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Fundraising’s Best Side Kick?
Your Box Office
How to make the point-of-sale time a point-to-donate time
Oftentimes ingenuity pays when trying to raise money, but
experts say that while thinking outside the box has a lot of promise for fundraisers,
there are a lot of dollars left on the table well inside the box. The “low-hanging
fruit”—fundraising techniques that take little time, effort, or
investment—are often overlooked by theatres. While waiting for the “big
idea” fundraising windfall, most theatres, with a little ingenuity and
a bulldog persistence, can nickel and dime themselves to solvency.
According to the Theater Communications Group, 52% of the total income for
the average U.S. not-for-profit professional theatres is earned through the
box office. The systems are in place to process money through the box office,
so why not leverage those systems to build your incremental donation base?
Theatre buffs have a credit card in hand at the time of ticketing, so it is
a terrific opportunity to turn audience members into patrons.
Be sure to ask
Often, complicated fundraising techniques are devised simply because people
hate to ask directly for money, but asking is the most effective technique.
“The ‘ask’ is fundamental to fundraising,” says Walter
Sczudlo, Executive Vice President of the Association of Fundraising Professionals.
“The theatre goer may say ‘no’ if you ask. But they’ll
never say ‘yes’ if you don’t ask.”
“Don't be scared to ask for donations,” agrees Caroline Newman,
Product Marketing Manager for Blackbaud, Inc. “Most people need a little
push."
Newman also emphasizes that a specific need will pull better than a generic
one. Make a compelling case, she says. “Try the ‘Feed the Actor
Ask’: Ask ticket buyers to make a donation to help ‘feed their actors/performers.’
That request could be rephrased to help repair the roof or stage, etc.”
Engage--and reward--staff and volunteers
Ticketing operators are sometimes shy about asking for donations. Keeping
track of who asks—and who doesn’t—and encouraging those who
are hesitant can help increase your pull.
“Emphasize the importance of fundraising to the organization’s health
to all employees,” says Sczudlo. “The most successful organizations
engage all their employees and volunteers in the efforts, rather than just
shunting off development responsibilities to one office. Solicit their ideas
for ‘ask’ scripts. You might find that a volunteer or box office
operator has the most creative or compelling script.”
“One of our employees here at Blackbaud used to be a venue manager over
in London and used The Patron Edge,” suggests Newman. “They wrote
a script and put it in the donation pop up window/prompt in the check out
screen so that it was a script that the staff could read advising patrons
that they were refurbishing the theatre’s entry and asking them for a
£1 donation. They then started running reports on staff members to see
who was collecting the most, and they gave a bottle of champagne to the person
collecting the highest level (based on hours worked). The staff began to take
this seriously and persuaded patrons to give more than £1.”
“When our telemarketers make a subscription sale, as they go through
the process of confirming the order, they will ask the patron if they would
like to be ‘100% for The Rep’ by making an additional contribution,”
says Betsy Corry, Development Director for the Milwaukee Repertory Theater.
“Basically all they are doing is following the same progression that
patrons would if they were filling out our subscription order form.”
Online ticketing creates donation opportunities
Subscription order forms and online ticketing programs commonly have a line
for additional donations. These lines can pull in a lot of money if fine-tuned,
so don’t overlook them. Keep these requests short, but compelling. And
be sure to have “Make a Donation” buttons that link to your online
donation form on every page of your Web site and in every email blast you
send your patrons.
“When asking for donations online during the ticket sales transaction,
keep in mind the number of clicks a patron must make to complete the transaction,”
says Newman. “You don’t want the patron abandoning the transaction
before it is complete out of frustration. The rule of thumb is no more than
four clicks to complete a donation. Make it as simple as possible.”
Most ticketing software manufacturers recognize the potential demand from
their customers for integrated donation capabilities, and either incorporate—or
plan to—this kind of functionality.
Kathy Schaffer, Business and Systems Manager of the Globe Theatre in Regina,
Saskatchewan, has installed the Theatre ManagerTM system. “We installed
it primarily for the online ticketing capabilities; we wanted people to be
able to purchase tickets 24/7, and we wanted to relieve pressure on the box
office. The online donation capabilities were kind of a bonus,” she recalls.
“To be honest, I’m not sure I expected that much from those features—though
we do use it in two ways,” she says. “You can go online and just
make a donation—and you can choose what campaign you want to donate to;
or we provide a reminder at the time of online ticketing, so if you’re
buying tickets, you can donate at the same time.” It has worked well
for them; in the first two months after they launched their Capital Campaign,
they’ve brought in over $4,000 in online donations. “And our development
manager really hasn’t started working with the online component yet.”
Online fundraising is still in its infancy. Most theatres using it find that
it still makes up a small percentage of their donations, and those donations
tend to be for smaller amounts than in-person or postal mail donations. But
most online fundraising methods are quite low in cost, and setting up such
functionality while setting up online ticketing is pretty painless.
Doing so may prove to be a wise investment in long-term donor relations. The
demographics of people who are comfortable—or who prefer—making
donations online is currently a bit younger than today’s most generous
donors, but they are likely to be the major donors of the future, so a low-cost,
low-effort attempt to establish a relationship with them now could pay off
handsomely later.
Or sooner: Not long after setting up their Theatre Manager online ticketing
software, the Globe Theatre was surprised by a $1500 donation added to an
online season ticket purchase. “Before that, the online donations were
small—$10 or $15,” says Schaffer. “Since then, though, we’ve
had several that were $100 or more.”
While some theatres may benefit from the luxury of an integrated donations
and ticketing software, other theatres are using whatever inventive ways they
can to get a little donation push. From adding PayPal or American Express
buttons to process online credit card payments for donations to purchasing
software just for the purpose of fundraising, theatres are seeking inventive
ways to generate extra cash.
Already locked into their online ticketing system, the Peninsula Players Theatre
in Fish Creek, Wisconsin, purchased Fundraiser Software in 2002 as a way to
track donations, donor history, name listings in programs and to create a
better direct marketing lists.
“By using Fundraiser Software we can create targeted mailing lists to
send personalized mailings for year-end appeals, campaign appeals, etc.”
explains Megan A. Felsburg, former director of development for the Peninsula
Players Theatre. “We have witnessed larger annual donor retention rates
than in the past.”
Felsburg notes that the lack of integration can cause a huge headache if there
are a lot of duplicates or missing accounts in either the ticketing or donor
programs. However, she notes that they have set up systems and purchased an
integrator to allow the programs to talk to each other.
“We run an integrator provided by Fundraiser Software which automatically
pulls in data from ticket sales,” says Felsburg. “Donations which
are not attached to ticket orders are just manually entered directly into
Fundraiser Software and are not reflected in the ticketing software.”
If you don’t ask for a donation, at least upgrade the purchase
More commonly used in theatres is the box-office upgrade to a premium or season
ticket. That can be as simple as saying “For just X dollars more, you
can purchase season tickets and get tonight’s tickets, as well as tickets
to X more shows.”
“We’ve sold ‘premium’ packages at the time of ticketing
for such shows as “A Christmas Carol,” that include a souvenir program
and access to the VIP Lounge, for an additional fee,” says Paul Knudsen,
Director of Individual Giving for the American Conservatory Theater in San
Francisco. “We don’t consider that donating, but it is additional
income.”
Even a strategically placed donation box can reap small incremental donations.
“We have a donations box for change right at the box office table,”
says Greg Robleto, Managing Director for the Delaware Shakespeare Festival.
“When someone purchases tickets, they have to hand their money right
over the donor box, and pull their change right back over it again. It leads
to a few kind people placing their change in the box instead of their wallet.”
Don’t forget to place donation boxes at the concession stands, too.
Turning dimes to dollars
Lisa Grider, Executive Vice President and COO of Graham-Pelton Consulting,
says it is important to differentiate between transactional giving—such
as donors willing to round up, or add donations to their season tickets or
ticket purchase—and philanthropic giving, which tends to be donations
in higher amounts; and to have a plan in place to transition transactional
donors into philanthropic donors.
“Anyone who donates a thousand dollars a year or more should be visited
in person at least once a year, whether they gave online or in person,”
she says.
“Development directors should be monitoring the theatre’s reports
constantly, and looking for ways to integrate those people who spontaneously
give ten bucks at the box office into their regular donation appeals,”
says Grider. “The same should be done with everyone who has ever bought
a season ticket, but who has not given philanthropically. Take the time to
educate them on how ticket sales and small donations are not enough to keep
a theatre running—that philanthropic donations are needed, too, to ensure
that the theatre continues to exist.”
To chat about more opportunities to use your box office for fundraising, visit
the DramaBiz Magazine forums at www.dramabiz.com/forum.
