A four-part workshop on how to use annual planning, image building, strategic targeting and effective communications to strengthen your brand and build your audience.
Micki is the one you want in your corner. She is the clear-eyed warrior of the not-for-profit world, slaying doubt and misinformation wherever she goes. For us at The Room, we gained that most important and useful of tools from Micki: a sense of direction. Micki cuts through it all to get to the essentials of how you go from imagining to DOING. Nothing is more valuable than that.
Zack Fine // The Room
BUILDING AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION: ANNUAL PLANNING
Saturday, December 3, 2011
11am-3pm
520 8th Avenue, 3rd Floor, Conference Room
Prerequisite: Organizational Planning & Process: Parts 1 & 2
Ideas are a dime a dozen—unless you can make them happen. To do this, you need to carefully prioritizing and managing your limited human and financial resources. This session covers the how-to's for putting cement under your sales and fundraising efforts, including time management, creating a calendar, and carefully building a staff. We’ll discuss how to set helpful benchmarks, review methods for data retrieval and analysis, and provide the group with exercises for self-assessment. Register »
BUILDING AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION: IMAGE BUILDING
Sunday, December 4, 2011
11am-3pm
520 8th Avenue, 3rd Floor, Conference Room
Prerequisite: Building Audience Participation: Annual Planning
Understanding how people on the outside see your company is key to being in control of that image. In this workshop, participants will complete a 'branding' exercise to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the components that comprise their company’s image. We’ll discuss 'Tools' related to each item, as well as ways to measure the success of your institutional development programs. Register »
BUILDING AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION: STRATEGIC TARGETING
Monday, December 5, 2011
5-9pm
520 8th Avenue, 3rd Floor, Conference Room
Prerequisite: Building Audience Participation: Image Building
When you build partnerships around a particular production, these collaborations can often develop into long-term alliances, with residual benefits far beyond the box office. Learn how to target specific audiences for a specific project through the development of partnerships with individuals and organizations whose interests are relevant to the subject matter of the production. This workshop emphasizes the need for clear project descriptions, and for creating pertinent ‘surround events' to enhance the experience for a variety of constituencies. This workshop is most helpful if you have a specific production planned that will be presented no sooner than four (but preferably six) months from the date of the session. Register »
BUILDING AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION: SMART COMMUNICATING
Monday, December 6, 2011
5-9pm
520 8th Avenue, 3rd Floor, Conference Room
Prerequisite: Building Audience Participation: Image Building
Are you getting your message across? Are you doing it in the most compelling and economical way? This session will focus on evaluating different communication 'tools', including direct marketing, direct mail, e-mail, websites, and in-house publications, to determine what will be most useful to your theatre’s needs. In this session, we’ll emphasize the importance of maintaining an institutional image, and discuss how to create multi-use materials. Register »
Michalann (Micki) Hobson is an arts management specialist concentrating in areas of Institutional Development, Audience Building, Strategic Planning, Management Training, Staffing, Budgeting, and Conference Planning. Since 1978, she has worked with over 400 performing arts organizations and museums throughout the United States, Toronto, London, and Budapest. One of the leading proponents of management initiatives designed to examine and challenge long-standing assumptions about arts administration, she is especially skilled in the implementation and staffing of integrated marketing and development departments—a concept she initiated over twenty years ago for the Canadian Opera Company. Under her direction, numerous pilot projects have identified innovative means through which constituent organizations, both collectively and individually, could adapt to 'changing' environments through citywide research and cooperative marketing initiatives. These include performing arts organizations and museums in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and the not-for-profit theaters in New York City—sponsored by The Cleveland Foundation, The Heinz Endowments, St. Louis Regional Arts Council, and the Alliance for Resident Theatres/New York respectively. In addition to her individual projects, she teaches a series of Audience Building and Planning Workshops for the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York, which she has designed to assist participants in the development of an integrated plan to increase both earned and contributed income.
