CURRENTS
Audience Quest How to build new and enduring audiences for an orchestra? How to deepen an orchestra’s engagement with its existing audiences? The Wallace Foundation’s ambitious series of studies and reports documents innovative strategies that work for arts groups—with practices and ideas that can be applied at orchestras.
www.wallacefoundation.org
T H E R O A D T O R E S U LT S BOB HARLOW
The Wallace Foundation 5 Penn Plaza, 7th Floor New York, NY 10001 212.251.9700 Telephone info@wallacefoundation.org
Wallace Studies in Building Arts Audiences
EFFECTIVE PR ACTICES FOR BUILDING ARTS AUDIENCES
tion published The Road to Results: Effective Practices for Building Arts Audiences, by market-research expert Bob Harlow. Aimed at leaders of arts organizations, funders, board members, policymakers, The Road to Results describes nine practices that and arts-management students, the book arts organizations can use to make their audienceidentifies and explains building programs morenine effective. practices Written for arts organization leaders, arts funders, policymakers, and that arts organizations can use to make arts management students, the book draws from their audience-building programs more data-supported case studies examining the successes and challenges faced by from 10 differentten arts effective. It’sachieved based on data organizations as they undertook multi-year efforts to arts groups that undertook multi-year build their audiences. To read the case studies, as well efforts to build their audiences, and gives as other publications about building arts audiences, www.wallacefoundation.org. an overviewplease of visit what worked and what didn’t—and why—as well as new ways of thinking and practical tips. The Road to Results is one of twelve reports in the Wallace Studies in Building Arts Audiences series, which also includes ten in-depth case studies tracking successful programs (six have been published so far), and a forthcoming guide to market research for arts organizations. All twelve stem from Wallace’s work in a previous initiative, the Wallace Excellence Awards, which gave funding from 2006 to 2012 to 54 arts organizations in six cities to develop and test audience-building efforts. Here are excerpts from The Road to Results: Effective Practices for Building Arts Audiences. Download the complete Road to Results report and other resources on audience-building for free from wallacefoundation.org.
T H E R O A D T O R E S U LT S
In the fall of 2014, the Wallace Founda-
EFFECTIVE PR ACTICES FOR BUILDING ARTS AUDIENCES BY BOB HARLOW
T
hroughout the U.S., arts organizations face a changing and challenging landscape. Americans have more options than ever in ways to spend their leisure time, and younger generations have less exposure to the arts in school than previous generations. They may also want to interact differently with institutions than their parents and grandparents did. The good news is that many arts organizations are learning how to adapt so they can continue to fulfill their missions and even expand their audiences in the process. The Road to Results details
Reprinted with permission from Bob Harlow and The Wallace Foundation.
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the experiences of ten such organizations from among 54 arts institutions that received funding from the Wallace Foundation between 2006 and 2012 to develop audience-building initiatives. The ten organizations profiled in The Road to Results are: Boston Lyric Opera, The Clay Studio (Philadelphia), the Contemporary Jewish Museum (San Francisco), Fleisher Art Memorial (Philadelphia), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston), Minnesota Opera, Pacific Northwest Ballet (Seattle), San Francisco Girls Chorus, Seattle Opera, and Steppenwolf Theatre Company (Chicago). An analysis of these programs—each supported by evaluation data—revealed nine practices contributing to their success: 1. Recognizing When Change Is Needed Organizations saw a pattern of audience behavior that presented an opportunity or a challenge for their financial viability, artistic viability, or both. They recognized that change was necessary to seize this opportunity or overcome the challenge. In some cases, the urgency of the challenge or opportunity actually served the initiative by keeping it front and center, capturing and sustaining the attention of the entire organization over the years needed to build a following. 2. Identifying the Target Audience that Fits Compatibility has two meanings here: First, organizations had reason to believe, based either on research or prior experience, that they could make a meaningful connection with the target audience. Second, leaders agreed that serving the audience reinforced—and did not compromise—the organization’s other activities or its mission. 3. Determining What Kinds of Barriers Need to Be Removed Successful organizations identified the types of barriers impeding the target audience’s participation and shaped their strategies accordingly. symphony
WINTER 2015