This post is excerpted from the plenary session of The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation’s November 2, 2015 workshop, Art of Change: Building Your Organization for Audiences. This is from an exchange among Dr. Bob Harlow, the moderator and lead researcher for the Wallace Foundation’s audience building initiative and three panelists, all of whom were participants in the Wallace initiative: Ellen Walker, Executive Director of the Pacific Northwest Ballet; Magda Martinez, Director of Programs for the Fleisher Art Memorial; and Christopher Taylor, President of The Clay Studio.
Building the Organization for its Audience
When the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation convened a workshop on November 2, 2015 to talk about audience development, I was struck by the tagline they chose: “Building Your Organization for Audiences.”
Building the organization for its audience. The phrase seems just right, and yet I don’t think I’ve ever heard it said that way before. We talk so often about how to build audiences for our arts organizations, but that seems to separate