Yesterday I noted that I was interested to learn that $5 million in revenue was something of a dividing line between theaters which supported themselves primarily by ticket revenue (above $5 million) and those that received the majority of their support via donations (below $5 million).
That doesn’t mean that the larger revenue theaters don’t need to do much fundraising. Back in January there was an article in American Theatre that talked about how artistic directors are increasingly expected to join the executive directors and development staff in soliciting donations.
For some years now I have written about how marketing is the responsibility of everyone in the organization. It appears this is becoming the case with fundraising as well.
Michael Ritchie, artistic director of Center Theatre Group … puts the situation more urgently.
“Everyone in our building is ostensibly a fundraiser,” he said. “That’s the new reality for nonprofit theatres. We are all more dependent than ever on the success of our fundraising efforts. Fundraising is no longer optional for an artistic director; it’s an imperative.”
In an August 2017 American Theatre online article reporting on artistic leadership succession, Disney Theatrical Group president Thomas Schumacher suggested a reason for the new urgency: the global economic crisis of a decade ago. “Any artistic director who gets hired today will also be expected to go out and raise an awful lot of money,” said Schumacher, who spent five years on staff at the Mark Taper Forum. “That’s just different.”
The artistic directors they interviewed for the story varied in how comfortable they felt being part of the solicitation efforts. Some were comfortable with it from the start, others mentioned the fear and anxiety they felt. At the same time, many spoke about financial difficulties which had forced them to become more adroit in these types of interactions. Many estimated they spent between 25-30% of their time on fundraising, though one estimated it much higher:
Abe Rybeck, the founder and executive artistic director of…The Theater Offensive in Boston, said, “Sometimes it feels like I spend 120 percent of my time doing fundraising, and it also feels like that’s way less than I’m supposed to be doing.”
One thing I was really curious about after reading the article was whether the added responsibility of fundraising had changed the perception of the artistic director’s role in an organization. For a long time there was something of a stereotype that the managing or executive director of a theater was there to keep the artistic director’s ambitions in check. While there have definitely been some contentious power struggles in this arena, I think the stereotype may have served to perpetuate the roles by giving license for the artistic director to say yes until being told no.
This may have been another facet of the larger general stereotype that artists didn’t need to know about business and such considerations would only serve to limit their vision. Likewise, getting artistic directors involved in fundraising might be a manifestation of the recent general push for artists to cultivate business skills.
Since artistic directors are being asked to get involved with the one area of a non-profit organization everyone would be happier to avoid, I am hoping it has gone a long way toward dispelling the perception that the artistic directors are the irresponsible dreamers of the organization. Reading what the artistic directors had to say about participating in donor solicitations, it is pretty clear they have an appreciation of the costs of executing their vision.