Resources
Diversifying Audiences
Do you think your organization can serve a more diverse audience, but you're not quite sure how to reach them? Check out these resources to learn more about getting new communities engaged in your organization without alienating your core audiences.
Culture Connects All: Rethinking Audiences in Times of Demographic Change Report
Partners for Livable Communities and MetLife Foundation just released a report on current changes in demographics and how that may affect the way arts and culture organizations think about their audience.
However, arts and cultural organizations have remarkable tools at their disposal to engage these populations through meaningful outreach while simultaneously contributing to organizational sustainability.
This report details ten recommendations for ensuring that programs are inclusive, accessible, and relevant to new comers to America and older adults. The recommendations are not prescriptive but are intended to provoke thought and highlight innovative models. Each recommendation is accompanied by stimulating examples from arts and cultural organizations in six cities: New York, Tampa, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, and Phoenix.
Click the link below to download the report.
Cross-Ethnic Research and Marketing Initiative at Columbia College
The Dance Center at Columbia College initiated this study in 2008 in order to find ways to get their first-time minority audience members to become repeat attenders. Read more about the study on their website.
Overcoming Barriers to Participation: Roundtable
This 2008 roundtable brought together Wallace Excellence awardees to discuss the problems encountered when building new audiences while still serving a core audience. Download the summary from “Overcoming Barriers to Participation: Balancing New and Core Audiences” to learn more.
Entering Cultural Communities
Click here for a summary of Diane Grams’s book Entering Cultural Communities: Diversity and Change in the Nonprofit Arts. Grams presented as part of our program “Overcoming Barriers to Participation: Balancing New and Core Audiences.”