Why Is It Important That We Continue? Some Nonprofit Arts Organizations Rethink ...
October 19, 2021
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In Search of the Magic Bullet
Table of Contents
Document
- Author(s)
- Francie Ostrower, Ph.D.
- Publisher(s)
- The University of Texas at Austin
Page Count
41 pages
Implementation Tips
- Clarify your goal in audience building. Are you trying to engage a specific audience, or expand overall attendance? Are you audience building to bring in additional revenue, or to support a particular type of art that might not help your bottom line? Clarity around these questions will help you design more effective audience-building strategies.
- Consider the financial implications of audience-building efforts. Some audience-building initiatives will require financial subsidy, rather than generating earned income to cover costs. Beyond ticket sales, will grants, donations, or other subsidies be required to support your initiative?
- Use data and seek external input to surface unfounded assumptions, and be open to revisiting those assumptions. Organizations can ask for external input from audiences they hope to engage. See “Data and Deliberation: How Some Arts Organizations Are Using Data to Understand Their Audiences” (2020) for more information about how arts organizations can use data for audience building.
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