CI to Eye | Bridging the Marketing-Development Divide

Marketing and development teams in arts and cultural organizations work toward the same goals: generating revenue, deepening relationships, and advancing the mission. But too often, they’re doing that work in silos—on separate timelines, using different tools, and speaking to the same audiences in different ways. The result? Missed opportunities and diminished impact.

In this episode, Cincinnati Shakespeare Company’s Director of Marketing, Jeanna Vella, and Director of Development, Sara Clark, share what happens when we break down silos and create true cross-departmental partnerships. They reveal the tools and tactics that keep their teams aligned, the hurdles they’ve worked through, and what any organization can do to build stronger alignment between marketing and development.

CI to Eye Interview (time) - Dan sits down with Cincinnati Shakespeare Company to discuss their experience breaking down silos and creating true cross-departmental partnerships.

CI-lebrity Sightings (time) - Dan shares his favorite stories of CI clients in the news. This episode spotlights Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Art Museum, and Atlanta Ballet. 

LINKS:

Cincinnati Shakespeare Company

The Violin Channel | Baltimore Symphony Receives $5m Gift Towards Family and Educational Programming

WLWT News | Cincinnati Art Museum planning expansion to make Art Climb more accessible

TODAY | 100-year-old ballet instructor shares his 3 simple tips for a long, healthy life

Episode Transcript

(00:09):
Hi everyone. Dan here.
It's almost the end of the fiscalyear and many of us are wrapping up
performance seasons, launchingbig fundraising pushes,
and keeping a close eye onwhether we'll hit our goals.
And at the center of all that?Marketing and development.
These teams are working toward the samebig picture goals, bringing in revenue,
deepening relationships, and movingorganizational missions forward.

(00:30):
But too often they end up operatingin silos: on separate timelines,
using different tools,
and talking to the same audiencesin totally different ways.
And when that happens, no one'swork is as effective as it could be.
So we wondered,
what happens when you intentionallystart breaking down these silos?
When teams don't just sharegoals, but also share plans,

(00:52):
data and ownership of the fullaudience journey? In today's episode,
I'll sit down with Cincinnati ShakespeareCompany's Director of Marketing,
Jeanna Vella, and Director of Development,Sara Clark. During the pandemic,
Jeanna and Sara's department startedworking more closely out of necessity,
but what began as a response to crisisturned into a lasting shift in how they

(01:12):
collaborate.
That collaboration continues tofuel results across ticket sales and
fundraising, and it's something theyactively nurture day in, day out.
Together,
we'll talk about why silos betweenmarketing and development are so common,
the unique strengths eachdepartment brings to the table,
and how to tackle common challengeslike miscommunication and competing

(01:32):
priorities.
If you've ever felt like marketing anddevelopment are running parallel races
instead of just moving forward together,
then this episode offers a ton ofinspiration for what's possible.
Let's dive in, shall we?

(01:56):
Jeanna and Sara, welcome to CI to Eye.
Thanks for having us.
Yeah, thank you so much.
So we're going to talk aboutthe relationship between development and marketing,
but before we get started, you'reboth kind of Shakespeare nerds.
What's your most controversialShakespeare opinion?
Well, I think mine is that I'mactually not a Shakespeare nerd.
That's the controversial add.

(02:18):
I was a music person and now I've workedat Shakespeare companies for 17 years,
so I think it has gotten in therea little bit. So I don't know.
That might be my controversy is that Ithink you don't have to be a Shakespeare
nerd to market Shakespeareeffectively and very well.
I love it.
Oh, I don't know if I have acontroversial Shakespeare opinion. I mean,
I've been doing this almost20 years now with the company,

(02:40):
and so I think I am in general lessprecious about it than I was when I
kind of first came out, I was like, no,it must be this and text must be that.
And you can never change a single thing,
even though this word has fallen intocomplete obsolescence and means a very
different thing now. And so yeah,
I think I just am more relaxedabout it than I used to be.
Amazing. Love it. Mine isthat it's fine to say Macbeth.

(03:03):
Ah, that is a hot take.
I'm not that crazy.
But I don't out of respect forpeople who do care about that.
Let's start by setting the stage.
What did the pandemic look likefor Cincinnati Shakespeare Company?
How did it impact youroperations and revenue?
Sure. So I'm sure everybody listeninghas their version of this story,

(03:24):
but this is ours. So herein the state of Ohio,
the governor put forward the ban onmass gatherings over a hundred on March
12th, 2020.
And effectively that shutteredour doors where we were.
We had just announced about aweek prior, a brand new season,
and sold what Jeanna? $200,000in advanced subscriptions to it?

(03:44):
Something like that? We hadordered all of the posters,
they had all of the dates on them.
We pre-printed all the materials. Thatwas the first time I'd ever done that.
Every show was cast. We were ahead ofthe game. We were so excited, so ready.
We were two weeks into a five-week runof Kate Hamill's adaptation of Jane
Austen's Pride and Prejudice,
which at the time was set to breakall of our single ticket records.

(04:05):
Every data point that we had said thatthis was going to be the bestselling show
in the company's history.And we were four days into rehearsing
a much anticipated productionof Hamlet when it all came down.
And in the end we endedup staying closed for
579 days.
The theater was dark and we had tomake some hard decisions really,

(04:27):
really fast. So on March 12th,
we probably had 60 or 70odd people on the payroll.
That was two dozen full-time staff, pluspart-timers, plus actors, designers,
front of house, bartenders, everybodythat it takes to make a theater run.
All of those contractors were letgo on day one and two weeks later,
10 full-time staff followed.
So we went from about 70people to 12 and just kind of

(04:51):
buckled down and tried to makeit through the next 600 days.
Well, and I think thething to add too is Sara,
you had taken on the role ofDirector of Development...
...About 12 weeks before that.
Yeah.
Right before that. That's right.
It wasn't like we were all preparingfor 600 days of closure, either.
It was like, what will the next week,what will the next two weeks [be]?

(05:13):
And that's what made a lot of thedecisions so difficult as well.
Well, exactly. We kept doingseason announcements and yeah,
there was no way to know,but had they said, okay,
you're going to be closed for two years,
we would've done things totallydifferently. Yeah, it was the unknown.
That was one of thehardest parts about it.
Yeah,
we had also just passed a board approvedbudget and business plan a couple of

(05:34):
months prior,
and so we were moving forward with thatand the announcement of the new season
and we ended up having to redo thattwice over in four different versions.
We essentially took that businessplan and made a plan A, B, C,
and D for the entire business basedon when we could reopen the theater,
which was the biggest unknown.
And were there any key turningpoints as you began to reopen?
Was there a break point of nowwe're open, or was it gradual?

(05:57):
It was gradual in the sense that weknew we needed to start rehiring people,
getting things back in.
Basically we turned the cog off andwe needed to start the gears again.
So that was a little bit gradual. Butbesides all of the logistical things,
if you remember, we had tocheck vaccination records and status and masking.
Besides all of those operationalnightmares and challenges,

(06:18):
we just had to figure outwho are we welcoming back?
Because I think we can alllook at ourselves and say,
there's probably things that are differentabout us now post-pandemic just as
people,
and the types of things that we do forfun or the types of things that we do
outside of our homes.
So the audience was just going to bevery different and look very different.
And so that was the big thingto say, who are we welcoming?

(06:41):
What do they need now? And that wasa whole different group of people,
even if it was the same bodies coming in,
the things that they needed hadchanged. So relearning that,
listening to that new audience.
And I would say some of that workdefinitely still continues to this day,
as we're learning the habits andthings that people expect about their
experience out is different now.

(07:03):
The numbers from your last threeseasons are really impressive,
especially compared to what manyother organizations have experienced.
What do you think madethat rebound possible?
So I think we had as good a footinggoing into a great global crisis as we
probably could have had.
We're not a particularly old organizationand we're not a particularly large

(07:24):
one. So just for context,we're in our 31st season.
There's a lot of organizations inthe city who are 50 or upwards of
hundred-year-old arts organizations,
and we're just kind of under a 4million budget here in Cincinnati, Ohio.
So kind of middle of the line.
We didn't have the big multitens of million dollars endowment

(07:44):
invested that a lot of older and morestoried organizations could lean on.
That's the whole point of that isto be able to lean on it in crisis.
But what we had done is in the lead upto being able to execute the capital
campaign and the buildingof our new building,
which happened aboutthree years prior to 2020,
is we had done a lot of advanced workto make sure that our financial controls

(08:04):
were really, really strong.
That sort of the understandingand ownership of the business,
not just at the topand at the board level,
but throughout the leadershipand the staff was really strong.
And we'd strategically built up somecash reserves and some facility funds.
So we were in a good enough position.
And that combined with makinghard decisions really fast,

(08:27):
having to let go of a lot of people,
essentially kind of insulated us up untilwe were able to really maximize those
relief opportunities. That started tocome once we were three, six months,
a year into this.
And then we really capitalized on thetime that we had without doing shows.
We were in these kind of zoom rooms andthought, well, if we had all this time,

(08:48):
what is something that wecould work on together?
And that was really where kind of whatwe call our staff innovation took place
when we really started to rebuild thedevelopment side of our ticketing database
and really integrate those teams becauseour team went down to one in marketing,
two in development. So the three ofus joined forces and thought, well,
let's just lean into this. Whatdo you need? What do I need?

(09:10):
What can we do together? Howcan we capitalize on this time?
And we set off on taking time -- inthis case, the big one was our database.
Really getting development up to snuffwith that with our marketing was a huge
investment of time andwe had the time to do it.
So we tried to capitalize on that.
Yeah, I think that's oneof the most striking,
exciting parts of your storyis the way that marketing and

(09:32):
development are working together,and that's not always the norm.
Was there just an aha moment of, hang on,
we should all be working togethera lot closer going forward,
not just for this database?
Well, yeah.
I think we realized looking specificallywhen you're stripping it all away and
you don't have shows,it's the same people.
Trying to think about folks as patronsor donors, it just didn't make any sense.

(09:55):
If you think about it,
we had ticket buyers that had nowbecome donors because they said,
please take our tickets backor we're not going to come.
And I don't necessarily thinkpatrons were thinking, oh wait,
I'm taking my ticket buyer hatoff and putting on my donor.
That's not how people feelabout their experience.
So why were we operating as if thosewere very separate groups of people or
those groups had different needs? Theyreally didn't. They were really combined.

(10:19):
It's just not as linear as peoplewant to think it is. Sometimes it is.
Sometimes someone will actuallygo from first time attendee,
maybe they didn't even buy a ticket,
maybe their friend brought them and thenthey buy a single ticket and then they
subscribe and then they make a smalldonation and then they make a major
donation and then theywrite us into their will.
That's kind of the standardprogression that we learn.
And I'm sure there are people that arelike that, but in our joint experience,

(10:40):
most people come in somewhereelse or they surprise you,
they'll start as a hundred dollarsdonor and then all of a sudden they're a
hundred thousand dollars donorbecause they had a moment,
they wanted to make an investment,it was right time, right place.
Or they might have come in as a donorbecause they believed in something we were
doing outside of the building,
like our education programs orfree Shakespeare in the park,
and they've never even seen a show here.

(11:01):
And so the win on them is toget them to come to a show,
to make them a first-time buyer.
So I think that myth andthat sort of passing through,
because if you're structuringyour plan that way,
that means that one department's noteven looking at people until a certain
point. Development shouldn'tcome in and say, okay,
I just want to see people thathave been here a bunch of times,
only subscribers. Imean, that's one group,

(11:24):
but you're missing out on everyoneand it's a little intimidating,
but it could be anyone inthe world. Anybody could enter that path at any point.
But keeping in mind that it's not linear,
I think it's sort of freeing becausethere's all kinds of different strategies
that you can do and you don'thave to focus on the first one.
You can focus on all ofthem in different ways.
And now I think theimportant caveat there is,

(11:46):
that doesn't mean that all communicationsgo to all people because all people
can enter at any time, right? No,
it's the opposite becauseI think we acknowledge that people can enter into that
continuum at any point.
Jeanna and I are jointly reallystrategic about who we're talking to,
about what, when.
So we absolutely segment and targetcommunications within the base.

(12:08):
We just don't kind of fall in a siloof you're on this side of this linear
spectrum and I'm on this side of it.
What is your team really good at andhow does those strengths compliment the
other team?
Something that I think marketingprofessionals are amazing at
is really understandingvoice of the customer,

(12:29):
understanding that while weare a charitable organization,
while we have a mission andwe do mission-driven work,
we're also a business and we need tonot make a lot of assumptions about
what our folks need and want.
We need to actually ask them andput the work into listening there.
I think marketing teams arereally great at infrastructure,

(12:50):
working within systems andcreating operating systems and
standard procedures that just help usonly have to make a hard decision once and
then we sort of know how thingscan operate. Jeanna in particular,
and marketing folks I hope ingeneral, are also data geeks.
They understand the power ofmaking a data informed decision

(13:12):
and the strength of sharing that withmore than just their department and how
that can really empower allof us. And then just branding,
creating a cohesive identity sothat no matter what sort of external
communication you're doing, everybodyis speaking with the same voice.
And what I've learned from developmentprofessionals and Sara in particular is
the value of small moves.

(13:34):
So often I'll hear these stories aboutsomeone that they've stewarded for
years that hasn't donated for -- again,in marketing, I'd be like, great,
we need to move on. Wehave a show that's closing.
So that value of those small moves, thelong game, and really thinking, well,
how can I bring that same kind ofstrategy to marketing that works in
development. And storytelling! Marketing,

(13:56):
we often get very short amountsof characters to tell a story.
Development sometimes gets a little bitlonger in those grants or those long
conversations, essentiallybuilding a story with a donor.
How is development taking the time tobuild that story and really bring people
into it to find their ownplace inside that story?
And development has a curiosity.
They always want to learna little more about wait,

(14:18):
what are they doingdown in the scene shop?
Because that might be something that Icould find a sponsorship for or funder
might be interested in that. Oractually now that I'm down here,
I see that you have a need, maybeI could find some money for that.
So slowing down sometimes in marketing,
putting that development mindset oncould really help us see ways that we

(14:39):
weren't thinking about before,
just looking at somethingthrough a different lens. So I think by finding those,
we kind of call 'em oursuperpowers in each other,
only benefited both ofus to see those things.
And it feels like there's a lotof overlap in terms of listening.
It was just like how you listendata versus story and how
they can really ate each other there.

(15:01):
So let's talk about what collaborationactually looks like in practice at Cincy
Shakes. How do you stay in sync?Are there any specific tools,
routines, communication practices thathave helped your team stay aligned?
Definitely the Spektrix was the bigpiece because that was one of our biggest
challenges, was justdata integration issues.

(15:22):
So getting us together using thesystem the same way was huge for us.
So we have active Spektrixusers from both of our teams,
but you can set up reports that justbasically get emailed out to the whole
team. So we have people thatdon't even touch the system,
but in the morning they might get areport that we've talked about and decided
that helps them see where we are insales or where we are on donations.

(15:43):
We've got a great one that says majordonors that are attending this weekend.
The box office should know that.The production team should know.
Everyone should know those things.
And that was a marketing toolthat we're using for development,
and that goal that they're trying to reachby making sure we're covering all the
donors at all the levels.
Yeah, I mean even justtaking that basic idea,
I create a slide deck,

(16:05):
a 15 slide deck for the box office staffevery year that it's like these are the
names and the faces of the 15 peoplethat if they walk through that door,
you need to know who they are.
That just comes from thatkind of general ethos of,
we all share a responsibilityfor this. We're all fundraisers,
we're all marketers, we're all performers,
we're all responsible for the people'sexperience that come into our space.

(16:28):
And then look, I know nobody wantsanother meeting on their schedule,
but there are two that we have putin place that we think are actually
incredibly valuable and productive tobeing able to get these two departments
synced up. One of them is, we startthe week like 11:00 AM on Monday,
and Jeanna and I both meet with ourproducing artistic director who is the
executive director of the organization.And I think it's incredibly valuable.

(16:51):
I mean between Jeanna andI, we essentially manage all of the company's revenue.
So Jeanna manages all of the earn side,I manage all of the contributed side,
and as opposed to us having one-on-oneswith our artistic director and then
having to play telephone and translateand nobody really knows what everybody
else is doing, we just do it together.
And it's a way of both allowingus to be aware of and just

(17:14):
develop some sort of basic empathy andunderstanding for what this other part of
the business is going throughat a particular moment,
but also to be able to offer a reallyvaluable outside perspective and go, well,
I understand that maybe thisis the best practice over here,
but have you thought about this?
This is maybe how I wouldapproach that particular thing.
And I think we have found that to bereally, really practical and valuable.

(17:35):
And then the other thing we'veset up is a Dev Comms meeting.
So we kind of made up this departmentcalled Development Communication,
Dev Comms,
and it's all the membersof the development team and all the members of the
marketing team. Weekly meeting,we close the door, it's just us.
We get to really look ateverything we're doing,
look through every line andproduct that we have coming up,
and don't tell any of my other meetings,

(17:57):
but this is my favorite meeting becauseI think we get the most accomplished.
That's usually an hour of our week thatreally does set us up for the next week.
I am definitely one of those peoplethat's like, not another meeting,
please can't this be an email.
But those are two that havebeen very successful for us.
What were some of the biggestchallenges you faced in this endeavor?

(18:20):
So I think a lot of challenges thatmarketing and development teams face,
it's really just sort of amisalignment of priorities and
timelines and it gives you the sensethat your goals are in conflict with each
other, even thoughthat's not actually true.
So we alluded a little bit earlier tothis idea of marketing is really good at

(18:40):
the immediate game, the thing infront of them, and that makes sense.
Their timelines are shorterand tighter than ours.
The show is going to open and it's goingto close and you can't market it once
it's already closed. So we haveto have an understanding of that,
whereas as Jeanna said,
development can be a much longer processand it's a series of moves over weeks

(19:00):
or months or years to get to the ultimategoal that you're trying to achieve.
And there's a natural tension there. Andthat's just something that I think when
you acknowledge it and you have empathyand understanding for how those two
things need to sync up together, youcan start to be practical about it.
So that might look like something assimple as making sure that if your two

(19:21):
departments are doing basically all ofthe external communications with your
people, you want to makesure that they're synced up,
that you're not cannibalizing each other,
that you're not overloading your peopleor going too much time without talking
to a certain group. It really is justhaving the conversation and going,
we have the same big goal, but wecurrently have different short-term ones,
so how do these two things link together?

(19:42):
And then what is the tactics and thesteps that get us to the ultimate
achievement?
And once you have gonethrough one season at least,
you start to realize where are mybusiest times? Where's my tension points?
So for marketers or for me in particular,
the season announcement's always ourbusiest time because it's setting up a lot
of things for that coming season. Soit's good for development to know that,

(20:03):
because it wouldn't be a greattime to come to us with a new idea.
They might get stressed,
that kind of reaction from the team,and they might look and go, well see,
I tried to work with marketingbut they shut me down. It's like,
were we thinking about the timelinesand things they were doing?
Because people aren't alwaysso good at communicating that.
They just feel overwhelmed and it's justa feeling that you think is going to

(20:26):
last forever. What I alwayslike to say to my team is,
keep hard days in perspective. It's notalways this level of pressure all the
time,
but being able to know when each other'shard days are just makes collaboration
more effective. And then you canswing in and say, Hey, I have time.
This is a lighter time for me.What can I do to help you out?
We've been doing that just now.
We're sort of both involved ina show we've got on the stage.

(20:49):
Sara's directing it, I'mplaying in the orchestra,
and we have a big fundraiserwe have coming up,
so we were just sort ofswinging between each other.
What can I do to cover you here?How could we work this out?
Yeah, it feels very deep.It feels like a culture.
It's a change in mindsettowards collaboration.
How did you build that buy-in withleadership? With the box office? Like,
all levels of the organization?

(21:11):
I think a lot of it started with --
in the years just prior to thelaunch of our capital campaign,
we really had some cleaning house todo in terms of our own operations.
So I mean there was a time 10, 15 yearsago when I first got into development,
I did it by writing grants.
I was a grant writer first and I usedto have to meet monthly with the board

(21:31):
treasurer to look at when this $5,000was expected to come in because it
impacted cashflow. That's not us anymore.
And how we got from that to wherewe are now is really spreading
ownership and accountabilityof the business
throughout the leadership.
So when we get a budget ora business plan rolled out,

(21:53):
it's not the first timewe've seen it. We built it.
The leadership's responsibility is tokind of set strategy and vision and
the overall slate and then it goesout to Jeanna and to me and to our
production manager and to the head of oureducation department and anybody who's
kind of owning that portion,
be it revenue or expense ora combination of the two,

(22:13):
and the subject matter expertise thenbuilds that from the ground up. We say,
this is what we think we can raise,this is what we think we can sell,
this is what we think we can spend.And then it's a conversation,
it's a practice.
So that sense of transparencyand accountability is built into the ethos of the
company.
And then I think we've just managed totake it sort of a step further with our

(22:34):
specific teams.
And I think really what makes that workis the transparency piece and that does
start top down. So we're very open aboutif we're having a financial challenge.
I mean, especially in the pandemic,it was a lot of, here's the numbers,
here's where we are, wewant everyone to see.
There is no benefit to hiding thator obscuring that from the team.
And it's funny,

(22:54):
we have this board in the kitchen wherewe have our sales goal and then where we
are to meet that goal and the amount ofpeople that are blown away that we would
publicly put that information out there.It is surprising to me like, well,
I want everyone to see where we'reat and where we're struggling.
Sometimes it's not good news.
Sometimes it is a show that's strugglingand we have to manage that to say,

(23:16):
well, here's the things that we'redoing and here's what's happening.
But by being transparent about it,
everyone's on the same page and thenwe can rely on our team and they can be
accountable to help build those goals.
Nothing is sort of obscured fromeveryone. Everyone knows what's going on.
Yeah, it sounds very refreshingwhen you made that move.
It must have felt almost like arelief to have all that transparency.

(23:36):
Oh yeah. I'll never forget, at one point,
I got a budget rollout andI looked at it and I went,
I can't apply for this grant that yousay is going to bring in $20,000 this
year. They're on anevery-other-year cycle.
And it's just one smallexample of what happens.
And it doesn't mean thatleadership is bad or uninformed,
it's they're not the subject matterexpert in your part of the business.
You are. So part of your job ismanaging up, down, and sideways,

(24:00):
and then all of us putthis thing together.
I hear from other marketers sometimesthat they sort of get the goals and they
bring so much anxiety, and I cansee that. We would never do that.
No magical thinking.
I understand that you needed tomake this much to make your budget,
to make your expenses work,
but we can't get there and it doesno one any good to hope that we

(24:20):
could. So let's look back and buildthis budget together. Realistically,
where are some places that we can pushand where are some places that we can
pull back on expenses? Not tosay we don't have stretch goals,
we're always trying to reachfor more, but by using the data,
we can make really good guesses on wherewe think we're going to be and we need
to do that, basically look at theexpenses and if it doesn't match up,

(24:43):
then we go back to figuring that out.
You went through awebsite redesign, right?
Yes. Yeah, just recently with Hotfoot.
Great.
How was that process in terms of your twodepartments and what you need from the
website?
We do a lot of work with website redesignsand we're constantly trying to get
people to talk.
Tell people what you need from the websiteand also what the website needs to do

(25:04):
from a patron slash donorpoint of view as well,
rather than our department's pointof view. How was that process?
Well, it definitely started with,we know we needed a new website,
which has sort of become a thing thatyou need to be looking at every three
years if not more. And as I've beenwith the company for about 16 seasons,
this was my fourth website redesign andevery time we do a new one, I loved it.

(25:27):
And then towards the end, Ihated it every single time,
so we need to change this. So I'vebeen talking about needing a new one,
and Sara actually --
her team was able to find a funder tosupport that new work because again,
that's a sort of new capital expense.
The cost to do websitesnow has grown so much.
And again, development's a long game.It was a funder who was actually,

(25:49):
I think the last capitalgift in the capital campaign,
but they only do gifts every three years.And they gave me a call and said, Hey,
it's been three years since your lastone, what do you got? And I said, well,
I have a website among some other things.
But that was definitely a big part of it.
And so I led the project,but in collaboration with development to say, okay,
what tools,

(26:10):
I know exactly how I think that theticket path should go for our patrons,
so I'm going to bringsome of that knowledge,
that frictionless experience and makemy suggestions to development about how
could we make your path even better,
and making sure those two things wereintegrated so they were done at the same
time. When we were lookingback at basically --

(26:31):
we sort of built out that site map, thatwas a great opportunity to go, okay,
wait a second.
We had this sort of fun structure withwhat if we break that down and simplify
this, whatever.
So we sort of use the same sort ofquestions and debates that we were having
with ourselves in marketing in developmentto say, how could we improve this?
And I think it led to even more clarityon how we could think about our annual

(26:52):
events, individual, monthly,however we were thinking about it,
that can become reflected on the websiteand then I could work with our web
developers to make things more clickableand fun and kind of gamification of
some things.
Yeah, I think that processtoo was a great example.
It really highlights what wewere talking about before,
which is not everybody chooses to interactwith the organization for the first
time in the same way. So if you'redesigning a website and you're going,

(27:14):
everybody's first interaction isthey're going to buy a single ticket,
then that's the lens you'regoing to design a website on.
Whereas if you acknowledge thatthere are probably a few ways,
maybe somebody came to a gala as a guestand now they want to go buy a ticket or
maybe somebody saw that we take thesedonor trips and now they want to see what
we do on our main stage. So it'smaking those accessible and honestly,
it was fun. I mean I remember pullingJeanna into my office and I had --

(27:37):
it was like A Beautiful Mind.
I had post-it notes and the path of hereare the pages and here's how they lead
and can this link to that?
And it was really lovely being able tothink about that and to have a thought
partner in it to create what we created.
I could look back and go, okay,what you're saying is this, right?
The two of us can have that shorthand,
having worked together for a long timeor kind of pushing back and questioning,

(28:01):
well, what if it was this orwhat if we tried it this way?
I think that kind of comes to my ethosthat I shared at Boot Camp too, which is:
stop being so precious about yourkingdoms and your own things that you're
working on and really let someone else in.
Because when they're looking atsomething, when you're breaking it down --
because you think aboutwebsites, it's like, well,
we should probably have a corporatefoundation page and an individual giving

(28:22):
page and it's like, well, waita minute, let's break that down.
Why would a foundation come to thesite? What would they be doing on there?
Whatever.
So it was just a chance to kind ofbreak things down and really stop being
precious about how we'd always done itand think about different ways of doing
it.
And it makes for a more coherent website.
Sometimes I look at websites and itfeels like there are three different

(28:43):
websites written in completelydifferent ways. It's just so --
Because they probably were.
Because they probably were. Exactly.So when you have this collaboration,
I think one of the things you said herewas you said, don't be so precious.
I love that message as wellof collaboration because it requires a dropping of
ego and it requires a littlebit of vulnerability as well.

(29:04):
Oh yeah.
I mean I think when youestablish that, right,
it actually allows you to make braverand riskier decisions because you're
able to put a suggestion or an ideainto the room without going, oh god,
Jeanna's going to hate this. You knowwhat? I'm just not going to say it.
Or vice versa. It's like, Idon't think that's a good idea.
I feel like I need to saysomething and here's why.

(29:26):
And being able to create thatculture of we are all on the same
team, we're all talkingto the same people,
we're all trying to deliveron the same mission.
And if those things are true and we havesort of a base understanding of empathy
and enjoyment of each other, then great.
That's a place from which we can actuallypush and disagree and have conflict

(29:47):
and it can still be okay and hopefullyresult in a better product on the other
side.
Yeah, I think to have that creativity,
you need a basis of psychologicalsafety in your workplace because
creativity does not happen without,
and ideas aren't shared withouta base level of I'm safe here,
I can say a bad idea and it'd be okay.

(30:09):
Yeah, absolutely. And I know that'sprobably the number one barrier.
A lot of people maybelistening right now say,
I don't feel that with mydevelopment department or my team.
And what we would always suggest tofolks is just do something tomorrow.
What's the one step you can make?
Can you send an email congratulatingthem on something they did?
Can you go to that fundraiser that you'renot really involved in but just to see

(30:32):
how it goes?
Or can they come to your talk back thatyou're doing after a show and just show
up? Take a step forward?Because I truly believe people,
especially people in thisbusiness, we all want to have fun.
We all have a sense of humor about it.
We all care very muchabout what we're doing.
So how can you tap into that on eachother's teams and what's the first thing

(30:53):
you can do to build that bridge?
What are some other examplesof this in practice?
So one that comes to mind, justthinking about our season announcement,
we do an online auction as one of ourthree major special events in the year,
and this is something that I started,
it was the first year we were stillkind of all remote in the pandemic,
so we've only been doing it I thinknow we've completed four of them,

(31:15):
and the first two were atdifferent times in the year.
I was kind of trying to find the perfecttime in the calendar. It's like, oh,
when is there not a whole lot going on?
Or when can I maybecapitalize on holiday giving?
So we tried a few things and then lastyear it was actually Jeanna's suggestion,
recognizing what is unique and specialabout the way we do an auction is we're
really good at building these kind ofunique packages that combine something

(31:39):
donated,
maybe a special experience from acommunity partner or a neighborhood group,
and then pairing it to a show we're goingto do on our main stage that maybe is
thematically linked.And so it kind of comes with CSC tickets,
it gets them in the door,
it gets us more invested with that personwho's not thinking of themself as a
donor yet, and then also kindof works with the community.
And Jeanna came forward and is like,
why don't we actually do itwith the season announcement?

(32:01):
Because the problem withdoing it later is one,
you're missing out on a third or halfthe shows you can be able to create
packages around. And two,
a whole bunch of people have alreadybought tickets when we did that first big
push. So it's not as compelling to go,you get six of this and that, blah, blah,
blah, blah. We tried it for thefirst time last year, it went well,

(32:22):
but I was like, oh, I'm notquite sure if this is it,
but I want to give it one more.
And then we took the learnings fromthat and did it again this year,
knowing more and the overall balanceof things and packages and numbers
and operations and it worked beautifully.
It's really a nice solidevent. And then again,
going back to those operationsand those protocols,
this is something that now I can takeand pretty much run without too much

(32:45):
stress on Jeanna's team who is intheir most intense time of year.
Yeah, I remember when Isuggested, I was like,
I'm going to regret suggestingthis because this is not the time to add a thing.
But I really, because again,
I see the benefit of this auctionhappening during this busy time.
We're getting so much PR and people arereally looking at what we're doing with
the season, and I love now thatthey have two call to actions.

(33:08):
They can subscribe and or theycan participate in the auction.
So leaning into that was like,all right, I'm seeing this.
I know had it gone the other way anddevelopment had come and had maybe not
bought any rapport with us yet and saywe want to do our auction with season
announcement, marketingwould panic. Bad timing.
Forget about it.
But by kind of coming to thenatural conclusion together,

(33:30):
it just made the mostsense to do it that way.
And then we just strategized fromthere, how can we work ahead?
How can we make sure as our small team,we see it coming? It wasn't a surprise.
We knew we could work up onto it and wewere able to execute it that way and I
think it's the right place forthat particular fundraising a bit.
Yeah, I like that you went back to itafter a year as well and kind took those

(33:51):
learnings. Sometimes good ideas like that,
especially with collaborationwhere there's maybe a little bit of friction just
because of natural different silos,
sometimes it requires giving it enoughgo and doubling down on the idea a little
bit.
Well, and Sara was justtalking about that about,
one thing she's learnedfrom me is just try it.
Yeah.

(34:12):
Sara's so smart and so verydetailed on the work that she does,
but sometimes I'm like, let's just tryit. If it's not great -- what is that,
'good is the enemy of great'? It'slike, well, great is the enemy of good.
Yeah. You can't let the perfectbe the enemy of the good.
Sometimes we've just got to put somethingin place and then we have something to
react to. One of the things I tellmy team is you can't edit nothing.
So when I'm thinking about aproposal or a letter or a grant,

(34:34):
just get something out there and thenyou've got something you can tweak with.
And I have to kind of apply that mindsetto some of these bigger projects.
And the other one too was, we havean annual gala. A lot of people do.
It's called The Revel,
and usually it's sort of'Revel in Romance' or 'Revel and Rollick' or something.
It sort of is themed every year,

(34:55):
and it actually started looking verytraditionally like a fundraising event.
It was not even in our building,
it was in a fancy ballroom somewhereand we were always trying to program it.
We'd have to kind of come up withperformers or we got kids in there to do
stuff. Thinking about again,any standard fundraising event.
And in the pandemic was the firsttime that, again, that Dev Comms team,

(35:16):
we thought, okay, so we'recreating a show for this event.
Do you know what we have a lot of?Shows. We already have a lot of those.
Why don't we stop making a new showand use the shows that we have.
So the first one we did was with ourpark tour, because it could be outdoors.
This is like 2021. Thingsare sort of reopening.
We did a picnic-style,

(35:38):
our free Shakespeare in thePark Midsummer performed,
and people sat at littletables and watched.
And then the next year we moved it indoorsto the theater along with the show.
If Sara, you want to talk about a littlebit how that event has transformed now?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean,what I love about it,
I'm not a big fan of event fundraisingin general because it's such a high cost
to raise a dollar and it can be soburdensome, especially on small teams.

(36:00):
It takes up a lot of time and capacityfor what is often sort of a one-off
experience with a person,
which is antithetical to how I thinkabout philanthropy and stewardship and all
of those things. So if wewere going to design an event,
I want it to be something that one,
I can actually show off what we're doingso I have a better chance of retaining
and stewarding that first experienceinto a more long-term investment.

(36:23):
And then I also want something that feelslike us that doesn't feel like every
other person's fundraising event.
And knowing that I can lean on Jeannaand recognize that we can use the same
company that created all of thebeautiful brand created for the shows,
they're also going to create it for theevent and it can exist as its own thing
and also feel tied to it and itfeels like us and it's just a really,

(36:45):
really nice -- I hate thisword, but I'm going to say it --
synergy.Everybody's got the same goal, right?
Yeah. I always think with these donors,they have a million fancy meals.
They're not here for another fancy meal.
They're here becausethey like Shakespeare --
Event chicken.
Nobody needs anotherrubber chicken dinner.
Right?
It's like,
I want to throw a party people actuallywant to come to because it feels like

(37:06):
us. And it's a tricky audience, a galaaudience. Because it's often people --
I've got people in my gala who've beenhere for 30 years and people who are
walking in my door for the first time.That's a tough audience to program for.
And so being able to rely on thisjoint team to kind of help us walk
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.
Like, will you come do ours?And we're like, absolutely not.
That sounds exhausting.
And we certainly have people thatare like, this isn't my event.
I'm not into this.
That's absolutely true.
And that's okay, but it's ours.
It's truly a CSC event and the peoplethat love us and know that really enjoy

(37:47):
this one. So even Sara who doesn'tnecessarily love big events,
I think this one's found a littleway into her heart here a little bit.
It has.
Why do you think the silos betweenmarketing and development are so common in
arts and cultural organizations?
So we just figured this out.
We did.
Oh, good. Okay.
Well, because we were talkingabout it and Jeanna's like, well,

(38:09):
I mean sometimes we'reliterally physically siloed when you just don't interact
with people. You've gotthis wing of the building,
especially in big organizations, bigshops, and I said it's like, yeah,
that's true. But then that'skind of also true for any team.
It's like that's why there can betension between admin and production or
between the production and the cast orwhatever. Just speaking as a theater,

(38:30):
I think with marketing anddevelopment in particular in the arts,
it has to do with the sort ofshared business model that we are
basically 50-50 earned revenue --so ticket sales, subscriptions,
education, concessions, merch -- tocontributed -- so individual giving,
sponsorships, grants, governmentfunds, things like that.

(38:50):
And there is a natural tension there.
It's not like if I were to go workdevelopment at another nonprofit agency,
I'm probably 90% of the revenue. If Jeannawere to go and do marketing for P&G,
her responsibility is to the shareholders.
It's just to sell the product and hereit's both. We have to be the business,
we have to earn your dollar.
And also we are a mission-drivenorganization with a 501(C)3

(39:14):
and a charitable purpose.
And so I think inbetween those two things,
that is sort of the underlying tensionthat these two departments can feel like
they have conflicting goals whenactually they've got the same one.
And that is very unique to arts andculture. We were sitting here like,
what other industry has this problem?
And I'm sure somebody can think of more,

(39:36):
but very clearly arts and culture isdefinitely one of them that has this
competing imperative,
which is sort of ill-advised as abusiness model and can make things tough.
But that kind of feeds into thatidea of how do you measure success?
It can't always just be ticketsales. We think about three lenses.
There's sales, there's donations,and then there's mission.

(39:58):
And we can say something's successfulif it was positive on two of those.
So maybe some play we diddidn't necessarily sell a lot of tickets or had lower
sales goals, but it really hit ourmission and it really excited funders;
that would be a success. Andmaybe we're doing a show,
some silly something atChristmas, some fun farce.

(40:18):
Is it really pushing our mission along?A little bit. Who doesn't love to laugh.
But it's more for ticket sales, andthat's okay. You have this mix of things,
but if you try to do things that hitall three all the time -- and you can,
but if you try to do that every time,that's just -- that path to badness lies.
So it'll be really tough to do.

(40:40):
Yeah,
I love the idea of remembering themission as something that ties everything
together as well. Though I thinkit was a couple of Boot Camps ago,
we were focused mostly on the why,
remembering why you exist in the pandemic.
We've been in this sort of survival thingfor two or three years at that point
and were -- I think a lot oforganizations were forgetting that, hey,

(41:04):
we have a mission, wehave a 'why do we exist'?
And once we refocus ourefforts towards that why,
then we actually function a lot betteras an organization because we have
purpose, we have a drive forwards,
and we communicate that a lotbetter when we double down on that.
And that's actually true in business too.
That's Simon Sinek and 'The Power ofWhy' and 'The Infinite Game.' It's like

(41:26):
even for-profit companies do betterwhen they're actually trying to reach
for that vision and thepurpose isn't to win,
it's to perpetuate the gameto make everybody better.
Yeah.
Another thing we looked at in the previousBoot Camp that we did was hospitality
and understanding everyone's journeyfrom the moment they first interact with
your organization to the moment theyleave and after, going forwards.

(41:50):
And it seems like you havea 360 view of the entire
organization and that journey. Canyou speak to that a little bit?
Yeah. That has become more andmore important since the pandemic.
As people broke the habit of going outand seeing shows or going out and doing
something outside of their home,getting them back into that habit,

(42:11):
you have to promise them a goodexperience, a comfortable experience.
They want to know that if they'retaking their time and their money,
that it will be a good time and thatcould be challenging if you're not
communicating what peoplecan expect about a show,
if you're not learning about blind spotsthat maybe you don't see about some
space in your building or the seatingbeing uncomfortable or I couldn't find the

(42:32):
bathroom, all of those things, ifsomebody can't do those things,
no matter how amazing your performance is,
they will have left feelinglike they had a bad experience.
And so all of us on marketing anddevelopment are responsible for that
experience. Somebodymight have even -- again,
it's from the second that theymight see an ad and decide,
I might be interested in that. Let me goto the website. That's when it begins.

(42:55):
How easy was it forthem to find the ticket?
How easy was it for themto know where to go?
All those things have become vital now.
I think another big thingthat contributes, too, is --
and this is true inmarketing and development --
the second engagement isalways harder than the first.
So the second gift is harderto get than the first gift.
Getting somebody to buy a second ticketis harder than getting them to engage
the first time and being able to putthat focus and accountability around

(43:17):
someone's holistic experience Ithink helps reinforce that idea.
It can't just be enough that theyenjoyed the show, right? It's not enough.
It's got to be more than that.
One thing that I got from development --
so that report that says whatdonors are coming that weekend --
so one thing Sara does is she will takenote cards and write a little note to
some donors or maybe she knows somethingabout somebody that's coming back after

(43:39):
an illness or something.
She'll write a personal note and give itto the front of house and they set them
on the seats for those peoplewhen they come into their seat.
So sort of stealing that idea.When someone's a first timer now,
they get a special note from us thatsays, we see that you're a first timer.
Thank you so much for tryingus out for the first time.
There has been a $20 creditapplied to your account.

(44:00):
You don't need to do anything.You don't need a code.
Next time you buy tickets with us,there'll be $20 off. Please come back.
And that's been workingreally well for us. Again,
it's that kind of psychology of, I havenow $20 burning a hole in my pocket,
I want to use it. But that came from thesort of small moves from development.
Again, it's like that mightapply to 30 people in a night.

(44:21):
It's sort of a lot of effortfor a small group of people,
but getting somebody to come backa second time is so important.
It's huge.
It's huge.
It's worth that time and effort to dosomething like that that we've taken from
and something we'reinspired from development.
And some of the hardest partswe have is, sometimes --
so one thing we do that we didn't realizewas so unique was audience surveys.

(44:41):
So not sending audience surveys.A lot of people do that,
but how often do you read them?We print them out, every single one,
and we sit down at a meeting at the endof every show with the whole team --
development, marketing,production, the artistic team.
Sometimes actors and directorsfrom the show are in the room.
And we read every singlecomment. And it can be tough,

(45:04):
anonymous comments.
Sometimes people just say what they'rethinking and have different feelings
about it.
But always from those conversationswe leave with something that helped us
understand what people were thinkingabout our show or our experience or our
just general, what's itlike to walk in our doors?
Those comments range from 'I couldn'tfind parking' to 'I would've done

(45:24):
something different with thevocal projection of this actor.'
It could range from all things.
So looking at those comments is sovaluable and making sure everybody is
in them together and reading them allat once, we glean so much from that.
And I think it helps create sortof an overall culture of constant

(45:44):
self-assessment. If we can be accusedof anything as an organization,
it's that we have to rememberto celebrate our wins sometimes.
So we've had to kind of build thingsin to be like, Hey, high five, go team.
Yay. Yes, we did this. Good job. We arevery much kind of, okay, what's next?
What's next? And thatis good, that's healthy,
it keeps us on a highstandard of excellence,

(46:05):
but you kind of build up that skinand everybody goes through it and
we're constantly, even whensomething was a wild success,
it's doing that postmortemand going, great, what worked?
Tell me what was successful andwhat we want to repeat again.
And then what can we make even 10%better the next time we do this?
It's a muscle because it's hard.

(46:25):
Those negative comments ringso much more in your head.
But really trying to look atthat objectively and also see
all the hundreds of really positive onesor things people said, it can be hard.
And I can see how if pitching thatand sitting in a room with an artistic
leader,
you know how they can get emotional orthey're very passionate about the work

(46:47):
that they do. I mean that's why they'rethe leader, but it's just so important.
We like to say we do these showsfor people, which sounds so obvious,
but sometimes we forget that peopleare coming in and seeing the show.
Did they have a good time? It'sthe question we want to know.
And it's fascinating to me the numberof people that really can't answer that

(47:09):
necessarily for every show they do.
Yeah. So that's such a hardbalance to celebrate the win,
but also listen as well tolighter things. I remember --
I do a lot of improv,
and the first time was Iwas in Edinburgh doing that,
I remember all my reviews, but Ithink about the worst ones the most.
Yeah, of course you do.

(47:29):
We got called the antimatter ofimprov once and I was like...
Wow.
That took a little bit of celebration.
I like that. We've occasionally beenaccused of marring things with comedy,
so I appreciate that. So theantimatter of improv, I like it.
People are so mad. 'I don'twant to be laughing at this!'.
Oh dear. I love what you said aboutthe entire experience as well.

(47:51):
We recently talked with the head of guestexperiences from the Detroit Zoo and
they made the point of,
nobody's going to enjoy the exhibits ifthey don't know where the bathroom is.
And that kind of stuff of what you'resaying of that guest experience,
hospitality and accessibility as wellis just incredibly important I think in
organizations these days.
That's right,

(48:11):
and that's something Sara and I are reallygood at is really thinking about when
someone comes in, do they know whereto go? Can they be comfortable here?
That's important to me.
That's something I always reallydo when I'm attending things.
I think it's fascinating the numberof theaters that don't have photos and
information on their physical seatsavailable for people if they want to learn

(48:32):
about what it is that I'll be sittingin for three hours. Fascinating to me.
So we have our seat plan on there,we have information on there. Again,
it's not for everyone.
It's for that small percentage of peoplethat that's important information and
an important barrier. Where arethe wheelchair accessible seats?
Is there a ramp? Do I have to dostairs to get to certain places?
We try to make all that informationavailable so somebody doesn't come in and

(48:55):
have a bad night because they didn'thave the information they needed in
advance. That's terrible.Somebody's come to the door.
I want them to be able tocome in and have a nice time.
And I think that goes into the peopletoo, the staff, the attitude. It is,
like Jeanna said, you're giving ustwo of your most precious resources,
your money and your time, andwe don't take that for granted.

(49:15):
You'll have something --
you'll hear me say all the time if I'mat a donor event or a sponsor event or
honestly just walking through the lobbyof the theater before the show and in
conversation with someoneis, I'm so glad you're here.
And I say it a lot butI mean it every time.
I don't take for granted what it tookfor you to walk through that door
tonight. And it mattersto me that you're there.

(49:35):
And I think that kind of goes throughoutthe staff looking at those comments.
We get a lot of really, really positivethings about our front of house.
And you might just be a volunteer usher,
you might be a contractedbartender or whatever it is,
but that sense of 'you matterwhen you come through the door,
it doesn't matter who you are.'.
And the comments we get that are like,
'Your team made it so easy to exchangetickets. Thank you so much.' I'm like,

(49:59):
what are we doing to people at otherbuildings to let them pick a new...?
They're so traumatized.
They're so traumatized.Everyone listening,
please help put better energy out there.
Why are we making this hard for folksto just have flexibility in their
schedule?
We don't want to be considered likeairlines when you buy a ticket and that's
it, and you're screwed if you don'twant to go or you can't go or something.

(50:22):
But the important piece that the loopthat's closed is our artistic director
sees that, he knows that'sthe thing that we're doing,
and he can thank the front ofhouse next time he sees them.
And it means a lot to those people tocontinue developing and doing a good job
because they know everyone really doesappreciate the work that they're putting
forward. But that does start with Saraand I, because my policy is always,
if someone has entered this building tosee a show, they need to see the show.

(50:44):
So if their tickets aren't where theysaid they'd be or there's some problem,
whatever, let 'em in. We'll sort it out.Just taking down the barriers of that.
Stop making things socomplicated. Don't be so precious.
Yeah. Jeanna,
what do you wish more fundraisersunderstood about marketing strategy?
Well,
I kind of want to flip it and talk alittle bit about what I now understand

(51:08):
about fundraising strategy thatI've been able to use in marketing.
The biggest piece of that is thatit's okay to slow down and do the
next right thing if maybe it doesn'tnecessarily mean I'm going to get a ticket
sale tomorrow. That couldbe the biggest thing is,
how can I take time toactually develop the audience,
learn about what it isthat they're looking for,

(51:30):
listen to them and get themto be a new ticket buyer?
And the value ofstorytelling. The long game.
So being able to tell a longerstory, get people to join us,
why we might be doing a show.
Help them understand if maybe the showthat they're seeing isn't necessarily
their favorite thing,
but they might understand whywe've done it for mission reasons.

(51:50):
They might understand why we did itbecause we got support from the community.
All of those things I think I've reallylearned from fundraising strategy has
helped me in marketing.
Awesome. And Sara, on the flip side,what have you learned from marketing?
I think it really is the valueof the voice of the customer.
I think what philanthropists are goodat is kind of that small connection,

(52:12):
that conversation, thatanecdotal piece of data,
and that can be really valuable,
but it's not the strongestdecision-making tool.
I think what marketing really understandsis that you can't make the best
decisions based on assumptionsthat aren't based in good
data, or at least as good as you can.
And so it might be something as simpleas if you're trying to reinvent what a

(52:34):
fundraising event lookslike, it's like, well,
I can kind of go off of my gut or mypersonal experience and those things are
valuable,
but Jeanna can also help me put a surveytogether and I can actually ask my
people some of these questions.
I can actually get better informationthat's going to help me make better
decisions for my department andfor the organization at large.
If another organization is listeningand feeling stuck in their silos,

(52:58):
where can they start?
Small. I mean, we've referenced it before,
but a lot of this workI think has to do with
letting go of ego, releasingyour hold on your petty kingdom,
your little corner where ifyou've planted your flag,
allow yourself to be curious,

(53:20):
to be vulnerable and to go first.So it's easy to go, oh yeah,
that'd be great, but I want theother person to be vulnerable first.
To make the offer first. It's like,nah, whoever's listening, you go first.
Take a small step.
You're the one you've been waiting for.
Aww.
I think I saw that on aposter or something. You know,

(53:42):
I can't take total credit.
Oh, sure.
Yeah. Yes.
Getting curious and stop being preciousabout things and be authentic because
I think it is the personal connection.
Be humans together. That'show you do any of this.
It's harder to be crappy about yourcoworker when they were at your house for
dinner last week
or when you guys can just go downstairsonce a week to the bar and celebrate a

(54:06):
small win or empathize around somethingthat is hard that you're going through.
I mean, it's very obvious.Sara and I are friends.
We've worked togetherfor a very long time,
but that doesn't necessarily mean thatwe don't argue or we don't clash about
things. But because we'vesort of built this rapport,
she knows I only want the best for thedepartment and I only am feeling what's
the best for mine.
So all the passion that's coming frommaybe a potential debate is all driving

(54:30):
towards that. So let'shold on that and say, well,
how could we make this better?
And that can make thoseharder conversations easier.
But if you don't have thatrapport with somebody,
then the conversation is just anargument and you're not getting anywhere
necessarily. But anybody that'sdoing this work in arts and culture,
they have to be passionate aboutthe thing that they're doing.

(54:53):
I think that the people we work with inour company and people that I meet every
day in arts and culture are someof the most fascinating, lovely,
authentic folks.
And that's one of the reasons why Ichoose to stay in this industry and not
necessarily move to a corporateindustry personally. So know that.
Know that about the people thathave chosen to do this career.

(55:13):
They're lovely, passionatefolks somewhere,
even if they might be entrenched overdecades of being stressed and working
late. They care about thething that you care about too.
So that's really where you can start.
Yeah, there's a reason we're all here.
Right, exactly.
If you could broadcast one message toexecutive directors, leadership teams,

(55:35):
staff and boards of thousands ofarts organizations, what would it be?
So some of it is kind ofwhat we've referenced before.
I think this starts at the top andit starts with executives releasing a
little bit of hold andtrusting their people.
If you want to build a culture of trustat your organization where there is
trust between teams, that'sgot to come from you as well.

(55:59):
And so it's those -- that transparency,that accountability, that vulnerability.
That's the ability to say 'Idon't know' or 'I'm not sure,
I need help.' I think when thatgoes both and all ways across an
organization, that onlystrengthens all of us.
That helps everybody kind of be theirbest selves and do their best work.

(56:19):
And we like to say thatwe like to be managed up.
So we have my one-on-ones with my reports,
they begin that meeting and they bringthe things that they want my take on that
they need to update me on. My reportsknow I don't like to be surprised,
so that's a great time to bring meinformation. Let me know good or bad news.
It's only going to help us if weall know what's going on. Manage up,

(56:41):
allow yourself to be managed versusknowing that when you walk in the room,
everything you're saying is going to godown on the people that you're saying it
to. Try and flip it.
What would they start with in a meetingwith you if they had the opportunity to
do so? And that can be kind of scary, Ithink, to let go of that a little bit.
But I think by allowing that,
you're going to just learn more thingsthan you could ever have done yourself.

(57:05):
There's a fun adage in developmenttalking about making an ask of a donor,

and it's (57:08):
if you want money, ask for advice. If you want advice, ask for money.
And I think that the equivalenthere -- it really is.
It's not always about having theanswer or kind of dictating the plan or
whatever. Not that --
so much leadership comes from thatkind of servant leadership model.
It's that ability to really want tounderstand and trust that there are good

(57:30):
ideas all around you.
And as long as everybody's on the sameboat and is rowing in the same direction,
you're going to succeed.
This conversation's been absolutelydelightful. So thank you so much,
Jeanna and Sara for joining us here today.
Thank you so much for havingus. This is really fun.
We like talking about what we do.
And I'd love to hear -- soafter I spoke at Boot Camp,

(57:51):
one of the best parts was hearing frompeople that had seen the presentation on
social media or LinkedIn or email.
So I really would encouragefolks to reach out to us.
I love to hear what other people sortof think about these things and some of
the strategies that they're doingat their own organizations as well.

(58:12):
What a great conversation.Well, before we go,
it's time for another round of CI-lebritySightings where we spotlight CI
clients making headlines. First up,
the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra receiveda generous $5 million gift to support
its family and educational programming.According to The Violin Channel,
the donation will expand on thesymphony's outreach initiatives and help
introduce more young peopleto the power of music.

(58:35):
Big applause for investing in thenext generation of music lovers! Next,
WLWT News shared that the Cincinnati ArtMuseum is planning a major expansion of
the Art Climb.
That's the museum's nine-story outdoorstaircase surrounded by public art and
lush landscaping. The updateswill focus on accessibility,
adding paths designed for visitorsusing wheelchairs or pushing strollers.

(58:57):
What a meaningful step forward in creatinga truly welcoming experience for all.
Finally, TODAY.com caughtup with Bobby Barnett,
Artistic Director Emeritus of AtlantaBallet, who just turned 100 -- yes,
100 -- and still has his dancing shoes on.
Bobby shared his three secrets to a longhappy life, and our personal favorite?
'Doing what you love with whoyou love.' Happy birthday, Bobby,

(59:18):
and thank you for the inspiration.
We hope these stories leave you smilingand remind you of the impact this field
can have when we lead withheart, purpose, and creativity.
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.
This episode was edited and produced byKaren McConarty and co-written by Karen
McConarty and myself, Dan Titmuss.
Stephanie Medina and Jess Berube are CIto Eye's designers and video editors and
all work together to create CI's digitalcontent. Our music is by whoisuzo.
If you enjoyed today's episode,

(01:00:01):
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(01:00:23):
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Until next time, stay nerdy.