The Economy and Opera: a tragic end or new beginning?

As part of my ongoing goal to include posts about pertinent to our colleagues in the arts, this week a story on NPR reported on the increasingly dire straight Opera houses around the country are finding themselves in. Worst his is the close to my home Baltimore Opera, which as it turns out, has had to file for bankruptcy, but even the all-mighty New York Met is having troubles figuring out how it's going to meet its $280 million (yes, you read that right), budget.

Here is the thing about Opera. It is not cheap. Historically, to go to the Opera, you almost by definition had to be a household with "discretionary" income. Tickets to the opening of the season at the Met, as I learned from watching "The Real Housewives Of New York City" apparently run in the thousands of dollars.

In an economic downturn, we generally expect those who don't have much to spend in the first place to cut back, but the rich seem to stay afloat. Not so this time around. Some of the wealthiest individuals have been hit the hardest, what with the Wall Street layoffs, the 50% slide in the market, and a certain Mr. Madoff making the investments of many wealthy Americans disappear faster than a magician ever could. Many of us feel this in our fundraising on a daily basis-those $10,000+ donors are slim pickings, but they were also the season Opera ticket holders.

While some in the story on NPR take an optimistic view that as the economy bounces back so will the Opera-going crowd, it is possible that times will never again be as high for traditional Opera houses.

But a few years back, Opera, the NY Met in particular, starting doing something that might be its saving grace in this crisis.

Check this out tho: a few years ago, the Met started showing limited engagements of live simulcast performances in HD at movie theaters around the country and around the globe. The prices they charge are higher than that of going to a movie-$22 for a showing of Madame Butterfly at my local movie theater-and while some doubt whether this will ever replace revenue generated from "house" shows (in 2008 these broadcasts contributed $1 million of the $270+million Met Budget), they are certainly growing in popularity (the first two movie theaters in my area I checked to find out ticket prices were completely sold out).

I can't find where I read or saw this, but some news report noted that up to 10 million people have already watched an Opera or even Broadway musical in their local movie theater. The Met Website even has a link to their HD livecast schedule on MySpace! And Opera houses around the globe are getting onboard.

The Gen Yer in me is very excited that an industry as "established" and "set in its ways" as the Opera is trying to reach out to new audience and generations, using channels that are appropriate for those audiences. Will the next step be performance staged entirely for movie-theater audiences? Will Opera, like so many other things today, become a global event over a local one? Will the "community" of Opera lovers now be connected digitally? Is it possible that the "Opening" of the season will become an online event? Maybe not, but it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility!

Agility in a time of uncertainty

Regardless of where you stand on DM-it's dying, it's set-up for growth-one thing most of us who delve in the DM world can agree on is that compared to web-based fundraising channels, DM is not particularly agile.

Not all situations call for agility-no matter how many times I monitor telemarketing calls, I am continuously amazed by how much some people love to chat with people calling to ask them for money, but agility can be a huge plus in fundraising efforts, particularly ones that are, what I like to think of as, "time-limited."

This agility can be particularly important for organizations that deal with disaster-relief efforts, but increasingly, many organizations are finding themselves in a situation bordering on "disaster" for the communities they serve and are likely to find themselves contacting donors with "unregularly scheduled" fundraising campaigns.

Let's say your organization has a branch in California. Let's say there are wildfires that destroy, oh, 1,000 homes and displace say, 8,000 people. Compare the time it would take to write copy, set up an email, if you are really technical, make sure it renders properly across all possible platforms and create versions for HTML/ text-only versioning. Even if you are an organization obsessed with the details of executing perfectly rendered emails, in a crisis, an email could easily get out the door in 48 hours.

Now let's try to do the same thing with DM. Creating the copy, let's assume this takes the same amount of time as copy for an email, even though in my experience DM copy tends to go through many more rounds of edits than email (perhaps this reflects a bias in how people gauge relative importance of this copy). Ok, so you've got the copy approved. Now you have to hope you have stock on hand to send an unplanned mailing out to X amount of people. If you don't have stock on hand, well, add on at least a week or two to get your hands on something.

Now some organizations are very well prepared, they have preprinted stock on hand. Others, have to start design from scratch. So you get your copy and materials together, print, lettershop, insert, sort everything, get it to the post office for shipping, and...

Well, here is where you decide-should you mail third of first? With rates going up by $.02 in May for first, third might be the more cost-effective option, but this means your "disaster" mailing doesn't get in homes until at 7-10 days later.

So, best case, first class out scenario, email still has you beat by at least 2 days.

"So what?" you say, the people who are most likely to give me money in this sort of situation don't check their emails anyway cause maybe they don't even have email.

This is certainly the case for many of us. But times are a-changing to tip the scales in favor of capitalizing on the agility allowed for by email campaigns:

According to a new study out from Pew Internet Project, "Contrary to the image of Generation Y as the "Net Generation," Internet users in their 20s do not dominate every aspect of online life. Generation X is the most likely group to bank, shop, and look for health information online. Boomers are just as likely as Generation Y to make travel reservations online. And even Silent Generation Internet users are competitive when it comes to email (although teens might point out that this is proof that email is for old people)."





(from Pew Study referenced above)





My grandmother's retirement building is getting a new computer lab installed in what used to be the winter sun room and residents can sign up for classes. She still loves to read her DM pieces, but maybe she will love reading those stories online as well.

Gen Y: Social Entrepreneurs

Today's post comes to us from guest blogger Desiree Vargas, co-founder of Give Forward, a really cool organization. "Our goal is to create a movement that encourages everyone to experience the joys of giving and receiving at any level. It doesn't take a million dollar donation to make a difference – by utilizing GiveForward, millions of people donating $1 each, adds up to the equivalent of history's most impressive philanthropic endeavors."

Desiree and I met through my blog and I asked her this Socially Entrepreneuring Gen Yers to share some thoughts with my readers.

Thanks again Desiree! To find out more about Give Forward, visit http://www.giveforward.org/

Hi! I’m Desiree, co-founder of GiveForward.org, a new online fundraising site aimed at getting young people involved in philanthropy. At the ripe old age of 27, I think I’m as old as you can be and still be considered a member of Generation Y.

I used to think that Gen Y didn’t really have its own identity. It was just whatever came after the MTV generation of entitlement and youth revolution. But over the last few years, I’ve come to realize that Gen Y is paving the way towards a unique set of characteristics not seen since the baby boomers. We’re socially and environmentally conscious, driven to action not just rhetoric, we are technologically savvy, confident in our ideas, and reliant on virtual networks of friends and acquaintances all over the world. We require confirmation of facts from trusted sources. We’re idea machines with eyes aimed at a better world.

Before starting GiveForward, I worked at the Kauffman Foundation (the “Foundation of Entrepreneurship” for you NPR followers). My job there was to help colleges and universities expand their entrepreneurship courses outside of the business school. It was honestly thrilling work. We were in untested territory creating e-ship courses for history, foreign language, film, and art students to name a few. But best of all, I got to see first-hand how Gen Y’s were creating businesses.

Many things amazed me about the work…more than will fit in this post. But something that I was really impressed by was how well college students grasped the idea of social entrepreneurship. For most people teaching the concept (i.e. gray-haired professors), social e-ship meant the creation of non-profits or the development of profit-making arms for existing non-profits to sustain themselves. But for many college students, social e-ship meant the start of a business that creates value for society. Business plan after business plan described start-ups that would do good and do well financially. While sometimes too idealistic to be a viable business model, these businesses reflected what I think is a trend unique to our generation.

By no means do I think that Generation Y created the concept of a social venture. If anything, the dotcomer’s and even some of the baby boomers looking to make a difference in their encore careers are the progenitors of this concept. But Generation Y has the opportunity to live their entire career spans expecting to work for companies that treat their employees well, give back to their communities, and create a product or service that brings value to the world. This doesn’t mean that your company has to be using wind technology to solve the energy crisis or single handedly fighting the AIDS epidemic. Your company can simply be providing a good or service without causing unnecessary harm to the environment, offering fair wages both domestically and internationally, contributing to the betterment of your community, and sustaining a financially strong business that creates jobs and protects stakeholders and shareholders, alike.

Some generations think we’re trying to have our cake and eat it, too. But I say, if your keep your moral requisites high of your place of employment, you’ll always do well by doing good.

Sites/stories I've been looking at this week

This has been a crazy week, so little time to blog, but I did want to share some interesting stories/sites I've seen lately and have been thinking about:

Buzzing4Change-"Buzzing for Change
is a one-day student-run charity extravaganza starting up at colleges and
universities around the country. Participants shave their heads, cut their hair
for Locks of Love or volunteer. They recruit sponsorship, 100% of which is
donated to a local charity that works to improve the lives of children living
with cancer. The flagship program is at The George Washington University.."

This is an interesting concept and I'd like to see how if develops/grows to other schools. Also, very interesting site format.

Google's
New take on "buttons"--a fascinating read for any techies here. How google
is reinventing the "button" from a functional and coding stand-point.

Facebook Socialvibe--Something you add to your Facebook profile that I assume features ads, money gets donated in your name. Plan to add this to see how it works.

Pluck On Demand--Ok, this is very interesting: kind of like a search function that you can add into your page but the results are relevant to your content and also are social media type things like video, articles, etc. Plan to explore this further.

An cute/interesting article from Newsweek: "You can't Friend me, I Quit!"

From John Lepp, this great heads up about SOFII--"SOFII provides charitable fundraisers everywhere with a comprehensive, easily accessible archive of the best fundraising creativity from around the world." Nice and thanks!

Is Your Organization a Survivor, Freezer, of Self-Destructor?

When I was ten years old, I went to a weekend retreat over Memorial Day for immigrant Russian children. I can't remember much about the weekend, but I do remember the afternoon we left. While the adults were running around getting everything and everyone ready to leave, we waited to get on the charter bus. Someone said, "if you are ready, go ahead and get on the bus."

So a few of us girls piled on, maybe 5, 0r 6 of us. We had barely gotten on the bus, when it started rolling backwards down the hill it was parked on toward a small building at the bottom. There were no adults on the bus and the drive wasn't there either.

I wouldn't say any of us had time to think. All I know is pretty soon I started yelling: "We are going to get off the bus. Start jumping off. Roll to the ground...Jump! Jump!" and one by one girls jumped off that bus. I jumped off last or second to last.

We were all taken to the hospital and the worst injury any of us had was someone had to get a few stitches. The bus ended up rolling into the building at the bottom of the hill and from what I was told was pretty much intact, but you never know what might have happened.

My reaction that was one of someone who is, as Ben Sherwood, author of "The Survivors Club", a book about how people who are "survivors" deal with adversity, that of 10% of the population that Mr. Sherwood identifies as having a "survivor" disposition. At no point in my ten-year-old life had I gone thru any kind of "this is what you do if a bus without a drive is rolling backwards down the hill training." Finding myself in such a situation, some instinct in me kicked into gear to get everyone off that bus.

Mr. Sherwood recently talked about survivors, and the other 2 groups of people-"the freezers" and "self-destructors" (my name for them summarizing Mr. Sherwood's categories), on the Diane Rhem Show.

According to Mr. Sherwood, when faced with an adverse situation, survivors spring into action. They "do something" to react to their circumstances. Then there are the "freezers"-80% of us. These people basically freeze up, get so overwhelmed by the situation they are in, they are unable to react quickly. Most of the girls who were on the bus with me froze up when the bus started rolling. They looked around at everyone, terrified like all of us were, waiting for someone to tell them what to do. When I started yelling "jump off the bus", they all did as I said. They jumped off.

The final group, or "self-destructors" are people that do manage to act, but do the completely wrong thing. This is the person, who when a plane is going down in the movies, helpfully screams to his fellow terror-stricken passengers "we are all going to die!" On my bus, there was one girl who absolutely refused to jump. It all happened very quickly, but I pretty much pushed her to the front door and told her if she didn't jump off herself, I would push her off. Maybe it was karma, but this was the girl who ended up having to get stitches.

Now according to Mr. Sherwood, he discovered in his research that much of this survivor, or lack thereof, reaction, is genetic. But even if you happen to be a freezer, Mr. Sherwood assures us, you can hone your reaction, train yourself to do the right thing in a given situation once you do manage to unfreeze .

And just because you are a survivor, does not mean you will always do the right thing. This survivor apparently does the complete opposite of the 'I want to live' thing to do in the following situation: when the security alarm goes off, instead of barricading myself in the bedroom and calling the police, I go downstairs to investigate. So not the thing to do if you there was actually a burglars, according to Mr. Sherwood.

As I listened to Mr. Sherwood, it occurred to me, that in times of crises of their own, organizations can also be divided into the survivors, freezers, and self-destructors categories, and I would imagine they break out across a similar 10-80-10% ration.

Take the financial crisis for example: there are the survivors, the organizations that "hugged the monster", reaccessed and moved quickly to do whatever was needed to ensure the organization, at its core survived. These organizations, during good times, planned and rehearsed for the bad.

Then there are the overwhelmed freezers. Having found themselves in the midst of economic collapse, they did nothing. They waited. They looked around for what everyone else was doing. And, if the organizations they were looking at were also freezers, well, it's not suprising we are asking ourselves: "how could so many get it so wrong?"

Finally, there are the "self-destructors." Seeing the economic collapse around them, they embarked on a set of actions that instead of protecting the organizational core, dug them deeper and deeper into crisis (think the automakers building more and more SUV plants, when consumer sentiment was clearly shifting to smaller cars).

For nonprofits, an organization whose leadership has grown and develops a "survivor" mentality at the core of the organization can be more a of a lifesaver than to most industries. We are, after all, dependent on the kindness of others. And when others are hurting financially, they are not going to be as kind.

Even if your organization is not a survivor by "nature", happily, the genetics of a charity are easier to change than those of a human being. To be clear, changing an entire organization's organism could be a decades-long task, but if the recent hardships so many of our fellow do-gooders face teach us anything, we would rather be in the "survivors" category than anywhere else.

As Mr. Sherwood points out, being a "survivor" does not guarantee survival, it just ups your chances.

So, how do you figure out which camp your organization falls into? To start, ask yourself a few basic questions:

1) When times are good, do we take the good times to prepare for a rainy day?
2) How many rainy day plans do we have? Are they all dependant on one donor or one large corporate benefactor?
3) If we find ourselves in a crisis we did not prepare for, how quickly to we react at an organizational level? Do we wait to see what our peers do, or do we lead the way?
4) In times of past crisis, how have we come out?
5) Who, at the organizational level, do we look to to lead us during a difficult time? If the answer is not someone at the very top of your organization, you should consider whether placing people in key decision-making positions who are not "survivors" by nature or aren't honing it otherwise, is a good decision.
6) Are we proactively seeking out those who can help us prepare for future obstacles? How proactive are we in general?
7) Are we actively self-destructing? Have we completely stopped prospecting for new donors? Did we decide to cut back across each level/department of our organization to a uniform number (all departments, cut 10%)? Have our most loyal donors stopped giving to us?

For more information on how to survive life's challenges, both as an individual and as an organization, check out Mr. Sherwood's The Survivors Club.org, a whole website dedicated to, well, survival.