In today’s competitive environment, attracting and engaging new donors and retaining existing one represents a challenge. Engagement strategies utilized in the business community have successful applications in the nonprofit sector.

A pleasant front of house experience will bring your audience back again and again.  Learn best practices for your front of house, how to make improvements for ADA and improve the box office experience for all your patrons. 

What we need to know about social media changes all the time as nonprofits change how we use online tools and share information. This workshop will help those who supervise work with external audiences as well as those doing it day to day to think through some of the challenges it presents to the organization as well as one or two of the most significant new hands-on skills to have.

Part of the "Marketing Matters" Series

This participatory, lively workshop will show you how data mining and survey research have helped all kinds of cultural organizations succeed. Come hear from leading arts researchers and some of Chicago’s most creative arts managers — and try your hand at some real-world audience-data challenges.

Technology and the Internet have become an essential part of everyday life and changed how we relate to information, and each other. Organizations need to understand how people get and share information and how that impacts their marketing and communications work.

Part of the "Marketing Matters" Series

This two-hour workshop will focus on building and sustaining a more unified, integrated organizational database of customers, patrons, donors and other constituents, and discuss why this can make for more coordinated and successful marketing and fundraising efforts moving forward.

An Arts Engagement Exchange Learning Circle

Whether your organization focuses on writing, visual arts, or performance, you will leave this learning circle knowing how to give your audiences experiences to remember, and talk about. Learn all the dimensions of customer experience and satisfaction and gain the tools to assess them and ‘script’ customer experience beyond the mere attendance of the play.

An Arts Engagement Exchange Learning Circle

The experience doesn’t have to end when your audience leaves your venue. With web based tools and smart outreach, you can create a lasting impression—thereby giving your brand personality—and begin the process of converting audience members into evangelists. 

An Open Forum for the Arts Community

Join us as expert Denis Weil, Vice President, Concept and Design at McDonald’s Corporation, explains how to apply a user centered approach to develop or re-design your customers’ experiences.

Building a Vibrant Future for the Arts in America!

The 2010 Americans for the Arts Half-Century Summit will celebrate, connect, and prepare leaders to create their own dynamic future for the arts in America as a united field.