The Offstage Mic (Aubrey Bergauer)

Innovative, inclusive, collaborative – these are some of the top traits of a healthy company culture. Last episode, we identified the toxic traits you may be dealing with at your arts organization. This episode, we talk about how you can renovate your company culture, based on the book “Culture Renovation” by Kevin Oakes, CEO of i4cp. And guess what: you don’t have to burn it all down and start over; here’s how to identify what’s working and build on that. 

For more insights on this, check out this past episode with Kevin Oakes himself.

“Closed mouths don’t get fed.” This is the mantra that Paula Wilson has led with, basically since day one of her arts administration journey. Like many of us in this field, she started off as a musician and realized that wasn’t for her. But when she transitioned into administration, she couldn’t seem to land the right internship. This episode, Paula shares how resourcefulness, mentorship, and finding her niche helped her end up with multiple job offers to do the work she loves.

Guest: Paula Wilson, Member Services and Communications Manager at Equity Arc

Why is the subscription model thriving in just about every consumer-facing sector yet in the arts is on the decline? Aubrey takes this question to Robbie Kellman Baxter, the world’s leading expert on subscription models.

Aubrey and Robbie explore four areas where the arts are doing it differently, and what we can do to update our own practices to maximize the important revenue streams we need: subscriptions, memberships, and donations.

Resources:

The Forever Transaction

The Membership Economy

We wrap up season 3 with one of my most requested topics of all time: the topic of how to lead change. If you ever find yourself asking questions like ‘How do I get buy-in from my board?’ or ‘Where do I even begin when it comes to implementing new ways of doing business in my arts organization?’, this episode is for you. 

We talk about what the experts say about fear of change, resistance to change, and other barriers to change; debunk three big myths about change; and share five things that actually work to drive change effectively at your arts organization.

No matter what role you fill within arts management, leading the change is one of the most important skills you can build. This episode unpacks the research every arts manager and leader needs to know.

How arts and culture organizations can use advocacy to drive awareness for your cause and brand, even when you’re not a global, visitor-based institution.

The San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance is known as an international nonprofit conservation organization with an annual budget over $400 million and thousands of staff and employees. They have two local front doors — the San Diego Zoo and the Safari Park — in addition several eco-regional “hubs” around the world.

The global work of San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance is helping the entire ecosystem, and this conversation with immediate past Board Chair Javade Chaudhri exemplifies that having a business mindset does not fly in the face of the mission driven work.

In fact, the data show that nonprofits of all sizes that advocate outperform their peers, and you do not have to be a $400M+ organization to engage in advocacy — it can happen small and locally. Chaudhri is candid about what separates organizations doing that well—having a business mindset being able to execute on that—versus those in his mind who aren’t.

We also talk about a few topics that have become near and dear to my heart in recent years, including company culture and staff compensation (as well as the need to pay staff competitively).

I am so grateful for Javade Chaudhri and him generously sharing his time, wisdom, and expertise. Enjoy his take on how the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance and all kinds of arts and culture organizations can run it like a business, and get your free resource to help you start or uplevel your own advocacy work: the Advocacy Cheat Sheet.

Learn the top findings from one of the largest studies ever conducted on company culture and how it applies to the arts.

Best-selling author Kevin Oakes is the CEO and founder of the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), the leading human capital research company in the world, and he shares how high-performance organizations we’ve all heard of have successfully changed organizational culture.

We don’t have to be giant behemoth orgs or flush with cash to make inroads on culture. A point Kevin emphasizes with actionable advice on how we can keep pushing forward to make our workplace culture better for all of us.

His book: Culture Renovation

Marketing that focuses on the art or artists is no longer effective for sales. Instead, marketing that focuses on the customer grows sales revenue.

That's because today, audiences “hire” organizations to solve a problem, meet a need, or do a job they need done in their life. This is the premise of Jobs to Be Done Theory, developed by Harvard Business Professor Clayton Christensen.

In this episode, Clayton Christensen Institute Chief of Staff Ruth Hartt joins Aubrey to talk about the Jobs to Be Done framework through an arts marketing lens.

Ruth also shares examples from the wild — real classical music ads done right and wrong — as she unpacks Jobs to Be Done Theory. If you want to see the visuals Ruth talks about, you can watch that part of the conversation here.

See Ruth’s website and subscribe to her arts marketing hall of fame.

Tell the stories of your arts organization and artists with tips and techniques from former Pixar Hollywood producer. Marcia Gwendolyn Jones, the producing force behind blockbuster animated films Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, and PAW Patrol: The Movie.

Aubrey and Marcia cover what bringing a script to the screen has in common with bringing performances to the stage, expert storytelling tips to apply to your own stories at arts organizations, and the highs and lows of storytelling: what are the best things about storytelling? What’s the biggest challenge?

Pretty much any brand that’s thriving and growing its customer base is good at storytelling, and this episode shares from one of the best storytellers around, so that we can feel empowered to bring our organization’s own stories to life.

Data is one of the most powerful tools you can use in arts management to increase patron retention. But how do you know which metrics to track? How do you find the time to stay on top of key performance indicators? 

Over several years of experience, from my first job at the Seattle Symphony to becoming an executive director and developing the 'Long Haul Model', I can now identify the main, underlying problem most arts organizations run into when thinking about their data. And I brought in some folks to help me talk about it. 

In this bonus episode, I interview special guests Sune Hjerrild and Jan Pilgaard Carlsen, co-founders of Artelize, a company that eats, sleeps, and breathes using data in the arts. We talk about how to harness your data to retain more patrons, what key metrics are important to monitor to know if your retention efforts are working, and why most CRMs make patron retention challenging, either because extracting the data and reports you need is tricky, or because it just takes too much time — and what to do about it to make it a million times faster.

Tracking and understanding your data doesn’t have to be a pitfall for your organization. Enjoy this special bonus episode to carry you through until the podcast starts again this fall.

Resources:

The Long Haul Model article

Rethinking Audience Engagement Panel Hosted by Artelize

Ever heard the saying, “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take?” What if we told you that when it comes to jobs they’re not 100 percent qualified for, white men are more likely than women and people of color to apply anyway? This was the statistic that made today’s guest decide to take her shot. Hear how an early version of the Uplevel professional development program – and the community of people within it – helped her find confidence, overcome imposter syndrome, and land the job she wanted. 

Guest: Jo Griffin, Recruitment Specialist at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity

One of the biggest mistakes arts organizations make is over relying on major donors. In this penultimate episode of the season, Aubrey Bergauer talks with Dana Snyder—author of The Monthly Giving Mastermind—about why major gifts alone won’t save your organization’s financial future. Together, they explore how a strong monthly giving program isn’t just smart strategy; it’s sustainable, reliable, and rooted in digital marketing best practices.

Learn how moving just 2% more charitable donations to monthly giving could unlock $9 billion in recurring revenue. Discover why recurring donors give 42% more per year, and how to build a donor pipeline that leads to more major gifts—not fewer. If you’re tired of chasing one-time checks and ready to grow real stability, this episode is a must-listen.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why over-relying on major donors puts your organization at risk
• The $9 billion opportunity in recurring giving
• How to launch and grow a thriving monthly giving program
• Why digital marketing skills are key to donor retention
• How to move monthly donors into major giving

The Offstage Mic is made possible by Artelize: their Audience Retention Dashboard is the one-stop place to access your audience data across every important metric. And also by Annual Fund Toolkit: they’ve built a support system to help grow your donor community and major gift pipeline.

For development folks in the arts who want to increase fundraising revenue and reverse the trends of declining donor households.

As more organizations are facing the national trend of donor households down, dollar goals up, Louis Diez is a thought leader with results to back it up across both higher education and classical music.

Learn more about the Donor Participation Project Louis founded: JoinDPP.org

Follow Louis on LinkedIn for great fundraising thought leadership and ideas.

The subscription model is thriving everywhere else besides the arts—to the tune of 20% of all consumer credit card transactions now go to subscriptions and memberships. So why then, are subscriptions and donations on the decline in the arts?

It turns out, there are three big things these successful brands are doing differently than arts organizations. This episode breaks it down, as well as offers ways to implement these ideas.

Get your free resource for this episode: 3 Reasons Your Subscriptions are Declining & 11 Ways to Combat It. 

00:00 Introduction to Season Three of The Offstage Mike

00:34 The Theme of Season Three: Running it Like a Business

01:43 The Importance of Subscriptions in the Cultural Sector

02:03 The Current State of the Subscription Economy

02:58 The Decline of Subscriptions in the Arts

03:05 The Discrepancy Between the Arts and Other Industries

06:58 The Three Big Differences in Subscription Models

07:50 The Importance of First Year Subscription Renewals

14:00 The Impact of Price Increases on Subscription Renewals

20:26 The Three Steps to Combat the First Year Cliff

29:13 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

How to monetize streaming performances for new and alternate revenue streams for your arts organization well beyond the pandemic. In a world where many arts organization have struggled to make money with streaming and digital content, or stopped streaming altogether, here’s one organization still streaming and making lots of money from it—and growing their audience, too.

Learn more about Dallas Black Dance Theatre.

Drew's article for the Wallace Foundation: Can Pandemic Be Catalyst for New Global Arts Ecology?

Create new and alternate revenue streams by monetizing the education department at your cultural organization. Not just for community engagement, Aubrey shares three ways the education team could be a source of alternate revenue, as well as examples of artists and organizations already employing this strategy.

Articles mentioned

• Designing a Modern Org Structure

Musicians Monetizing Education

• Nathan Cole (LA Philharmonic)
• Elizabeth Rowe (Boston Symphony)
• Christopher Still (LA Philharmonic)
• Rob Knopper (Metropolitan Opera)

Organizations Monetizing Education

• Richmond Symphony School of Music
• Beth Morrison Projects Producer Academy
• California Symphony Fresh Look

Business Coach on Monetizing Online Education

• Jennifer Rosenfeld

Understanding patron data can be daunting, confusing, or even cringeworthy for arts administrators. But your data is an asset, and arts organizations are leaving thousands of dollars on the table when you don’t fully harness it. The good news is understanding and utilizing your data is not hard when done right. It’s all about creating systems to make your data work for you. This episode, Aubrey talks with arts administrator and Changing the Narrative Program Director Stephanie Stallings about working smarter not harder, so you can use data to track and grow your patron retention. 

The Offstage Mic is made possible by Artelize: their Audience Retention Dashboard is the one-stop place to access your audience data across every important metric. And also by Annual Fund Toolkit: they’ve built a support system to help grow your donor community and major gift pipeline.

What works and what doesn’t at the bargaining table with unions in arts and culture. Cellist Ted Nelson served as chair of the players committee at the Cincinnati Symphony, and clarinetist Jessica Phillips served as players committee chair at the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Both worked toward collaborative and creative agreements, and in this final episode of the season, they share first-hand about their experience.

What needs to happen before negotiations ever begin, how training musicians serving in these important roles is critical, and their thoughts on streaming contracts going forward so together we can make the pie bigger for all of us.

“Convince me to stay.” This is what Allison Lambacher told Aubrey after years in arts administration and being totally burnt out. If you’ve been in the industry long enough, you’ve probably been ready to throw in the towel at least once. "But you are not alone and the narrative is changing". Hear how Allison – now Associate Director of Digital Engagement with the St. Louis Symphony – used arts management tools from Uplevel to go from being ready to quit the industry to advocating for herself and landing her dream job. 

Guest: Allison Lambacher, Associate Director of Digital Engagement at the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra

If your days as an arts leader are consumed by never-ending to-do lists, last-minute fires, and reactive work—this episode is your call to break the cycle. In this Season 5 finale, we dig into a leadership struggle that nearly every arts executive, administrator, and manager faces: the battle between the urgent and the important. 

Through honest reflection, personal experience, and practical tools, we unpack why time management in arts leadership isn’t just about productivity—it’s about reclaiming your role as a strategic visionary. You’ll learn how to identify the 20% of your work that drives real impact, why busyness can be a form of avoidance, and how to shift your focus toward building a thriving future for your organization. If you're ready to trade burnout for clarity and momentum, this episode offers both the mindset shift and tactical tools to help you get there.

The Offstage Mic is made possible by Artelize: their Audience Retention Dashboard is the one-stop place to access your audience data across every important metric. And also by Annual Fund Toolkit: they’ve built a support system to help grow your donor community and major gift pipeline.

For arts organizations, the vast majority of your audience is not subscribers and donors; over 90% of your patrons are the ones who come and go, never to engage with another performance again. How can arts administrators capture that large segment of their audience base and stop the churn? Redesign the user experience. This episode, Aubrey talks with UX and product designer, Linda Hsieh Logston. She shares five steps to applying UX design to arts management. 

The Offstage Mic is made possible by Artelize: their Audience Retention Dashboard is the one-stop place to access your audience data across every important metric. And also by Annual Fund Toolkit: they’ve built a support system to help grow your donor community and major gift pipeline.

How to balance risk taking with sustainability at an arts organization. And how you can make sure a new idea is not really that risky after all.

Then, Aubrey covers how to find common ground in negotiations, sharing lessons we can learn from big organizations like the Met Opera, smaller organizations like the California Symphony, and a Harvard Business School professor.

Talent development in the arts is critical for productivity, efficiency, and growing high performing teams that deliver results. People want autonomy, but that also must come with accountability, and this episode puts research behind how to do that.

Aubrey also answers a question on the balance between digital engagement and in person offerings. When streaming is often prohibitively expensive, what’s the right digital strategy forward instead?

Resources mentioned:

• Talent Development: Why Most Organizations Don't Invest Much in It, And How the Investment Pays Off
• Learn more about Aubrey’s Summer Uplevel course and coaching

How to update the organization structure of your arts organizations to be more productive, break down silos, and better do the work.

Hear from Julian Chender, an expert in organization design through his work at Accenture as well as his own company he founded. Together, Aubrey and Julian look at the challenges with the existing structure that's been in place at most arts organizations for the last 40+ years, and how to design the organization for goals that affect everyone going forward.

Links

·     Organization design article Julian and Aubrey co-authored.

·     See Julian’s slides on YouTube.

Symphonies, operas, ballet companies, theaters, museums, and more all want to know how to get their audiences back. For any person or organization wanting a roadmap, Aubrey outlines a five-part business plan to spin up a flywheel of revenue and relevance to get your patrons to come back and stay.

Resources mentioned:

• What it would look like if attendance trends pre-pandemic were accelerated 10 years
• Post-Pandemic Business Plan
• Long Haul Model for Patron Retention
• Orchestra X User Experience Research

Season two is here! You all were so fantastic during the pilot season, so now we’re back for season two — this time with a team of awesome women audio engineers and musicians working behind the scenes to make this come together for you. And that’s extra fitting because this whole season is about how the narrative is changing in the arts.

We are at an inflection point for arts organizations: audiences are down from pre-pandemic levels, subscriptions on the decline, still confronting systemic discrimination and working to diversify, trying to attract and retain talent, and ultimately reclaim relevance in a complex world. The good news is all of these topics are advancing, even if slowly.

Season two includes 11 new episodes, released every other week, as we bring you interviews from some of my favorite experts on these subjects and others to help us build the vibrant future we know is possible.

The arts can be a tough business, but the narrative is changing, and I’m so glad you’re here to be a part of it.

Major gifts are critical for every arts organization. This episode features board member and major gift philanthropist Susan Bay Nimoy, wife of the late actor Leonard Nimoy (most known for his role as Spock on Star Trek, and yes, we talk about it!). We cover all things major gifts, including relationship building, how that takes time, and what the process is that compels her as a major donor to give generously.

Susan Bay Nimoy has served on the board of many arts organizations, including the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Symphony Space in New York, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the Griffith Observatory. She recently endowed The Nimoy Theatre in LA, which is part of UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance.

Want to know what to say when building major donor relationships in the arts and ultimately soliciting a major gift? Download your free resource, the Major Donor Fast Track Guide.

Advancing in arts leadership can be tricky, because what got you to where you are now likely won’t get you to where you want to be. In the final part of this bonus series, Aubrey gives you real-world examples of the seven researched-backed steps to advancing your career in arts management. Then, she guides you through a visioning exercise to identify the conditions and behaviors needed to become the arts leader you want to be.  

Does managing operations at your arts organization feel tedious or unwieldy? Maybe you know your internal processes need a boost, but don’t you know where to begin. Good news: It’s actually more simple than you think. This episode, Aubrey talks about the Kaizen Method of sustained, incremental change. If it feels like you’re trying to turn a big ship, instead of letting perfect be the enemy of good, start by testing out small changes to see what yields the biggest results. This episode tells you how. 

The Offstage Mic is made possible by Artelize: their Audience Retention Dashboard is the one-stop place to access your audience data across every important metric. And also by Annual Fund Toolkit: they’ve built a support system to help grow your donor community and major gift pipeline.

Ways to improve company culture, and how to fire a board member who isn’t performing or contributing in the way your arts organization or nonprofit needs. Welcome to the debut episode where Aubrey answers audience questions.

For more content on the business of arts and culture, follow Aubrey on LinkedIn, Instagram, or the community newsletter.

Yesterday was publication day for my new book, Run It Like A Business: Strategies for Arts Organizations to Increase Audiences, Remain Relevant, and Multiply Money—Without Losing the Art.

To celebrate, we put together something special for you: a live show we recorded just last night at the book launch party here in San Francisco. It’s a conversation with myself and Kelly Harris, Executive Director of Haight Street Art Center.

The book and our conversation is for people and arts organizations who want to:

• Grow audiences and keep them coming back again
• Make our organizations more inclusive
• Get younger attendees in the seats and on the donor rolls
• And generate millions more dollars in revenue, in order to
• Continue to create the art we love—without the stress of figuring out how to afford it

Book details and how to get your copy: https://www.aubreybergauer.com/book

Every episode this season has focused on business strategies that apply to arts management, such as patron retention, leveraging the subscription and membership economy, ecommerce, and digital content (to name a few!).

And in this episode, we look at how these strategies apply to my own business, Changing the Narrative—and how those same strategies have guided the evolution of my business over the last year or so as we’ve scaled up. 

We walk through my personal experience with growing Changing the Narrative, including the areas I needed to step away from, as well as the areas I decided to lean into further and build out. I also highlight some of the key lessons I've learned in hiring and building an effective team, using data and analytics for direction, and how important of a tool digital content is. My hope is you will find these lessons to be both relatable and applicable to your own arts organization.

The article mentioned several times: Scarcity Mindset Is Killing Your Arts Organization

For anyone who asks, “What’s the one thing I can do to increase revenue, ticket sales, audiences and donations,” this episode has your answer: copywriting.

For almost every arts organization, writing better, stronger copy is the free solution to upgrade every public facing channel you have, from website to program book, social media to fundraising appeals, subscription brochures to press releases.

The words you use are so powerful, and harnessing better copywriting is key to making every word work harder for you.

This episode covers four tips for you to implement right away to immediately start seeing more revenue—all at absolutely zero cost to your bottom line.

Example content referenced in episode:

• On my first day as CEO of an orchestra, the board chair told me they had just considered shutting down...
•  Can’t play Beethoven faster and save money...
• This is why planned giving is one of the most important things fundraising teams should be working on

This season on The Offstage Mic we are talking about strategies to combat the challenges in the cultural sector borrowed from the business world that have proven successful across patron retention, subscriptions, ecommerce, raising money, and digital content (to name a few).

And throughout the season, I’m occasionally bringing in some people who know the business world quite well to help me break it down: board members of our orchestras, operas, ballets, theaters, museums, zoos, and more.

These are the people governing our cultural institutions, who also have incredible professional experience outside the arts, and who are also among the most connected to and engaged with our mission-driven work.

All so that we can Run It Like a Business — without sacrificing the art we produce. Season 3 of the Offstage Mic is coming up right here. Hit “follow” or “subscribe” right now.

How to build an arts organization culture that embraces continual improvement, design thinking, iteration, and innovation—especially when we feel so much pressure to make everything we do an overnight success with no room for failure.

Then, Aubrey addresses a job seeker’s question about what to do when there’s something about their work history they don’t want to come up in an interview.

The influencer industry is worth billions of dollars and growing because consumers trust people more than brands these days. Arts organizations have a built-in influencer army—our artists—and we can train them on digital content and social media.

In this episode, Aubrey brings in David Taylor, who worked with the Philharmonia in London to do just this. We'll hear the case study of what they did, what worked and what didn't, and some unexpected results they saw.

Get David’s book, The Future of Classical Music - Part 1: A collection of articles, talks, and ideas

Slover Linett research on classical music radio listenership discussed in the opening remarks here.

Ever feel like you’re not quite giving off the confidence you know you should be as a leader in the arts? Social psychologist Amy Cuddy says it may have something to do with your “presence” – a sort of “self-assured enthusiasm.” Today, we get into her research on presence as an incredible indicator of leadership success, from how you come off to your colleagues to whether people you meet trust you. Hear how to tap into your personal power and harness it to lead. Hint: it can start with something as simple as changing your physical posture. 

For more on this, check out Amy Cuddy's Ted Talk: "Your body language may shape who you are."

The job of the board at a non-profit organization is to govern, and governing an institution of which you’re an employee can be a conflict of interest. Instead, when thinking if a musician should be on the board, ask what the goals are we’re trying to achieve. Engagement? Information sharing? Both those things can and should happen without a board seat — and both those things should not be relegated to only one or two musicians.

Bureaucratic, disrespectful, chaotic, complacent. Sound familiar? If you would use these words to describe the culture at your organization, you and your colleagues may be working in a toxic environment. This episode is part one of two: First, we get into the top nine traits causing toxicity in company culture, based on the book “Culture Renovation” by Kevin Oakes, CEO of i4cp. In the next episode, we get into the blueprint for building a healthier culture at your organization. 

For more insights on this, check out this past episode with Kevin Oakes himself.

Working your way up in arts admin can feel like an uphill battle, but it doesn’t have to be a fight! In the final episode of the season, arts administrator Chelsea Chambers at the Peninsula Symphony talks about working her way up to executive director. Hear how realizing that “I don’t have all the answers” helped her climb the ladder to ED and create a kickass company culture along the way. 

Guest: Chelsea Chambers, Executive Director of the Peninsula Symphony

Pro tips on how to address employee turnover, toxic workplace culture, and microagressions like when a man interrupts you while speaking. This episode looks at how to show up as your authentic self back in the office when there is such a narrow view of what “professionalism” looks like.

These questions are all addressed in this final episode of season one. It’s raw, it’s vulnerable, and all of that feels like a good note to close out this pilot project season.

Thanks to everyone who's listened. We’d love to hear from you if you enjoyed it or learned something. And wishing you all the best of luck as you prep for your own seasons starting this fall, from wherever you’re listening.

Resources mentioned:

• Adam Grant’s Four Deadly Sins of Toxic Culture
• Harvard Professor Amy Cuddy’s TED Talk on Power Poses

Sponsors who made this possible:

• Descript
• Lume Cube

For arts administrators, donor development often means soliciting as many patrons as possible, as soon as possible, without accounting for their unique needs. This may glean some revenue in the short term, but what about next season? Someone coming to a show once to check it off their bucket list is not the same as the season subscriber or donor who’s bought-in because they have a tried and true relationship with your organization. This episode, Aubrey talks about how tailoring your messaging to build audience relationships is the fruitful key that transforms first-time patrons into loyal donors. 

The Offstage Mic is made possible by Artelize: their Audience Retention Dashboard is the one-stop place to access your audience data across every important metric. And also by Annual Fund Toolkit: they’ve built a support system to help grow your donor community and major gift pipeline.

There’s a lot about arts leadership most of us were never taught. And you can’t win a game if you don’t know the rules. So we’re bringing you three bonus episodes from our recent training series, “They Never Taught You That: How to Grow Your Career in Arts Management.” This is Part 1, where Aubrey shares the seven research-backed steps to growing your leadership in arts management. She also offers some reflection prompts, so you can tailor the research to your specific work in the arts. 

Talent acquisition and the state of the workforce in arts and culture is shifting. More Baby Boomers are nearing retirement, more Gen-Z workers are entering the labor force, the Millennials and Gen-Xers are changing their relationship with work and their thoughts around remote or flexible work options.

National research from Advisory Board for the Arts shows the top driver of employee satisfaction and talent retention in the arts is no longer reputation for artistic excellence, but a strong and healthy company culture.

Karen Freeman, who has a background as a player, as well as degrees from Harvard and MIT, and later at McKinsey as global head of digital & analytics learning for generalist consultants, joins Aubrey to share the findings of this research.

And as mentioned at the top of the episode, if you want some ideas for your summer reading list, here are Aubrey’s book reviews: business books as seen through the lens of an arts manager.

This is the penultimate episode in season two—enjoy!

We are at an inflection point for arts organizations: emerging from a global pandemic (maybe, sort of, until another variant strikes again), confronting our very white, western, male-dominated roots, and moving our teams and careers forward as the future of work and Great Reshuffle are upon us. The good news is the narrative is changing for arts and culture. All of these topics are advancing, and more people than ever in the field want to build a thriving future. This also means I’m seeing more questions than ever from arts administrators, leaders, artists and board members, and this office hours-style podcast is all about getting you answers in a format that serves more people than my daily work.

If you know me, you know I love a good pilot test, and this pilot season will run for eight half-hour-ish episodes, released every other week starting this spring. To submit a question, send a voice recording to hello@aubreybergauer.com.

Marketing has changed so much for arts administrators in recent years that you might not know how to maximize your marketing budget these days. What percentage should you allocate? What marketing channels are the most effective this year? How much should you spend? This episode, Aubrey explains how to think strategically about reaching the audience you want—and how to budget for it. 

The Offstage Mic is made possible by Artelize: their Audience Retention Dashboard is the one-stop place to access your audience data across every important metric. And also by Annual Fund Toolkit: they’ve built a support system to help grow your donor community and major gift pipeline.

The need for diversity in our audience and for the audience to reflect the community is a hot topic in the arts these days. And rightfully so.

There is a moral imperative to do this work at arts organizations, but I am also a fan of the business case for diversity. And in this episode, we are talking about what the numbers look like if and when the audience actually does look like the community — and wow, is there money on the table when the audience becomes more diverse.

This episode looks at just how many more tickets would be sold in a year if your audience makeup mirrored that of your community, or at least came close. We talk through the numbers, and I have a free download that does the math for you so you don’t have to.

Get your free Demographic Revenue Calculator and see the potential for sales growth in three easy steps.

What is your unique purpose as an arts administrator? How do you find the courage to lead with purpose once you know? Carlos Cordero is a conductor, new choral music advocate, singer and self-proclaimed “great hug-giver.” But he started off with a broad, more generic vision that wasn’t connecting with audiences the way he wanted to. As a gay Latinx immigrant artist, Carlos did some soul searching and clarified his mission: to advocate for the LGBTQ+ and immigrant community through his brand, The Happy Choir, and his professional Tenor-Bass choir, Un/heard. Hear how Carlos learned that you can’t be everything to everyone. By going from generic to specific, he took ownership of his brand and unlocked community connection for himself and his ensembles.

Guest: Carlos Cordero, new choral music artist and advocate; creator of The Happy Choir

You no longer need a label to release digital recordings for streaming. Today, any ensemble of any size can take advantage of the way recording and distribution has changed and release directly to streaming platforms.

In this episode, Aubrey is joined by two experts — Mike Warner, Head of Editorial Marketing Partnerships - North America at Believe, and Jamie Freedman, Head of Classical Programming at Pandora — to talk through the play by play (stream by stream?!)

They cover topics including how an ensemble can self-release, how an organization can be empowered to do yourself things a label historically or traditionally would have done and have more control because of it, how the artistic, production, and marketing teams will need to work together, and the nuts and bolts of releasing digital music directly vs going with a distributor.

And if you don't know what all that means or looks like, that's ok too — the whole point of this episode is to learn so you walk away educated and informed. And therefore confident and ready to tackle your next recording project knowing exactly how you'll get maximum ears to listen to it.

How arts organizations can use data and analytics to build audiences and enhance artistic decision-making. Plus how a small arts organization can use data, not just the big institutions.

This episode covers questions that were asked in a recent interview with San Francisco Classical Voice all about how arts organizations could use data and analytics like Billy Bean and the Oakland A’s did in Moneyball.

Special thanks to San Francisco Classical Voice for covering this topic and for graciously allowing this conversation to be shared with you here.

Read the SFCV article: https://www.sfcv.org/articles/feature/how-performing-arts-world-uses-cyber-analytics-build-audiences

Copywriting is one of the most important tools you can use to boost ticket sales, donations, and revenue across various platforms. And the best part is—it costs $0 to update the words you use.

In this episode, learn five actionable tips on how creating small, emotional connections through specific language creates a big and lasting impact on your revenue. Hone your copywriting skills as a no cost tool to grab your patrons’ attention, fill those seats, and bring in more donations.

Imagine negotiating the salary and benefits you know you deserve as an arts leader. Or going to the bargaining table for union negotiations, and all parties come out satisfied. In Part 2 of this bonus series, Aubrey dives deep into an important skill necessary to growing your leadership: the art of negotiation. Spoiler alert: it’s not all about the money. Then she builds upon the visioning in Part 1, helping you understand the difference between the work you’re good at vs. the work that will let your true genius shine.

Women in arts administration make up over half of the workforce. Yet arts leadership roles — on stage and off — are still male dominated. This episode, Aubrey shares some shocking statistics from the field and explains why this paradox is so common in arts organizations (Hint: it's not just about getting more women in the C-suite; the problem starts earlier than you might think). And most important, how arts administrators can change their systems to address gender bias in their own institutions. 

The Offstage Mic is made possible by Artelize: their Audience Retention Dashboard is the one-stop place to access your audience data across every important metric. And also by Annual Fund Toolkit: they’ve built a support system to help grow your donor community and major gift pipeline.