Transcript

[00:00:00] Aubrey Bergauer: Hey everyone, it is conference season as this episode drops. If you've been tracking along. I've been on the road the last few weeks speaking at various conferences, and I have so enjoyed meeting some of you. I'll in real life, in the flesh that is. And I just want to say thank you to everyone who's come said hello and said, you listen to the podcast. That means a lot and I hope I get to see and meet more of you soon, because I'm about to hit the road again for another conference speaking engagement, because tis the season.

My hope for this episode is that whether or not you're also attending conferences this year, that this episode will be helpful to you in a similar way, meaning this idea of learning from each other we are covering today another great case study I cannot wait to share with you. This is the third case study we get to hear this season, and it is yet another organization who has truly changed their narrative.

You know, hopefully by now that the theme for this whole season is what does changing the narrative look like today in 2026? And this organization is living proof that it can totally look different today than it would have even just a few years ago. We're going to hear about the tools they use, the automations they've implemented, and how they are just punching way, way above their weight. They are presenting world class artists on a very modest budget and modest staff infrastructure. You're going to hear all about it, and it really is, in my mind, a testament to what you can do when you decide that the old way of doing business just isn't serving the needs of the institution the way it used to.

And it is a testament also to what happens when key people on the board and on the team decide or choose that they are okay, letting go of what isn't working and what isn't serving them any longer, which in turn then makes space for new ideas and strategies to take shape. That's exactly what happened here. My goal for you listening to this episode is that you too, will feel more empowered to let go, be like Elsa and let it go the things that aren't serving you in your organization, in order to make space for what can serve you so much more effectively. No conference required.

Welcome to episode seven of this season of the Offstage Mic, I am so glad you're here. Let's hit it.

I'm Aubrey Bergauer and welcome to my podcast. I'm known in the arts world for being customer centric, data obsessed, and for growing revenue. I've been called the Steve Jobs of classical music and the Sheryl Sandberg of the symphony. I've held offstage roles, managing millions of dollars in revenue at major institutions, been chief executive of an orchestra where we doubled the size of the audience and nearly quadrupled the donor base, and wrote a bestselling book on the business of the arts. And I'm here to help you achieve all these same kinds of successes. In this podcast, we are sorting through data, research and business strategies from inside and outside the arts, applying those findings to our work and bringing in some extra voices along the way, all to build the vibrant future we believe is possible for our institutions and for ourselves as offstage administrators and leaders. You're listening to the Offstage Mic.

Support for this season of the Offstage Mic comes from Evolve Arts. One thing I've seen firsthand is that most CRMs make it really hard to run your org like a business. People ask me all the time, Aubrey, is there a CRM you actually recommend? That's why I want to tell you about Evolve Arts, an exciting new CRM that is revolutionizing the art space and the only one I've seen built specifically to make it easy to execute many of the strategies from my book. Evolve Arts was created by people who were frustrated with the CRM at their own organization, musicians and board members with engineering and tech backgrounds. They created the tool that they needed, so it's built for modern use cases. Performing arts organization see all the time. It's extremely powerful, while still easy and intuitive to use. In less than a minute, you can send personalized emails to first time attendees, identify and target patrons in every segment of the long haul model, and share a discount code with lapsed ticket buyers, inviting them to come back. Their team is responsive and supportive. If you are having conversations about CRMs at your organization, please check out Evolve Arts. That's evolve without the second E, evolveARTS. Search them on Google for free demos or tap the link in the show notes for more information.

Today's guest is Justin Morgan, a self-described emerging arts administrator and active performing musician who brings a fresh perspective to nonprofit leadership and organizational strategy in the cultural sector. As Director of Audience Development for the Chamber Music Society of Salt Lake City, he pioneered one of the first opt-out auto-renewing season ticket models in the region, achieving an 87% adoption rate in its first year. We are totally going to hear about that from him today. Under his leadership, the society tripled its season ticket holder base, who wants to triple their subscriber numbers, more than doubled total season attendance and increased total earned revenue by 64% and contributed revenue by 150% in just two seasons. We are going to hear about all of this and more during the conversation with him today.

Justin is no stranger to growing arts organizations. This is not his first time at the wheel. At just age 24, he was appointed Dean of the Gifted Music School, which is a nationally recognized community music school in Salt Lake City. Later there, he served as the institution's interim executive director. During his tenure there, he drove a 76% increase in student enrollment and beyond the arts sector. Justin brings deep experience and institutional operations from administrative management roles within the University of Utah ecosystem.

Justin is a true artist administrator, meaning he maintained an active performance career playing the double bass that he insists informs his leadership approach. I love that so much. He performs regularly as a substitute bassist with the Ballet West Orchestra, and previously served as principal bassist for the Bozeman Symphony. He also has performed with premier ensembles including the Utah Symphony and Utah Chamber Artists. As a double bass fellow at The Orchestra Now at Bard College, Justin performed regularly at Carnegie Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

As I mentioned, Justin is currently the Director of Audience Development for the Chamber Music Society of Salt Lake City, and their mission is to bring the finest chamber artists from around the world to Salt Lake for the enlightenment, enjoyment and education of the community. They do eight concerts a season, which all have top artists who usually play in places like Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Wigmore Hall and the Vienna Musikverein. Yet they do this meaning this meaning like truly present, world class artists in their own community. They're on such a limited budget and limited staff, and they do all of it at a very high level, at least now, today, which is the story in change you're going to hear about.

So this is for everyone. Well, period. But I think everybody could enjoy this episode in case study. But specifically this is for everyone who is trying to produce or present events on a shoestring budget and little to no full time staff. This is just such a case study in producing excellent art, and in deciding that truly world class art alone, as good as it may be, is not enough. In 2026, to generate the money needed in our world today and deciding to do something about it, deciding to update their business strategy and audience development strategy in service to that great artistic mission so that they can capitalize on their market so that they continue to fund the mission and stay around for a long time to come.

As we get into it, the Chamber Music Society of Salt Lake City is celebrating their 60th anniversary season this year, as Justin and I met for this recording. They had just had their big 60th anniversary celebration, and I want to start off this conversation by playing you a clip from a video that they aired at that 60th anniversary celebration event.

The audience has changed over the years, as you can imagine. I think classical music was sort of losing its hold. You know, here we have an organization that has lasted 60 years. The artistic product has been the highest possible caliber performances for all 60 years. That unwavering commitment to absolute artistic excellence has always been here. But 60 years later, the secret isn't getting out. We have a precious gift, and we have a moral responsibility to share it with as many people as possible. So we got to work.

Justin Morgan, welcome to the Offstage Mic. I am so excited to talk with you.

Thanks for having me, Aubrey. I'm excited to be here.

So start at. When did you join Chamber Music Society of Salt Lake City? Paint the picture of the organization. Then how you came to this role? What was the sort of state of the union then?

Sure. Well, I was always aware of the Chamber Music Society growing up. So I grew up in Salt Lake City. I went to the University of Utah for my music major. I was a bass player, and then I went to New York for a couple of years and came back to accept a position as dean of Gifted Music School, another arts organization here.

And, you know, I'd always been aware of the Chamber Music Society because of their close relationship with the University of Utah. So as a student and a music major, it was hard not to be aware of those concerts, those high caliber groups. My sense when I was a student was these concerts were amazing, but not very well attended. And that really was very much the case when I joined the board. So I joined the board.

I think it would have been in 2023, just the spring of 2023. The president at the time had approached me and said, you know, I think you're doing wonderful work at Gifted Music School. You clearly have some experience with nonprofit organizations. I think we could use some of that at the Chamber Music Society. Would you have any time to share with us? So I was very touched and and honored, of course, because this is a one of the oldest arts organizations in Utah.

We just celebrated our 60th anniversary, and I believe I was checking the other day, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center was founded a few years after the Chamber Music Society Salt Lake City. So that's kind of a proud point for Utah that.

Yeah. Feather in your cap.

Yeah. We were championing chamber music for a long time, which is great. But so by that point, I think it was our 57th season that I had joined, and we had a phenomenal lineup of artists, extraordinary concerts that we were presenting that year. And what again, I was just struck with, with each concert was just how I don't want to say poor, but just how much better the attendance could have been.

Don't get me wrong, everyone that was there was relishing every moment. I distinctly remember a concert with a baroque artist, Lea Desandre and the lutist Thomas Dunford. It was one of the most magnificent concerts I've ever attended. At the Cathedral of the Madeleine. There was not a dry eye in the audience, but there were only 90 people there. And that was really the moment for me that I, I'd been volunteering on the board. But that was the point when I approached our president and said, you know, I would like to invest a little more time and energy into helping this.

So we were really quite analog at the beginning. We were working with paper tickets. We were working with Excel spreadsheets. We did not have a donor database, but amazingly, we'd had some subscribers who'd been involved since the first season in 1966. So incredible patron loyalty. The folks that were with us knew the product, loved the products, the product was excellent. It was just the service delivery. The website was 2 or 3 pages. It was very hard to find information on how to purchase tickets or make a donation, and there were just so many opportunities to just dive in and start making things better. But it was it was almost overwhelming how many areas there were to to make improvements.

And so one of the things that I immediately asked our board for permission was to get the funding required to join the Academy. So I'd read your book prior to joining the board, and I thought that was it was just so I opening. And I have to say, as a fellow bass clef player, because I understand you played the tuba.

Oh, yeah. I'd love that so much.

And I think, you know, as a bass clef player, you know, you maybe resonate with this. I am very passionate about creating a foundation, a baseline, you know, whatever that foundation or infrastructure is to allow people to do their very best work and in this case, to allow organizations to thrive. I'm really passionate about creating that infrastructure. So that was kind of my desire and approach. But I feel like I took your Academy and the book, the Run It Like a Business Academy or Run It Like a Business book was where I started. And then I joined the masterclass and became a participant in the Academy. That was just really my my strategic map for where to get started, where to prioritize. You know, my attention.

I love I love a lot of what you just said, but one like bassline player laying the foundation, that's an analogy that I'm going to now continue to use. So thank you for that. And then two, you were describing the challenges service delivery and that I love. That's so in line with how I talk about you know we got to optimize the business around the art. The art is not the problem. But yeah I really love how you framed it is. Yeah. The issue is service delivery. So that's awesome. Okay.

I want to quote you here. You said in your 60th anniversary video quote, we have a precious gift and moral responsibility to share it. Speaking about the art, you present a moral responsibility to share it with as many people as possible. Can you just unpack that statement for us?

Oh, absolutely. I think most anyone who's in any sort of arts administration sphere, whether that's as a volunteer or a paid professional, arts administrator, executive director, board member, whatever you might be. Most of us found our way into those types of positions because of a love of the art, you know? And so I think everyone listening will resonate with that just on, on a human level, that something about this art inspires us all. But there are there are tools, expertise and resources that we can share with an organization that we are passionate about. And that was that was what I felt it was. It was that concert at the cathedral where we we it was one of the most extraordinary concerts I've ever been a part of.

You know, so I was a musician. When I left New York. I was playing regular subscription series concerts at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and the Met. You know, I went on tour with Tan Dun in China. I got I was very privileged to play some high level performance opportunities. And still that that little concert in Salt Lake City was was one of the most moving experiences I had seen the Berlin Phil. And yet these two players in a cathedral just moved me to tears in a way that I just said, yeah, this this has to be shared. So, you know, whether that's your time, your money, your mind, share, whatever it is that you're sharing, I think you find a cause that you're passionate about. And you, you you dive in.

Yeah, I see the response, like in your body language and your voice like. Yeah. As really impactful for you. Clearly. So the next part of your quote, right after you say we have this moral responsibility to share our art with as many people as possible, the immediate next thing you said is, so we got to work and I just I'm smiling as I say it, but what did that entail? Because I just really love it that that's what's next.

Absolutely. So I mean, we we really took a holistic approach. So if you're with a small or very small nonprofit organization, you probably have the feeling there's no shortage of places where we need to improve our operations. And that can be front of house, that can be ticketing, that could be the website, that could be marketing, that could be your board governance. Maybe your board meetings aren't feeling very efficient. So what we were working with was an entirely volunteer driven operation of board members. You know, each had a certain responsibility of I'll put together the mailing list and the newsletter, I'll take tickets, I'll sell CDs. And it was an amazing community of volunteers. But there there was so many places where we could refine operations and automate operations as well.

The first year I'd say before that concert, we'd been working a lot on getting the board transitioned from, you know, maybe we don't need to recruit board members who are only thinking about, can I volunteer for this one task? Call me a board member, and that's it, you know, and that really laid the foundation that allowed us to change our model a bit. So our board was really brave and and took a leap. Up until that point, we've never had a W-2 employee. All of our payroll, so to speak, was 1099. Just the artists that we were contracting with and anyone else was volunteer.

So we put together a proposal that three of our board members who happen to have more nonprofit expertise than than our organization maybe had experience in recent years. We could devote a certain number of hours administratively towards building some kind of infrastructure for the society. We wanted to test everything, and our board was great. They they gave us permission. Rudi Raffi, our president at the time, really put a lot of trust in us and said, whatever you want to try, we're willing to go for it. And that part of that was also sponsoring our participation. So we have an organizational membership for the Run It Like a Business account.

I was I was sorry to interject. I was going to ask you about this. You talked about getting like permission and funding and all of that. So sorry. Yes. Just to say yes. Please explain this. So keep going.

Absolutely. Yeah. We were again, I read the book and attended the masterclass and I was I was pretty sold at this point. So I just made it clear to our board president, we we have a group of contractors that's ready to go. We have expertise in a lot of areas. However, our time is limited. There's only so many hours that the organization can contract us for. And I think Aubrey is going to give us a roadmap of what areas will have the highest impact and return on investment for us to utilize those limited hours per month.

So we got the approval from the board, and now it's become a wonderful asset that if we bring volunteers on with the organization, that's a perk for them that they can participate in the membership. They can benefit from some of those professional development opportunities. So that's not something that's just one person is consuming. That's our entire organization is benefiting from that. Hopefully for for generations of volunteers to come.

I didn't realize you guys were you were continuing to add new board members and volunteers to the like to the membership and curriculum. That's I this is totally on the fly, but hearing you say that the I think the best organizations, like the ones that have the most success at applying the curriculum to their organization to do that, they're constantly adding new people as they come into the organization. Sorry, this is a realization I'm having right now in this moment. So when did you join the Academy?

Two years ago, June of 2024.

Is that right? Something like I trust your records more than mine. Okay, so much has happened since then, but yes, I think that's about right.

So we'll say June. June ish of 2024 when we open the doors for the cohort that year. And I remember by April 2025, less than a year later, that I do have a time stamp on because you posted about it, you had exceeded all of the previous year's earned revenue. In the first half of the next season, you had exceeded all of the previous year's earned revenue. First of all, congratulations. Second of all, how how did you do it? Tell everybody start with like, what did you tackle first and then how did you keep going from there?

It's a great question and I get asked it all the time. It's one of my favorite questions from audience members, actually who will approach me. We have these wonderful post concert receptions, and I hear that at every reception. You know, I've been coming to these concerts for years. They've always been good concerts, but it just felt like our audience was dying and now you brought it back to life. How did you do this? And I don't know that I really have a perfect answer other than go read the book and go join the Academy.

I mean, the great thing about the Chamber Music Society is we had an amazing base. We had a rich, almost 60 year history at that point of, you know, patrons, you know, we had names, contacts saved in spreadsheets. They just needed to be migrated to a donor system. We had an excellent artistic product that needed absolutely zero refinement. That was fine. You know, we I have not touched that one bit, but what we have done is, is just tried to make everything more visible.

So, you know, the first module in the academy is talking about making everything more newcomer, welcoming. And so, you know, from your website, from your marketing touchpoints, from your copywriting, you know, and Aubrey really gives you a lot of tools and advice and checklists and resources that you can just dive into to start looking at real world examples of how you can employ that. So we we tried everything. I mean, we really we started employing things with our programs. So, you know, we have a timeline now. So you know, that's a question that newcomers often don't understand is how long is this program? How many minutes do I clap? What is this Italian language mean. So we put translations next to everything. We put a timeline next to everything. We actually encourage photography in our performances just to keep your flash off. But we want you to be posting and please tag us when you do, you know.

So we kind of flip the switch and some of that, you know, we were nervous at first because again, we had a patron base that we had been serving for decades, and some of them were very particular, or at least we thought they were about how they would want to be served. But, you know, the book and the Academy really gave us permission to not worry about catering to your existing base so much. Take risks if it means you could bring in new audiences. So we really just across the board, tweaked and adjusted as we have gone.

So it's easy to kind of fall into the trap of thinking there's no way we can employ changes. You know, we're too small, we don't have the staff bandwidth to pull this off. And of course, the Chamber Music Society was very lucky that we had the resources to invest in contractors. That's not something we had an unlimited supply of it, really. It did depend on us being able to generate enough revenue that we could sustain that model or, or at least build a foundation that would allow those contractors to walk away and allow that volunteer model to be more sustainable than it was.

Another thing that we employed that I thought was pretty. Risky, maybe. I mean, I think it was brilliant for us because what we were working with was a concert hall that had capacity for 680 people. And our attendance, I mean, we were like at 90 or 100 people. It was very again, the audience members that were there were eating up every minute of it. But gosh, we needed to fill that hall. So we had a little bit more flexibility to innovate with this.

One of the first things we did was we adopted a new ticketing system so that we would be on ticketing instead of paper tickets, but we introduced a pretty lucrative buy one, get one free season ticket offer. And so that was really it was risky in the sense that we could have lost revenue. And we were thinking that like, well, what if we only get our existing base and we just get half the revenue that we would have gotten? We exceeded all of the numbers, though, that that lucrative one time offer was really brilliant for our organization.

And our next season we were going to retire it. But then I mentioned to the board, I would like to try this auto renewing subscription model. You know, this is something that I talked about and this is what I am here for. Justin, let's say you're running your performing arts organization more and more like a business. Insights are clicking. Dots are connecting. You're hungry for more eureka moments. But what holds a lot of organizations back is just not having time to assemble the data you need.

Bolero is a new tool for performing arts organizations that creates comprehensive, beautiful reports that give you simple answers to many of your complex questions. Questions like what programming actually brought in new audiences? How much of our audience returned this year compared to last? What events do people drive further into? See the data to answer these questions already lives deep in your CRM. Bolero reveals these answers so you can stop digging through data, sometimes even jerry rigging across spreadsheets trying to extract what you need. I know I've been there and instead allows you to spend your time thinking, planning, and making decisions. If you want clear reports created with your ticket data in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost compared to consultants, head to changing the narrative and click Let's Talk at the top of the page. Bolero will be at both the Opera America and League of American Orchestras conferences this year. If you're attending, go say hello to Bolero. And if you book an introductory call before this season of the Offstage Mic ends, the founder of Bolero will help you identify five additional questions not already a part of their question bank to custom build for you and your data. If you decide to work together, go to to take the first step.

Lay it out for everybody. Because I'm sorry to interrupt, but I just have to set this up. One of the biggest differences, you know, this this is for everybody listening. One of the biggest differences between our traditional subscription model in the arts and thriving subscription businesses everywhere else. There are many differences. But the biggest difference in my mind is this auto renewal. Everybody else, like Netflix, doesn't ask me, do you want to renew your subscription next month? My local arts organizations do. Every year we wipe the slate clean and we ask, do you want to renew? So any organization I've worked with that takes steps toward auto renewal, sees results, sees a lot of a lot more revenue from that. So but but there is huge fear around this from everybody I work with and talk to. And so yeah, that's the setup. Can you just talk us through that? You all had made strides moving away from paper tickets to E-tickets. Now you're thinking, okay, we want to try this auto renewal thing like the good, the bad and the ugly. Just please share whatever you can on this.

Absolutely. Well, and it's continuous refinement. So I mean, this is still new for us and we may make changes. But it was it did feel risky for us because the way that our organization is set up, we have an arrangement with our venue that the Chamber Music Society only retains revenue for subscription sales. We do not retain any single tickets revenue whatsoever.

Who retains your single ticket revenue? The venue or venue, which is I see.

Yeah. So the University of Utah is our venue and we have a great partnership with them that extends to an educational partnership as well. It is a mutually beneficial relationship, but it does add some complexity on the earned revenue side. Just even in the checkout process, that data goes to the university, not to us. But you can see why it was risky for us. If subscription revenue was the only type of revenue the society could benefit from.

So up to that point, the society had been selling prorated season tickets. So, you know, you'd start the season at $200 and it would with each concert, the price would go down because we didn't want to cut off our our legs. As far as I see season ticket sales, we had a few other packages like a choose four package. And so we we looked at the product itself and we said, okay, this buy one, get one deal worked really, really well for us. We had a time limit on it the first year that we introduced it, and we were not doing auto renewing at this point. We were just doing a BOGO just to build our audience base, get people in the door, introduced them to our missions, get them hooked. Right.

And so we did terminate the BOGO offer. And so that, you know, you had to subscribe by a certain date in order to take advantage of that deal. And then we had other packages that like a choose four that they could purchase through the rest of the year. But for the auto renewing for the second year, we got so many questions that year of just like, oh my gosh, that BOGO was so great. I want to bring my friends back next year. Are you bringing this back? And we have been thinking no for most of the year. You know, this was a one time thing. We just want to build our base and, you know, recover our losses. But I just thought, okay, if you want some kind of lucrative incentive to push the needle, as far as I know, we are still the only Utah arts organization that has done this auto renewing subscription model. I don't think Utah Symphony is doing this. I don't think Ballet West is doing this.

Yeah, to my knowledge, you are. What you're saying is correct. I think you are the only one. This is correct.

And so it was risky, but we said, okay, what if we bring this deal back one more time to incentivize this? We are still going to leave an option for one time purchases just to test the waters. You know, and we kind of worked with AI and stuff to, to code our website so that that would all work in our ticketing system as well. And I mean, I was amazed with the results. I think when I posted on the Academy's forum, I think it was somewhere like 90% by the end of the drive, I think it was somewhere like 84% adoption rate for the the auto renewing option.

So and we are just to underscore sorry, this is so important. I always, always say with the with rolling out auto renew is give people a choice. Let people feel in control of the decision. And so you did that. That's what you were saying. And you had 84% of the people say, yes please.

It's pretty fabulous. And we are I mean we're we're in April now. So last year's, you know, BOGO launched in April. So I'm watching our subscriptions every day. And I have not seen a single cancellation or pause request yet. In fact, I keep getting phone calls saying, when are you going to start selling more tickets for people who aren't just auto renewing? So we need to get on that and post our new season pretty soon. But I'm excited so far.

Wait, I'm sorry. I'm just laughing over here. You're this is like. This is I was going to say this is the Holy Grail. This is what we want. Now there's built up demand of people saying, how can I get in? That's okay. My whole this whole theme this season, now I'm getting on the soapbox. The whole thing this season is changing the narrative. What does it look like ten years later from when I started saying that? And that's a different narrative. 90 people. I don't think you had a bunch of people. I'm going out on a limb to say a bunch of people begging like, when are you going to announce the season? How can I get in?

Now there are lots of concert. Our last concert, we had 450 in the audience. So I mean, attendance is still creeping up even more as far as the tripled season ticket sales and the increased donor base we are, we're thrilled with the results. We are absolutely thrilled with the results.

Wow. So you're just okay? I'm sorry. I just got to drive this point home. You're just like making money on subscription renewals without like, right now in April, as we're recording this without, like, sending out invoices and things like. Right. Like, I mean, it's just I'm just laughing because it's so good. It's like almost too good to be true. Yet it's the same subscription model for all these other thriving businesses. So it's everything that you promised. You're not building your base from scratch every year.

It's still a ton of work. I mean, you certainly still need to update your, your, you know, your email campaign so that when that charge hits, they get some type of automated email confirming their purchase, reminding them of the wisdom of their purchase. All of the things you know, there's certainly plenty of work that goes into it. But the great thing about it is if you nurture that audience well, which I think we've tried to, you really can focus most of your energy each year on building new audiences instead of rebuilding the same audience members who already know and love you and want to subscribe. So I think that's the genius of this. You know, I can't say that our, our, our earned revenue is covering all of our expenses, and I don't think it ever will. We're always going to rely nonprofit organization, nonprofit arts organizations. That's never going to happen. I mean, unless we're filling stadiums of people, we're not going to make the money fully on the earned revenue side for most, like traditional performing arts organizations and presenters.

So just to underscore that, so which is why we're going to talk about donations actually. So okay, so I, I can move the donations now or you can finish your thought I apologize.

Okay. Absolutely. Go ahead.

Okay. So this is why I want to talk about donations now I want to pivot a little bit from subscriptions to donors. So. You crafted a communications plan for your donors? I don't know the details of it though. So can you talk us through that? What need or problem are you trying to address on the donor side? We just talked about how you successfully addressed so many issues on the earned revenue side. What did you come up with for the contributed revenue side? Talk us through that.

You know, I immediately came in. I wanted to just dive into these spreadsheets. I wanted to put them in some kind of donor database so I could start taking notes. And one of the great things for us is because we were such a small nonprofit organization, you know, I'm usually front of house. It's me, Heather. A number of our volunteers are at the front of house greeting guests as they come. I know most of our audience by names. I'll give them a hug as they walk in. So just that being on the ground when you know your audience, it just it's so helpful. And especially if you can get other volunteers or members of your board who have their own little portfolio. Maybe each of us know ten people who come to these concerts, like, make a point to say hi to those ten people, ask them how they enjoyed the concert, you know, whatever that cultivation is.

So a lot of it was that kind of grassroots strategizing, strategizing with the board of like, how can we talk to our guests? How can we make sure everyone feels welcome and seen at each concert? And then, yeah, just sending, you know, thank you cards, handwritten thank you cards. So there's a there's a brilliant tool which I think nonprofits should be more aware of. It's called Handwrytten and that's wrytten. Handwrytten. It's a it's a card service that basically you can upload a book list of of thank you notes or cards. You can customize it however you want, apply your branding, but they will actually write a card and mail it for you. So it eliminates a lot of the legwork. And maybe I'm giving away a trade secret here, and I don't want our donors. If they're listening to this to feel any less appreciated, they should feel so appreciated. But this is really the way that when you are a small nonprofit and you have no staff, you just have volunteer, small or big.

Sorry, I have to interject because this particular point is sometimes where I get pushed back and people are like, Aubrey, does this scale, does hand handwritten stuff scale? And I'm like, yeah, you pay somebody. That's how it scales. There are services that do this. So I just have to say it does not matter how many zeros in the budget or where the comma goes.

I think it's a touch points. I think we could be doing even more than we are. But that was just one immediate touch. Point was, I just wanted to thank and call out the people who have been consistently donating, despite not having any sort of development infrastructure in place. It wasn't exactly easy to make a donation back in those days, and so just making sure that those folks were celebrated was extremely important.

I want to talk a little bit more about the board. You started to get into this, and so many people come to office hours asking about managing up to the board, getting there by in for this work. And. You know, I just thought people would come questions about, you know, let's talk strategy and growth in revenue. And instead it's these softer skills often of how are we engaging our board. How are we getting them to to come along with all of this. And so my question on this, aside from I think your unique and wonderfully beneficial role to straddle both, is some of those board members, I think have been on your board for like 40 plus years. Okay. How is that dynamic? Was there resistant to change, or was there an appetite for change because they could see the writing on the wall, you know, a few years back, or was it a mix? Can you just talk about what's the dynamic with the the long timers? We'll call them for our long time board members who have been subscribed for decades.

I actually found them to be the most hungry for change. Surprisingly, you wouldn't expect that. But I think they all knew that this was precarious, that, you know, I mean, many of them were and have been donors or contributors themselves thinking this falls on me a lot of the time to sponsor this organization and to just keep things moving. But what happens when I'm not here anymore? And I think that that is a concern for for board members and for for your long time patrons who've been around for a while, at least for our organization. It did feel precarious, especially with the pandemic, you know, are we going to survive?

So really, the. I don't sense the resistance was anything as far as modernizing the ticketing, the email system. I think everyone really it was a conversation. It was a fantastic conversation in person that ended with a lot of wine and cheese, which was fabulous. But I think everyone was just really in agreement that we can't keep going like this forever. You know, I mean, the season that I joined, we were really being sustained by one planned gift that if we had not received it, we would not have survived that year. We did not bring in enough earned or contributed revenue, and that was just the reality of our situation. So we were lucky in that sense that our board was was brilliant and they knew we had to make a change. Their concern was more financial, just this is such a big change for us. Can we sustain it? And, you know, we we were in a very fortunate position that we were able to take that leap together. And there was a lot of trust both ways. And fortunately for us, I think that it's worked out really well for for the organization.

Thank you for sharing all of that. I want to look at as we start to wrap this up. What's next? What you just celebrated your 60th anniversary season. You have seen so many successes. And my question is now looking ahead, what's next for you and for Chamber Music Society of Salt Lake City? I think a completely acceptable answer to be fair is celebrate, maintain, continue to iterate. But I want you to answer the question is there a next goal? What? When you vision a little and dream ahead, what comes to mind?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, we only present eight concerts a year and we're bringing in artists from all around the globe. I see no reason why we shouldn't fill our hall every time we have capacity for 680. That is is absolutely my goal. So we're getting closer. 450 was our last recorded concert, so we're on our way to that goal. And you know, there are a number of ways that we can achieve that goal. Certainly through revenue is fantastic. But again, outreach is another powerful tool that, you know, whether you're partnering with local, you know, high schools or youth orchestras, music programs. We've also partnered with the with the Veteran Tickets Foundation, who can always use ticket donations. And again, you know, we've created positive touchpoints through donating tickets to vets and active duty military. And some of those folks have in turn become subscribers or become donors. So never be afraid to give away tickets.

Never be afraid to be generous. I think be strategic in discounts, you know, and you talk about that in your book and the Academy a lot, that you don't want to devalue your product necessarily, but getting people in the door, especially if you're like our organization and you just need to get bodies in seats, never be afraid of losing revenue. I have just found we have reaped so many rewards from being generous. You know, if you have a gala, for example, empowering your board, getting them to, you know, you have to fill a table, bring ten people each, you know, or maybe if you can't, if your board members don't have the financial capacity to fill a table, give them the table and just say your job is still to fill the seats. You know, get them in the door, get the right people in the door who are going to resonate with your mission and your cause. That's just the first part of just getting them in this cycle and part of the long haul model.

So as we come to a close, I just I want to say to you, Justin, you have shown and the whole team at Chamber Music Society of Salt Lake City, you have shown that you do not have to have a giant team or a massive budget to implement these strategies. So often small organizations think that that is the barrier. If I just had more money, if I just had more people, if I just had more hours in the day. But the funny thing is, that's what the big organizations think, too. And I've been there at all these different sizes of institutions, and it just always feels like we're lean and there's always some reason I've done it myself. You know, if I if I could just wait until this thing happens, then then we can do insert cool thing we want to take on.

And I'm just so continuously struck by the fact that you all did not make any of those kinds of excuses. You just got to work, as you said in that anniversary video. And I just want to say, I'm so glad you did. I am sure the city and community of Salt Lake is so glad you did to, and I hope that everybody listening is so glad you did too, because now they get to learn from it, learn from you, and hopefully feel like they can do it too. So thank you so much for being here, Justin.

Aubrey, let me also thank you. You know, I think it can be a lonely island, especially for those folks that are in the small and very small nonprofit fields and just having resources, whether it is the book, whether it is the podcasts, these masterclasses which are so helpful, or the Academy, if you can really dive in and just take full advantage of everything you have to offer. I just think you are doing such a great service to the entire landscape, not just nationally but internationally, of of arts leaders and and change makers, and whether whether you're running an organization with a $40 million budget or a, you know, $30,000 budget, whatever it is. I think there's so much to be gleaned here. And I just want to thank you for for that service that you're providing.

You're so good. Okay. I'm reaching through the screen, giving you a great big hug and a great big high five. Sending it back. Thank you.

As we've said this season of the Offstage Mic, running an arts organization is hard these days, without a doubt. But what if there was a way to make your revenue goals a little easier to attain, balance the budget and end the year in the black, and feel like you have a real plan for financial sustainability? As I've also said many times, hard does not mean impossible. That is why I am teaching a free masterclass where I share my top four strategies to grow your audience, expand your donor base, and ultimately increase revenue. Things you can do immediately to start seeing results. Things that don't require a huge team, mega resources or a giant budget. I've now seen these strategies work with over 300 individuals and organizations I've taught across budget sizes, geographies, and artistic disciplines. Just like you heard in today's episode. And I'm going to show you how to do it too. Reserve your spot for my free Audience Growth Masterclass coming up very soon. Think about the relief and freedom that lies ahead when you start increasing your sales and donations over just the next few months. This can absolutely be your reality. Reserve your free seat for this Audience Growth Masterclass right now by going to www.AubreyBergauer.com/masterclass. That's Aubrey Bergauer dot com slash masterclass.

That's all for today folks. Thanks so much for listening. And if you like what you heard here, hit that button to follow and subscribe to this podcast. And if you've been around for a few episodes now, would you please consider leaving a quick rating or review? I really can't thank you enough for your support in this way. To all of you. One more time. Thanks again. I'll see you next time on the Offstage Mic.

This season of the Offstage Mic is produced by me, Aubrey Bergauer. Our additional production support as well as editing is by Morreale Digital. Our theme music is by Alex Grohl. Additional support this season comes from Sandy Kobashi and Johann Dudley. This is a production of Changing the Narrative.

This podcast is brought to you by Morreale Digital. We all want our arts organizations to reach wider audiences and engage our communities, right? Well, a video podcast is a great way to do that. But as I know too well podcasts to take a lot of time and technical skills to do well. That's why I partnered with Morreale Digital. They handle the technical elements of production, editing and distribution so I can focus on showing up and sharing ideas that matter. To learn how podcasting can help you reach and engage your audience. Visit morreale.ca that’s morreale.ca. Or hit the link in the show notes.