazing your performance is,
42:38
they will have left feeling like they had a bad experience.
42:42
And so all of us on marketing and development are responsible for that
42:46
experience. Somebody might have even -- again,
42:48
it's from the second that they might see an ad and decide,
42:51
I might be interested in that. Let me go to the website. That's when it begins.
42:55
How easy was it for them to find the ticket?
42:56
How easy was it for them to know where to go?
42:58
All those things have become vital now.
43:01
I think another big thing that contributes, too, is --
43:02
and this is true in marketing and development --
43:04
the second engagement is always harder than the first.
43:07
So the second gift is harder to get than the first gift.
43:09
Getting somebody to buy a second ticket is harder than getting them to engage
43:13
the first time and being able to put that focus and accountability around
43:17
someone's holistic experience I think helps reinforce that idea.
43:21
It can't just be enough that they enjoyed the show, right? It's not enough.
43:24
It's got to be more than that.
43:26
One thing that I got from development --
43:28
so that report that says what donors are coming that weekend --
43:31
so one thing Sara does is she will take note cards and write a little note to
43:36
some donors or maybe she knows something about somebody that's coming back after
43:39
an illness or something.
43:41
She'll write a personal note and give it to the front of house and they set them
43:45
on the seats for those people when they come into their seat.
43:47
So sort of stealing that idea. When someone's a first timer now,
43:51
they get a special note from us that says, we see that you're a first timer.
43:55
Thank you so much for trying us out for the first time.
43:58
There has been a $20 credit applied to your account.
44:00
You don't need to do anything. You don't need a code.
44:02
Next time you buy tickets with us, there'll be $20 off. Please come back.
44:06
And that's been working really well for us. Again,
44:09
it's that kind of psychology of, I have now $20 burning a hole in my pocket,
44:12
I want to use it. But that came from the sort of small moves from development.
44:17
Again, it's like that might apply to 30 people in a night.
44:21
It's sort of a lot of effort for a small group of people,
44:24
but getting somebody to come back a second time is so important.
44:27
It's huge.
44:28
It's huge.
44:28
It's worth that time and effort to do something like that that we've taken from
44:33
and something we're inspired from development.
44:35
And some of the hardest parts we have is, sometimes --
44:37
so one thing we do that we didn't realize was so unique was audience surveys.
44:41
So not sending audience surveys. A lot of people do that,
44:44
but how often do you read them? We print them out, every single one,
44:48
and we sit down at a meeting at the end of every show with the whole team --
44:53
development, marketing, production, the artistic team.
44:55
Sometimes actors and directors from the show are in the room.
44:58
And we read every single comment. And it can be tough,
45:04
anonymous comments.
45:05
Sometimes people just say what they're thinking and have different feelings
45:08
about it.
45:08
But always from those conversations we leave with something that helped us
45:13
understand what people were thinking about our show or our experience or our
45:18
just general, what's it like to walk in our doors?
45:20
Those comments range from 'I couldn't find parking' to 'I would've done
45:24
something different with the vocal projection of this actor.'
45:28
It could range from all things.
45:31
So looking at those comments is so valuable and making sure everybody is
45:36
in them together and reading them all at once, we glean so much from that.
45:41
And I think it helps create sort of an overall culture of constant
45:44
self-assessment. If we can be accused of anything as an organization,
45:48
it's that we have to remember to celebrate our wins sometimes.
45:51
So we've had to kind of build things in to be like, Hey, high five, go team.
45:56
Yay. Yes, we did this. Good job. We are very much kind of, okay, what's next?
46:00
What's next? And that is good, that's healthy,
46:03
it keeps us on a high standard of excellence,
46:05
but you kind of build up that skin and everybody goes through it and
46:09
we're constantly, even when something was a wild success,
46:13
it's doing that postmortem and going, great, what worked?
46:16
Tell me what was successful and what we want to repeat again.
46:18
And then what can we make even 10% better the next time we do this?
46:23
It's a muscle because it's hard.
46:25
Those negative comments ring so much more in your head.
46:29
But really trying to look at that objectively and also see
46:34
all the hundreds of really positive ones or things people said, it can be hard.
46:38
And I can see how if pitching that and sitting in a room with an artistic
46:42
leader,
46:43
you know how they can get emotional or they're very passionate about the work
46:47
that they do. I mean that's why they're the leader, but it's just so important.
46:52
We like to say we do these shows for people, which sounds so obvious,
46:56
but sometimes we forget that people are coming in and seeing the show.
47:01
Did they have a good time? It's the question we want to know.
47:05
And it's fascinating to me the number of people that really can't answer that
47:09
necessarily for every show they do.
47:11
Yeah. So that's such a hard balance to celebrate the win,
47:14
but also listen as well to lighter things. I remember --
47:18
I do a lot of improv,
47:19
and the first time was I was in Edinburgh doing that,
47:23
I remember all my reviews, but I think about the worst ones the most.
47:27
Yeah, of course you do.
47:29
We got called the antimatter of improv once and I was like...
47:32
Wow.
47:34
That took a little bit of celebration.
47:35
I like that. We've occasionally been accused of marring things with comedy,
47:38
so I appreciate that. So the antimatter of improv, I like it.
47:43
People are so mad. 'I don't want to be laughing at this!'.
47:48
Oh dear. I love what you said about the entire experience as well.
47:51
We recently talked with the head of guest experiences from the Detroit Zoo and
47:55
they made the point of,
47:57
nobody's going to enjoy the exhibits if they don't know where the bathroom is.
48:00
And that kind of stuff of what you're saying of that guest experience,
48:04
hospitality and accessibility as well is just incredibly important I think in
48:09
organizations these days.
48:11
That's right,
48:11
and that's something Sara and I are really good at is really thinking about when
48:15
someone comes in, do they know where to go? Can they be comfortable here?
48:19
That's important to me.
48:20
That's something I always really do when I'm attending things.
48:24
I think it's fascinating the number of theaters that don't have photos and
48:27
information on their physical seats available for people if they want to learn
48:32
about what it is that I'll be sitting in for three hours. Fascinating to me.
48:36
So we have our seat plan on there, we have information on there. Again,
48:39
it's not for everyone.
48:40
It's for that small percentage of people that that's important information and
48:44
an important barrier. Where are the wheelchair accessible seats?
48:47
Is there a ramp? Do I have to do stairs to get to certain places?
48:51
We try to make all that information available so somebody doesn't come in and
48:55
have a bad night because they didn't have the information they needed in
48:57
advance. That's terrible. Somebody's come to the door.
49:00
I want them to be able to come in and have a nice time.
49:03
And I think that goes into the people too, the staff, the attitude. It is,
49:08
like Jeanna said, you're giving us two of your most precious resources,
49:11
your money and your time, and we don't take that for granted.
49:15
You'll have something --
49:15
you'll hear me say all the time if I'm at a donor event or a sponsor event or
49:19
honestly just walking through the lobby of the theater before the show and in
49:22
conversation with someone is, I'm so glad you're here.
49:25
And I say it a lot but I mean it every time.
49:28
I don't take for granted what it took for you to walk through that door
49:32
tonight. And it matters to me that you're there.
49:35
And I think that kind of goes throughout the staff looking at those comments.
49:38
We get a lot of really, really positive things about our front of house.
49:42
And you might just be a volunteer usher,
49:44
you might be a contracted bartender or whatever it is,
49:48
but that sense of 'you matter when you come through the door,
49:51
it doesn't matter who you are.'.
49:52
And the comments we get that are like,
49:54
'Your team made it so easy to exchange tickets. Thank you so much.' I'm like,
49:59
what are we doing to people at other buildings to let them pick a new...?
50:03
They're so traumatized.
50:04
They're so traumatized. Everyone listening,
50:07
please help put better energy out there.
50:09
Why are we making this hard for folks to just have flexibility in their
50:14
schedule?
50:14
We don't want to be considered like airlines when you buy a ticket and that's
50:18
it, and you're screwed if you don't want to go or you can't go or something.
50:22
But the important piece that the loop that's closed is our artistic director
50:25
sees that, he knows that's the thing that we're doing,
50:27
and he can thank the front of house next time he sees them.
50:30
And it means a lot to those people to continue developing and doing a good job
50:34
because they know everyone really does appreciate the work that they're putting
50:37
forward. But that does start with Sara and I, because my policy is always,
50:41
if someone has entered this building to see a show, they need to see the show.
50:44
So if their tickets aren't where they said they'd be or there's some problem,
50:48
whatever, let 'em in. We'll sort it out. Just taking down the barriers of that.
50:54
Stop making things so complicated. Don't be so precious.
50:57
Yeah. Jeanna,
50:59
what do you wish more fundraisers understood about marketing strategy?
51:04
Well,
51:04
I kind of want to flip it and talk a little bit about what I now understand
51:08
about fundraising strategy that I've been able to use in marketing.
51:12
The biggest piece of that is that it's okay to slow down and do the
51:17
next right thing if maybe it doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to get a ticket
51:20
sale tomorrow. That could be the biggest thing is,
51:24
how can I take time to actually develop the audience,
51:28
learn about what it is that they're looking for,
51:30
listen to them and get them to be a new ticket buyer?
51:34
And the value of storytelling. The long game.
51:37
So being able to tell a longer story, get people to join us,
51:40
why we might be doing a show.
51:42
Help them understand if maybe the show that they're seeing isn't necessarily
51:46
their favorite thing,
51:47
but they might understand why we've done it for mission reasons.
51:50
They might understand why we did it because we got support from the community.
51:53
All of those things I think I've really learned from fundraising strategy has
51:57
helped me in marketing.
51:59
Awesome. And Sara, on the flip side, what have you learned from marketing?
52:04
I think it really is the value of the voice of the customer.
52:07
I think what philanthropists are good at is kind of that small connection,
52:12
that conversation, that anecdotal piece of data,
52:15
and that can be really valuable,
52:16
but it's not the strongest decision-making tool.
52:19
I think what marketing really understands is that you can't make the best
52:23
decisions based on assumptions that aren't based in good
52:28
data, or at least as good as you can.
52:30
And so it might be something as simple as if you're trying to reinvent what a
52:34
fundraising event looks like, it's like, well,
52:37
I can kind of go off of my gut or my personal experience and those things are
52:40
valuable,
52:41
but Jeanna can also help me put a survey together and I can actually ask my
52:44
people some of these questions.
52:46
I can actually get better information that's going to help me make better
52:49
decisions for my department and for the organization at large.
52:54
If another organization is listening and feeling stuck in their silos,
52:58
where can they start?
53:00
Small. I mean, we've referenced it before,
53:04
but a lot of this work I think has to do with
53:09
letting go of ego, releasing your hold on your petty kingdom,
53:13
your little corner where if you've planted your flag,
53:18
allow yourself to be curious,
53:20
to be vulnerable and to go first. So it's easy to go, oh yeah,
53:25
that'd be great, but I want the other person to be vulnerable first.
53:28
To make the offer first. It's like, nah, whoever's listening, you go first.
53:33
Take a small step.
53:34
You're the one you've been waiting for.
53:40
Aww.
53:40
I think I saw that on a poster or something. You know,
53:42
I can't take total credit.
53:43
Oh, sure.
53:44
Yeah. Yes.
53:46
Getting curious and stop being precious about things and be authentic because
53:51
I think it is the personal connection.
53:53
Be humans together. That's how you do any of this.
53:57
It's harder to be crappy about your coworker when they were at your house for
54:00
dinner last week
54:02
or when you guys can just go downstairs once a week to the bar and celebrate a
54:06
small win or empathize around something that is hard that you're going through.
54:11
I mean, it's very obvious. Sara and I are friends.
54:13
We've worked together for a very long time,
54:15
but that doesn't necessarily mean that we don't argue or we don't clash about
54:18
things. But because we've sort of built this rapport,
54:22
she knows I only want the best for the department and I only am feeling what's
54:25
the best for mine.
54:26
So all the passion that's coming from maybe a potential debate is all driving
54:30
towards that. So let's hold on that and say, well,
54:33
how could we make this better?
54:36
And that can make those harder conversations easier.
54:39
But if you don't have that rapport with somebody,
54:41
then the conversation is just an argument and you're not getting anywhere
54:44
necessarily. But anybody that's doing this work in arts and culture,
54:50
they have to be passionate about the thing that they're doing.
54:53
I think that the people we work with in our company and people that I meet every
54:56
day in arts and culture are some of the most fascinating, lovely,
54:59
authentic folks.
55:01
And that's one of the reasons why I choose to stay in this industry and not
55:04
necessarily move to a corporate industry personally. So know that.
55:08
Know that about the people that have chosen to do this career.
55:13
They're lovely, passionate folks somewhere,
55:15
even if they might be entrenched over decades of being stressed and working
55:19
late. They care about the thing that you care about too.
55:23
So that's really where you can start.
55:25
Yeah, there's a reason we're all here.
55:28
Right, exactly.
55:30
If you could broadcast one message to executive directors, leadership teams,
55:35
staff and boards of thousands of arts organizations, what would it be?
55:40
So some of it is kind of what we've referenced before.
55:42
I think this starts at the top and it starts with executives releasing a
55:47
little bit of hold and trusting their people.
55:51
If you want to build a culture of trust at your organization where there is
55:54
trust between teams, that's got to come from you as well.
55:59
And so it's those -- that transparency, that accountability, that vulnerability.
56:04
That's the ability to say 'I don't know' or 'I'm not sure,
56:07
I need help.' I think when that goes both and all ways across an
56:12
organization, that only strengthens all of us.
56:15
That helps everybody kind of be their best selves and do their best work.
56:19
And we like to say that we like to be managed up.
56:22
So we have my one-on-ones with my reports,
56:25
they begin that meeting and they bring the things that they want my take on that
56:29
they need to update me on. My reports know I don't like to be surprised,
56:33
so that's a great time to bring me information. Let me know good or bad news.
56:37
It's only going to help us if we all know what's going on. Manage up,
56:41
allow yourself to be managed versus knowing that when you walk in the room,
56:46
everything you're saying is going to go down on the people that you're saying it
56:49
to. Try and flip it.
56:50
What would they start with in a meeting with you if they had the opportunity to
56:55
do so? And that can be kind of scary, I think, to let go of that a little bit.
56:59
But I think by allowing that,
57:01
you're going to just learn more things than you could ever have done yourself.
57:05
There's a fun adage in development talking about making an ask of a donor,
57:08
and it's: if you want money, ask for advice. If you want advice, ask for money.
57:12
And I think that the equivalent here -- it really is.
57:16
It's not always about having the answer or kind of dictating the plan or
57:21
whatever. Not that --
57:22
so much leadership comes from that kind of servant leadership model.
57:25
It's that ability to really want to understand and trust that there are good
57:30
ideas all around you.
57:32
And as long as everybody's on the same boat and is rowing in the same direction,
57:36
you're going to succeed.
57:38
This conversation's been absolutely delightful. So thank you so much,
57:41
Jeanna and Sara for joining us here today.
57:44
Thank you so much for having us. This is really fun.
57:46
We like talking about what we do.
57:49
And I'd love to hear -- so after I spoke at Boot Camp,
57:51
one of the best parts was hearing from people that had seen the presentation on
57:55
social media or LinkedIn or email.
57:57
So I really would encourage folks to reach out to us.
58:00
I love to hear what other people sort of think about these things and some of
58:03
the strategies that they're doing at their own organizations as well.
58:12
What a great conversation. Well, before we go,
58:15
it's time for another round of CI-lebrity Sightings where we spotlight CI
58:19
clients making headlines. First up,
58:21
the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra received a generous $5 million gift to support
58:25
its family and educational programming. According to The Violin Channel,
58:28
the donation will expand on the symphony's outreach initiatives and help
58:31
introduce more young people to the power of music.
58:35
Big applause for investing in the next generation of music lovers! Next,
58:39
WLWT News shared that the Cincinnati Art Museum is planning a major expansion of
58:44
the Art Climb.
58:45
That's the museum's nine-story outdoor staircase surrounded by public art and
58:49
lush landscaping. The updates will focus on accessibility,
58:53
adding paths designed for visitors using wheelchairs or pushing strollers.
58:57
What a meaningful step forward in creating a truly welcoming experience for all.
59:01
Finally, TODAY.com caught up with Bobby Barnett,
59:04
Artistic Director Emeritus of Atlanta Ballet, who just turned 100 -- yes,
59:08
100 -- and still has his dancing shoes on.
59:12
Bobby shared his three secrets to a long happy life, and our personal favorite?
59:15
'Doing what you love with who you love.' Happy birthday, Bobby,
59:18
and thank you for the inspiration.
59:20
We hope these stories leave you smiling and remind you of the impact this field
59:24
can have when we lead with heart, purpose, and creativity.
59:28
Got a story that deserves a shout out? Well, tag us on social and let us know.
59:41
Thank you for listening to CI to Eye.
59:43
This episode was edited and produced by Karen McConarty and co-written by Karen
59:47
McConarty and myself, Dan Titmuss.
59:49
Stephanie Medina and Jess Berube are CI to Eye's designers and video editors and
59:54
all work together to create CI's digital content. Our music is by whoisuzo.
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