From Twin Cities Resident to Patron
Our donor pool will consist of individuals who regularly attended Cedar shows thus are familiar with and have at least some affinity for the organization. The more people who attend shows, the more people we have to move through the flow chart. It is therefore important not only from a ticket revenue standpoint but from a fundraising standpoint to have marketing strategies that encourage Twin Cities’ residents to regularly attend shows at The Cedar and thus build an affinity for the organization.
Given recent organizational changes and the fact that The Cedar has been operating for seventeen years, we are now in a position with the potential to expand programming to better serve the public, to reach out to a larger number of communities, and to be a leader of the West Bank Theater District. The next important step for The Cedar Cultural Center that will truly secure it as a sustainable, prominent, and unparalleled arts organization is to expand and diversify its community by increasing knowledge of and affinity for the organization at large (this means an increase in audience numbers as well as financial supporters). In the past, The Cedar has done its best given resources of staff time and money to promote the artists it hosts. These efforts have increased audience numbers at many shows and raised awareness of specific artists that visit the Cedar regularly. But many patrons of The Cedar are attracted to the organization because of their affinity for the artists and aren’t necessarily aware of what the organization offers as far as community involvement and quality programming. There are certainly a number of staff, volunteers, and patrons who understand and recognize the important work of The Cedar and the community it creates. But if more people had an affinity not only for the artists but for The Cedar Cultural Center as an organization:
• More patrons will be inclined to attend a show not just because of who is performing but because it is being performed at The Cedar Cultural Center. This not only increases the number of people who are taking advantage of what The Cedar has to offer, it provides exposure for lesser-known artists.
• Patrons would be inclined to become sign up for, become involved with, or attend other portions of The Cedar’s programming because they are educated about what The Cedar does and "buy into" the mission of the organization
• More volunteers will be involved because of what it means to be a part of The Cedar community
• The Cedar will have more freedom to schedule lesser-known artists because the shows will be able to rely partially on affinity for the organization to draw in audience members.
• Twin Cities residents will be more likely to become patrons and patrons will be more likely to become donors because they understand what an asset The Cedar is to the community and because they feel an affinity towards it.
Clearly, the first step in the donor flow chart (essentially, audience acquisition) will use marketing strategies. This first step is basically where the marketing committee needs to focus. How can we not only get people in the doors of The Cedar but get them to learn and understand what we want them to learn and understand about our organization once they are through the doors?
Given that one of the definitive characteristics of The Cedar is “community” and given The Cedar’s financial limitations (therefore, limitations to take out advertisements, print lots of materials, or hire an advertising firm to run a campaign), word-of-mouth seems the best, most natural fit as an advertising technique. I think The Cedar has yet to effectively pursue this venue for advertising/communication. Vehicles for mass communication are increasingly accessible thus permeating our society, so people’s filters for information are getting thicker. Hearing about an event or an organization from someone a person knows or has at least met will be much more effective than seeing an advertisement on a poster.
I propose creating a team of active Cedar advocates. These advocates will include board members and the fundraising and marketing committee members. These “volunteers” can be as involved as board members or as casual as someone who simply likes The Cedar and is asked to “pass on the word.” The Cedar needs to arm these “advocates” or “volunteers” with information and materials so they discuss The Cedar at every cocktail party, work event, and family barbecue. Think about the people you know: your friends, coworkers, family, or your coffee barista. Do they know about your involvement at The Cedar? Have you personally invited them to purchase tickets for a show or have you offered to bring them to a Cedar show? Word-of-mouth is how we’re going to grow our audiences, and, eventually, grow our base for financial support.
This is probably already happening, to a certain degree, on an informal level. I propose that we “formalize” this process and train “advocates” or “volunteers” (perhaps even have a “job description”), and form a committee that oversees this “viral marketing” processes. The formalization of this process will have several advantages. First, people are more likely to actually talk to people about The Cedar. I suspect that a lot of what happens now is more to the effect of “sure I love The Cedar – I think I told my neighbor about that show” and the number of people/amount of time people are actually talking to people about The Cedar is questionable. Creating a formal “project” or “marketing program” will take the process one step further, documenting the cultivation step so The Cedar can follow up with said neighbor by sending a newsletter in the mail, an email, a dollar off coupon to encourage attendance, a solicitation piece, or just simply a personal phone call or email from a staff member. Furthermore, this sort of program cultivates the “volunteers” or “advocates” as much as it does the target prospects or suspects. If someone feels like they are an official “volunteer,” part of an exciting initiative or project, and/or doing something meaningful for an organization they appreciate, they will be that much more invested in our organization and will have spent that much more time thinking about what The Cedar means to them and to our communities. Their further investment in The Cedar’s work will increase the likelihood that they will attend more shows and that they will donate. This kind of new “volunteer” program is one way for The Cedar to move people through the donor flow chart from patron to donor and facilitates a way for more people to become more invested in our organization.
How would it work? A lot of the program is smoke and mirrors: we’re basically just asking people to talk about The Cedar when they go out and creating an excuse for increased communication with a large group of constituents. Our job would be to recruit a group of people who we educate about current events, initiatives, and exciting news at The Cedar who, in turn, educate others in the community who, in turn, educate others in the community, etc. The fundraising and marketing committees could “oversee” the program and we could provide once a month/once every other month “gathering” at which we provide “training” which will basically consist of us telling folks “what’s new at The Cedar” and creating opportunity for people to feel like they are part of our community. The idea would be to make these once a month or once every other month “meetings” a forum for cultivation. The trick will be to make sure that these meetings are fun, exciting, and interesting so people are energized about the project and will get and stay involved in this way (thus coming back for more meetings and maybe even bringing others with them.)
Donor Acquisition: Patron to participation donor
Again, our potential donor pool is composed of those who attend shows at The Cedar. In order to solicit patrons to become donors, we need names and contact information for those who are attending Cedar events or have an interest in The Cedar. This is another place where our “volunteers” can help us. They can collect contact information of potential patrons, we put their names in the database, and we can then follow up with them to encourage them to come to shows, get involved, etc.
The following is a list of resources we currently have that give us information on our patrons:
• List of people who are receiving the newsletter - ebase
• List of emails that receive the e-newsletter
• List of people who buy advance tickets from The Cedar directly: Ticketbook – needs to be integrated into donor database, perhaps through spreadsheet entering and a template "import" command in ebase.
Here are some strategies that can get us cleaner/additional/more up-to-date information:
• Administer surveys on-site and through email list, but we have to be prepared to effectively record and use this information
• Hold raffles for CDs or free tickets and require submissions to include email, address, and phone. This will accumulate names and contact information of Cedar patrons who may not be donors or on the mailing list.
• Maintain accurate and usable information from in-house ticket sales.
• Recruit people to join newsletter and e-newsletter. Gather and record all possible contact information (not just an email.) Tag them in the system so it is noted that they are in the system as a result of a mailing list request
• Said volunteer program
Solicitations that target this group
• E-solicitations: E-solicitations are a great way to acquire new donors because a) In the past, The Cedar has collected email addresses but without names, mailing addresses, phone numbers attached b) It is very inexpensive, so we aren’t wasting resources on a large mailing that includes a lot of patrons who are not likely to donate. Mass e-solicitations should occur three to four times a year and should take creative approaches that will catch attention. One example of an e-solicitation that will encourage the potential donor to spend some time thinking and learning about The Cedar and perhaps catch attention is (the link to) a flash movie or video about The Cedar.
• Direct Mail: A mass direct mail to everyone for whom we have mailing addresses might be a good way to clean out our database (we’ll receive bad addresses back in the mail) One way that acquisition direct mail solicitations may work is through a target marketing effort. For example, we could send a mail solicitation to a hand-picked group of people based on information from a survey.
• Soft Solicitations
o Provide a secure and prominent donor box available at all shows.
o Make sure house managers are educated and updated about the development program at The Cedar so they can answer questions and mention our annual fund efforts before every show
o Posters
o Fliers
o Newsletter: Maybe one or two newsletters a year could devote a large section to fundraising/development/solcitations
o Webpage
Retention and Increase: From Participation donor to leadership level donor
There are likely plenty of current donors who could be giving more consistently and at higher levels: they’ve just never been asked! To get donors to continue donating, to donate more consistently, and to increase their donations, we must evaluate the affinity and capacity of current donors and use creative strategies to increase their affinity for The Cedar.
• Direct Mail: Two to four direct mail pieces should go out each year to past donors who have not yet donated in the current fiscal year. These should include the same messages and visuals (because they will be part of the same campaign) but could take different forms (people respond to different things.) For example, one direct mail piece could be a simple postcard, another could be a letter, and yet another could be a 4-color half fold mailer. One effective solicitation tool is a “draft” donor report toward the end of the year.
• E-solicitations
• Phoning: Phone banking that targets our current donors increases the amount of time they spend thinking about The Cedar (equal to the length of the conversation) and facilitates a personal connection. Research through whitepages or other websites needs to be done because we have a lot of “dirty information.”
• Create a fundraising DVD for The Cedar Cultural Center that includes clips from concerts and testimonials from patrons, staff, volunteers, and musicians. Ask a targeted group of potential leadership donors to review the DVD. The idea behind this project is that a) it creates a media through which the donor will spend several minutes thinking about The Cedar b) It facilitates a relationship between The Cedar and the donor that allows the donor to feel as if he/she is being asked to be a part of the community in a way besides writing a check c) offers a great excuse for Cedar staff/board members to contact and have a conversation with potential donors
• Connect with The Cedar annual/biannual event
• Use tickets as a cultivation tool: Send tickets to shows that will not sell out to our best prospects
• Recognition pins: To create a good reason to ask people to give at a certain leadership level, we could offer small pins with the Cedar C. Donors love to be recognized with this like this, and a simple pin is not extravagant.
• One-on-one meetings with board members: If and when we administer a survey to as many patrons and donors as possible, we will have a good amount of information to determine who our best prospects might be. An effective survey will allow us to gauge affinity and capacity of many folks who walk through our doors.
• Create volunteer opportunities to get potential high-level donors more invested.
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