I apologize for not making an entry as usual last Wednesday. I was deeply involved with a fund raiser that evening. So far we have seen some positive results which I would attribute to a combination of our approach and the environment we created that evening. I thought I would relate some of what we did and maybe some of you might find elements you can use.
As I believe I have mentioned before, we are planning a renovation of our theatre facility. Our development officer was thinking about naming rights for some of the spaces and had an interesting idea.
It is often very difficult for someone to get enough money together to name a space in perpetuity. However, they might be interested in naming a space for five years at a fraction of the cost of a life time naming. Once they had committed to that, they might be more open to the idea of a permanent naming via an estate gift or other method. The arrangement is that the 5 year will go into our donation account for us to use in the short term and the permanent naming will go into an endowment.
After discussing this idea with our leadership, she had lunch with a long time supporter of the theatre to run the idea by him. He was very receptive of the idea.
Our next step was to invite people to a lunch brain storming session about the renovation and how we might support it. Our concept was to float this naming idea but also see if anyone had suggestions to refine it or even replace it with a better idea. Although only a fraction of those invited attended the meeting, those that responded with regrets expressed some excitement for the possible renovation and gratitude at being invited. Those who did attend expressed a fair amount of enthusiasm about our plan.
Next we sent out a letter to the same mailing list telling everyone we had held the meeting, came up with some new ideas and would be holding a campaign kick off event so watch for the invite. We sent off the invite a few weeks later.
We designed the kick off party to play to our strengths. We held the event on the stage which most of our audience and supporter had never been on. We had artist renderings of the renovation and a sample theatre seat for people to sit in. (The people at the brainstorming session actually got to provide feedback on a number of seat samples before the architect had to send them back.)
The musicians were located on the orchestra pit which had been raised to the stage level. To watch the musicians, the audience had to look out toward the empty seating area. In effect, the roles were reversed with the artists in the physical position the audience usually occupied and the audience was on stage which the artists usually occupied.
About a half hour in, at the end of a particular song, a flash mob which had slowly been infiltrating the party started to perform, stomping, singing, banging objects, etc. They moved downstage to perform a song and physically advanced on the audience so that they would move clear from an area of the stage where we intended to perform. (We also instructed the caterers not to circulate with food below that line so that people wouldn’t linger there.)
Some child performers were introduced and got the whole audience (supplemented by some of our flash mob) involved in a call and response. Then they launched into a wild performance singing a rap while fabric was dropped from the ceiling and three aerialists came running out, climbed up and performed. Near the end of the piece, confetti was dropped so it swirled around the aerialists and down on the audience. Staring up at the aerialists, the audience got to witness the use of some theatrical mechanics and techniques they had never seen before.
Then while the energy was up, we talked about the theatre, the renovation and the short term naming plan. We already had a person lined up to sponsor our Green Room for 5 years so we had him speak and presented him with the plaque that will be mounted outside the Green Room.
After that, we distributed information about the naming opportunities and I gave tours of the facility to those who hadn’t really ever seen it. Unfortunately, like a groom at his wedding, I didn’t get to eat any of the food I paid to have served.
However, our efforts have already seen some additional successes. One woman called back to our development officer that evening after she left the party to express interest in sponsoring our lighting booth. Another contacted the development officer this week about the women’s dressing room. I have to credit these events to the donor who sponsored our Green Room as much as anything we did. I don’t doubt that his generosity provided a catalyst for the others.
These short term naming opportunities aren’t really going to be enough to help us with the renovation efforts. Though they can cover buying lobby and green room furniture and various appliances we might need. Not to mention it adds a little to our operating funds. While there is a lot of good energy and interest surrounding the program, my guess is that we will probably need to see a renovation start within the next five years to sustain people’s enthusiasm.