Archive for November, 2011
Community Database: Serving Up Local Audiences
Posted by: | CommentsErika Sung is an ASU doctoral student in community resources and development where she focuses on non-profit management. Her analysis of the Arizona Arts & Cultural Census/Community Database is underwritten by a grant from the Lodestar Foundation.
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Which comes first - the audience or the arts & cultural offering?
Consider what the community database reveals about the number of arts & cultural organizations situated throughout Arizona and the density of audience participation. I think it tells us that the AUDIENCE comes first!
From an organization’s perspective, a large population of arts & cultural attendees suggests that there is a tempting market from which to attract people to attend arts & cultural venues and events.
This map reveals the arts & cultural attendance density from nearly 700,000 unique Arizona households. The dark pumpkin color area indicates audience participation of over 9,000 households. As expected, the Phoenix metropolitan area is one of the biggest areas, with bountiful arts and cultural participation. However, what draws my attention is the fact that the households of Prescott and Flagstaff show very dense arts & cultural attendance as well even though those communities have very few organizations represented (so far) in the Community Database.
As of 2011, the Community Database includes four arts and cultural organizations in Prescott and one in Flagstaff. As you can see in the above chart, the organizations in Prescott represent 8% of all the member organizations. However, even though the dark pumpkin color represents bountiful households participating in arts and culture, the number of households that participate in local arts and cultural events was unclear. That means many people in Prescott go to other towns (mostly Phoenix area) to enjoy their arts and cultural activity.
For the leaders of local arts & cultural organizations in those communities, the obvious question is “How can we encourage the households to enjoy arts & cultural opportunities closer to home?”
At first glance, it may feel like bad news to some arts and cultural organizations. However, it shows actually a large amount of potential consumers that organizations can attract. It means there is a huge market that organizations can explore. If Community Database members can access the households’ information and analyze consumer’s pattern, they can increase the arts and cultural attendance rate for their own organizations and in their own communities.
The Community Database has already set the table for you- now come and partake of the feast!
Arts, Culture & Democracy
Posted by: | CommentsSUCH a fascinating, important and well-attended discussion took place last Thursday in Tucson …
Doug McLennan, Founder & Editor of ArtsJournal presented a keynote address titled, “MORE THAN APPLAUSE: The Pursuit of Cultural Conversation” in which he wondered how arts & cultural expression could have been so integral to the movements that led to the New Deal, Civil Rights, Vietnam-era activism, the Environmental cause, AIDS and the NEA “culture wars” of the late 1980′s but be far from evident in today’s most pressing issues, such as Education, 9/11, Iraq, Immigration, Health Care, Financial Crash and the Federal Budget.
Despite touch economic times, he argued that the arts & cultural community must not lose sight of its unique position to serve as ”an infrastructure of ideas” – allowing for the necessarily “messy, noisy, liquid & complicated” exchange of information and perspectives required in a healthy democracy.
Where the goal (and business model) of TV and radio seems to depend on polarizing discussions and keeping arguments boiling, Doug suggests that it is the realm of performances, exhibitions and other cultural experiences to engage multiple voices and open dialogue that addresses a far more complex range of issues, beliefs and desires. (He continued with a rich discussion of the growing significance of social media – a topic I’ll address further in a future post.)
Responding to Doug’s comments was a panel comprised of
- Ron Barber, District Director, Office of Representative Gabrielle Giffords; Founder, Fund for Civility, Respect & Understanding
- Denise Uyehara, Tucson artist
- James Garcia, Co-Founder, The Real Arizona Coalition; Producing Artistic Director, New Carpa Theatre
The discussion was simply too lengthy and deep to do it justice in this brief post – but among the highlights:
Ron Barber pointing out that after the tragic events in Tucson last January, that “there is a pause in the rhetoric” – and, perhaps, an opportunity to re-examine HOW people might engage in civil society. This is an ideal time, he suggested, for arts & cultural organizations to rise to the opportunity of a much higher level of engagement in all matter of community affairs.
Denise Uyehara sharing examples of her dance & performance art – offering opportunities to understand new perspectives on matters of immigration.
James Garcia explaining that the Real Arizona Coalition is a widespread gathering of business, civic and community associations on a statewide basis who have joined forces to confront issues that are firmly grounded in profound issues of race and power – and to which the arts & cultural community is invited to also participate.
The Community Discussion was organized jointly by the Tucson Pima Arts Council (Roberto Bedoya, Executive Director) and Alliance for Audience – and supported by a grant from the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona.
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Community Database: “Many a little make a mickle”
Posted by: | CommentsAs the 6th largest city in the United States today, the Phoenix metropolitan area has more than 130 arts and cultural organizations for Phoenix residents and visitors. The range and diversity of organizations and activities is reflective of a rich arts and cultural environment; it includes a symphony orchestra, opera and ballet companies, producing and presenting theater and dance organizations, performing arts centers, art and history museums, botanical garden, and festivals. However, not all of them are big organizations supported by large amounts of funding annually; rather most of them have relatively small annual budget to run their organizations.
As you can see, our 28 art and cultural organizations out of 49 member organizations also run their organizations on less than $500k annually–which is close to 57% of Community Database participants. On the other hand, only 19% of participating organizations have more than 6 million dollars per year.
Note: number of organizations is in the parentheses.
So, what do you think? Do you think relatively small budget organization barely contribute to the Community Database as compared to the big organizations? Below graph shows an interesting result, indicating how important small budget organizations are.
Of course, nine relatively largest budget size organizations cover 64% of households in the Community Database. However, in this graph, the point we have to focus on is not the largest budget size organizations but smallest budget size organizations. Even though their annual budget size is less than $500k, they can cover almost 29% of the households in the Community Database. Their annual budget is only 1/12 of the largest budget size. Yet even though, audiences explained by each organization may be slight, with accumulation from the numbers of organizations, almost 200,000 households are covered by small budget size organizations.
It is easy to overlook the influence of small organizations. However, like an old saying, ‘many a little make a mickle’, if small budget organizations stand together to understand their audiences, they will make a huge contribution to analyzing the whole database. Therefore, small budget size organizations are really important compositions of the Community Database.
We could ALL use some MAGIC!
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A BIG public thank you to Roland Sarlot and Susan Eyed who, as Carnival of Illusion, have been performing their special parlour magic show in Tucson for years to audiences of just 35 people at a time.
On November 30 and December 1 – they’ll be performing 2 shows in Scottsdale as a special benefit for Alliance for Audience & ShowUp.com. (And goodness knows, we are VERY GRATEFUL!)
CLICK HERE for complete details & to purchase tickets.
They’ll be performing in the cabaret of Scottsdale Desert Stages Theatre (to whom we also extend our thanks for making the space available.)
Tickets are very limited – so act fast!!! This is going to be an incredibly FUN show – and all proceeds benefit the work of Alliance for Audience & ShowUp.com!!!
More about Carnival of Illusion HERE
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Prescott Pioneers a First-Ever “Media Expedition”
Posted by: | CommentsIn STAR TREK, they would be called a “Landing Party”…
Last Wednesday, representatives of Prescott’s arts & cultural community undertook a first-of-its-kind ”expedition” to Phoenix-based media to raise the visibility of Prescott as a premier arts & cultural destination in Arizona and make valuable personal connections.
In a series of candid & highly-informative meetings with the Arizona Republic, KTVK/NewsChannel 3, Arizona Office of Tourism, Echo Magazine, Jewish News of Greater Phoenix, AZ Weekly and bloggers from Locallilly.com and Raising Arizona Kids – the delegation came away with immediately actionable insights about WHO to contact, WHEN to contact them and HOW they preferred to be contacted.
It may not be a surprise – but it was truly delightful to hear EVERY media representative express LOVE for the Prescott community and warmly invite continuing relationships to share knowledge of upcoming events & activities. That’s the power of such a collaborative effort: the major impression left behind wasn’t so much for any individual organization but of GREAT EXCITEMENT for Prescott arts & cultural community as a whole!
Participants were: Cyndi Gresser (Smoki Museum & Prescott Arts & Humanities Council); Mike Lange (Sharlott Hall Museum), Terri New (multi-media producer), Michelle McFadden (playwright), Jon Meyer (Prescott Center for the Arts), Patti Ortiz (Tis Gallery), Tim Graham (Whispering Pines Bed & Breakfast), Kim Villalpando & Edd Kellerman (Phippen Museum), Margo Christensen (Springhill Suites & Alliance for Audience Board Member) & Don Prince (City of Prescott).
The visit was organized by Alliance for Audience (with the very generous assistance of PR maven Steve Carr) - and in very close partnership with Don Prince, the City of Prescott’s Director of Tourism who (on top of everything else) piloted the shuttlecraft (er, drove the van).
Thank you, too, to the Arizona Community Foundation which allowed us the use of their conference room.
Community Database: Understanding “Genre”
Posted by: | CommentsThe Swedish have a saying that “Shared joy is double joy” – and that’s a great attitude to bring to the analysis of the Arizona Arts & Cultural Census/Community Database as you discover what your audiences do (and don’t) have in common with those of other organizations.
So far, 49 arts & cultural organizations have uploaded their audience & supporter databases into the highly secure and totally confidential repository. Yet their combined reach already accounts for nearly 700,000 Arizona households – which is close to 25% of ALL Arizona households.
It is important to understand the BREADTH of organizations represented in the Community Database – and understand that each organization’s entire database is classified into a Genre.
As you can see, various types of arts & culture organizations represented. Here is how they are grouped:
Genre • Participating Organization(s)
- Choral/Vocal • Phoenix Boys Choir
- Orchestra/Instrumental • DuoWest • ProMusica Arizona Chorale & Orchestra • West Valley Symphony Association Inc.
- Dance • A Ludwig Dance Theatre • Arizona Dance Coalition • AZ Dance Group • Conder/Dance • Desert Dance Theatre • Scorpius Dance Theatre • Southwest Youth Ballet Theatre
- Theatre • Actors Theatre • Arizona Broadway Theatre • Arizona Theatre Company • Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre- Arizona • Carnival of Illusion • Childsplay, Inc. • Nearly Naked Theatre • New Carpa Theatre • Phoenix Theatre • Prescott Center for the Arts • Southwest Shakespeare Co. • Theatre Artists Studio
- Performing Arts Center • ASU Gammage • ASU Kerr Cultural Center • Chandler Center for the Arts • City of Prescott/Elks Opera House • Del E. Webb Center for the Performing Arts • Herberger Theater Center • Mesa Arts Center • Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts
- Museum • Arizona Museum of Natural History • ASU Art Museum • Children’s Museum of Phoenix • Heard Museum • Phoenix Art Museum • Smoki Museum, Inc. • The Children’s Museum Alliance, Inc.
- Service/Advocacy • Alliance for Audience • Arizona Citizens/Action for the Arts
- Film • Phoenix Film Foundation
- TV/Radio • Friends of Public Radio Arizona – KJZZ & KBAQ • KAET Arizona PBS
- Education • Phoenix Conservatory of Music
- Nature • Desert Botanical Garden
- Other • Jazz in Arizona (Jazz in AZ) • Metropolitan Tucson Convention & Visitors Bureau • Scottsdale Convention & Visitors Bureau • West Valley Arts Council
Such a wide variety of groups are collaborating to build arts and cultural capacity in Arizona! Understanding how “genre” is represented is a basic step to get acquainted with Community Database.
In the coming weeks, we’ll examine the total database from a variety of perspectives. We’ll talk about distribution of organizations by budget size and examine audiences from the perspective of their demographics and also discover fascinating patterns in what they attend – and where – and when.
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Have a question about the Community Database that you’d like to ask Erika to explore? Please submit it to Census@allianceforaudience.org.
Introducing Erika Sung
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I am delighted to introduce you to Erika Heeksung Sung, a doctoral student in community resources and development at Arizona State University, where she focuses on nonprofit management.
Thanks to a grant from the Lodestar Foundation, Alliance for Audience has been able to contract with ASU for Erika to conduct research & analysis focused on the Arizona Arts & Cultural Census/Community Database.
As always, the information that every organization loads into the community database is highly-secure and completely confidential. Neither Erika nor anyone else outside of your organization (including me) has access to detailed information about YOUR organization’s patrons or performance.
However, what Erika does possess is the unique opportunity to LOOK AT and THINK ABOUT the aggregate data of the Community Database and offer a perspective that, frankly, most of us don’t take the time (or have the patience or skill) to do.
Starting this week, look for Erika’s weekly observations on the Community Database. And if you have a question you’d like to ask Erika to explore, please send it to: Census@allianceforaudience.org.
In her academic studies, Erika’s research interests center on cultural and arts programming and relationships with community development. She works with Dr. Rhonda Phillips, Professor, ASU School of Community Resources and Development, on cultural data projects including the Arizona Indicators initiative and the international Encyclopedia of Quality-of-Life Research study.
Erika’s prior experience includes over 3 years’ experience with a cultural nonprofit organization, the Seongnam Arts Center in Korea, where she served as a Cultural Program Planner. She holds a M.A. in Music Education.
Welcome Erika!
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AFA Receives Grant to Boost Participation via Community Database
Posted by: | CommentsYesterday, the Flinn Foundation announced a grant to Alliance for Audience for which we are incredibly excited and grateful! See their announcement here: http://www.flinn.org/news/1038
In brief, the grant is going to allow us to conduct a audience engagement science experiment using the new Arizona Arts & Cultural Census/Community Database.
Step 1 – TRG will conduct a “market modeling” analysis on the records in the community database to that will identify a core demographic or “sweet spot” of current and active arts & cultural patrons.
Step 2 – Then, TRG will identify 20,000 households in Maricopa County that MATCH that demographic “sweet spot” but that are not arts & cultural participants. (In essence, that will be a list of households that are not arts & cultural participants – but, judging by their demographic profile, SHOULD BE!) That group will then be split in two – with half set up as a control group – to which nothing special will happen; and an active group that will be the recipients of multi-faceted year-long marketing efforts.
Step 3 - In the first 4 months, Alliance for Audience will invite a select few organizations (to be strategically recruited based on the Step 1 demographic analysis) to make the active group the subject of their own marketing efforts - and AFA will underwrite those marketing expenses. We’ll be monitoring the response rate of those efforts very closely.
Step 4 – Beginning at month 6, we will open up the active group list as a mailing list to ALL organizations participating in the Community Database. (Obviously, with some structure to assure that they don’t receive everybody’s materials all at the same time.) Since organizations that are participating in the community database have the ability to analyze the demographics of their own audiences, this can be a rich resource for organizations that wish to strategically test their own new audience-engagement efforts.
Step 5 - A year from now – we’ll compare the rates of participation of the active and control groups. Our hypothesis, of course, is that the active group’s participation will be higher. What we are especially interested to learn is HOW MUCH HIGHER?
This is an incredible learning opportunity – not just for Alliance for Audience but for Arizona’s entire Arts & Cultural sector. Expect to see (many) more posts about this project as it progresses.
Please note that this experiment purposefully focuses on a single demographic target (to be determined based on the Market Model analysis) so as to design, administer and measure results most clearly. A key point of this experiment is that its methodology must be replicable for future efforts with other demographic target audiences, as future audience development efforts must continually pursue priorities for audience diversity.
If you haven’t signed up yet to participate in the Census/Community Database – it’s not too late! The next deadline for new organizations to sign the participation agreement is November 9. CLICK HERE for more info.
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