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Volume Two
Issue Seven
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Welcome to our July Update. This issue features the New York City based National Corporate Theater Fund, a membership organization cultivating theatre fundraising and ticket sales opportunities in the corporate world. Read on...
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Client Feature: National Corporate Theatre Fund
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Bruce Whitacre, Liz Jones
and Liz Eckert at NCTF
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Client since: October, 2003
Starting List Size: 291
Current List Size: 1,739
Frequency of mailing: Twice monthly
National Corporate Theatre Fund has a full-time staff of three and one part-time intern. Bruce Whitacre is the Executive Director, Liz Jones is the Manager of Development & Communications, and Liz Eckert is the Ticket Services Coordinator. Liz Jones and Liz Eckert share the management of the Save My Seat™ program (described below) and Liz Eckert is primarily responsible for NCTF's web design and bi-monthly PatronMail communications.
In the Q & A that follows, the team at NCTF sheds light on the changes corporate theatre funding has seen over the last 25 years and the steps they are taking to adapt...
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Q & A with NCTF
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HOW DOES THE NCTF WORK?
National Corporate Theatre Fund (NCTF) was founded 26 years ago by the leaders of several of the country's leading not-for-profit theatres. At that time, the vast majority of corporate headquarters were located in New York City and these theatres were having difficulty building corporate relationships and therefore receiving corporate philanthropic support. NCTF was formed as an association of these theatres to access corporate funding from New York-based corporations that could be shared among the theatres. Over the past 26 years, NCTF has raised over $10 million in corporate funding for our member theatres, which currently number eleven and are located in major cities around the country.
In that time, NCTF's mission has expanded. In addition to raising direct support for our theatres through appeals to corporate philanthropic offices and our annual gala, as well as through corporate marketing sponsorships, NCTF plays a role in marketing theatre to corporate employees. Our goal is to provide as many ways as possible for corporations and their employees to work with theatres in their communities.
Through our relationship with over 40 major New York-based corporations, NCTF is able to tap into a base of over 200,000 corporate employees both in New York and around the country to help educate them about the theatre programs and events in their communities and to encourage them to attend and participate. NCTF's website, www.nctf.org, hosts our signature program, the Save My Seat Discount Ticket Program. Employees of many of our supporting companies can access our website, which includes discount offers to Broadway and off-Broadway theatres in New York as well as at our member theatres around the country, directly through their corporate intranet. The Save My Seat program provides these employees with easy access to information and discount tickets for a variety of theatre events, and also helps to educate audiences about the breadth of the New York and national theatre communities.
NCTF HAS BEEN OPERATING FOR OVER 25 YEARS. WHAT CHANGES HAVE YOU SEEN IN THE WAY THEATRE IS FUNDED? HOW HAS NCTF ADAPTED TO THESE CHANGES?
As NCTF is primarily concerned with corporate funding, it is the changes in that sector that have affected us the most. Since the inception of NCTF, the decentralization of corporate headquarters outside of New York has greatly affected our funding patterns. Although there is still a significant funding base here, many large corporations are based in other major cities and prefer to fund organizations that are local to their operations. This shift has corresponded with an overall narrowing of the missions of corporate philanthropy departments. More and more, these departments are asked to focus their giving on those organizations that will benefit their employee base and their business line most directly. For example, where one financial services corporation may have previously been supporting education, they are now focusing only on education programs that promote financial education.
The number of corporations who consider support of the arts as a priority is dropping steadily, and in many cases those corporations that do support arts institutions do so as a way to access the employee and client entertainment benefits that these organizations can provide. NCTF has responded to this shift by focusing more energy and resources on the employee benefits programs we offer, making sure that theaters offer something the corporations value and can't get anywhere else.
At the same time, by expanding our mission to include aggressive marketing for theatres, we are leveraging the limited resources that are available to help support as many theatres as possible.
WHAT ROLE HAS THE INTERNET AND E-MAIL PLAYED IN THE WAY NCTF OPERATES?
In the past year and a half, NCTF has moved our discount ticket program to an entirely online format. Previously, we had distributed vouchers with ticket offers directly to corporate headquarters every three months. This effort was costly and prevented us from updating our offerings regularly. With our new system, we can continuously update and improve our offerings, while encouraging our users to check back regularly for current information. Through the website's password system, we can also now track the usage of the program so that we can inform our corporate supporters of how much the program is being used by their employees, a valuable tool in encouraging continued support.
The corporations find the new online system much easier to use and promote and we have seen a steady increase in employee involvement, which translates to more and more tickets being sold for those theatres and productions involved in our program.
Through PatronMail, we have created a registration system, enabling individual employees to sign up to receive bi-monthly email blasts with announcements of new shows and offers. We ask our registered users to provide us with information about their employment and their theatrical interests, so that we can target additional communications to them about those events they might enjoy most.
Since implementing the registration system in October 2003, the overall usage of our website has risen dramatically, and we receive over 150 new registered users a month.
YOU USE E-MAIL TO TARGET SEGMENTS OF YOUR LIST. CAN YOU GIVE US AN EXAMPLE OF A SITUATION WHERE THIS HAS BEEN SUCCESSFUL?
We are just beginning to use segments of our list for direct communications about events, but the efforts we have made thus far have been largely successful. Last January, we were hosting our annual Broadway Roundtable event, which is a cultivation event geared to reach out to high-level corporate executives who are in a position to influence their company's funding choices. We sent an email invitation out to members of our registration list who had indicated that they were a Vice President or above at their corporation, and received a number of responses that helped to sell-out this important event.
In another attempt, when Amas Musical Theatre, one of the theatres in our marketing program, was hosting a short run of GODSPELL by their teen ensemble, we sent an e-mail blast to those registrants who had indicated an interest in family entertainment. On the day the blast went out, the theatre started receiving calls from our users. As our list grows and we continue to fine-tune our understanding of who our users are, where they live and what they are interested in, we expect to be able to continue these communications.
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Visit the NCTF Web Site
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Thinking about E-mail Marketing for Next Season? Request a PatronMail Demo
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If you're planning next season's marketing now, we'd welcome the chance to show you how effectively e-mail marketing could improve your results.
Today, over 200 arts organizations use PatronMail --and if you'll give us 15 minutes, we'll allow you to "test-drive" a PatronMail account to see how it works.
During the demonstration, we'll talk about how to comply with the new anti-spam law, and show you how PatronMail helps you stay in compliance.
We're happy to schedule a demonstration at your convenience -- let us know by clicking below.
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Click here to request a PatronMail demonstration
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National Arts Marketing Conference Announces Conference Schedule
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Visit the Arts Marketing Conference Web site today to plan your days at the nation's first and only national conference on arts marketing! Which of the 5 sponsorship case studies will you attend Saturday, October 2? And with 19 sessions planned on High Touch/High Tech marketing on Sunday through Tuesday, October 3-5, visit the web site today to find the sessions that best meet your marketing education needs! Register now for the exciting National Arts Marketing Conference 2004, High Touch/High Tech Marketing: Cutting Edge Strategies for Reaching, and Keeping, Today's Arts Customers.
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Click here to visit www.ArtsMarketingConference.org
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Please watch for our next Monthly Update, coming August 25, 2004.
Our mailing address is: 850 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10019
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