But do you want to share your culture?

Doug and I have wrapped up our trip to B.C.

We are exploring the possibility of fundraising for the QCCC (left). I took some photos on my phone. They're not great quality but they show the potential of the site, which sits on the banks of the Cowichan River. The QCCC has an excellent business plan in hand, developed by Rod Smith and his colleagues at Festival management inc. (Fmi), for restoring the facilities and redeveloping their cultural programming. There are a number of great, new Aboriginal Cultural Centres in and around B.C. and the 2010 Vancouver Olympics have brought significant funding to B.C attractions. On the other hand it was still a stretch to find something to do in the off-season in and around Nanaimo as I had forgotten my hiking boots and we could not find a sea kayaking place still renting in November. Luckily, it was a beautiful day when we made the initial site visit.

We wanted to answer three key questions before taking a case for support to potential funders.

1) Why will the future of a funded QCCC be different from the past? (A past composed as far as we can tell of scandal, alleged theft and alleged embezzlement, questionable tourist appeal and little use or support from the Cowichan community itself).

2) What is the cultural centre for? The Khowutzun Development Corporation, the "economic development arm fo the Cowichan Tribes" seems to be primarily interested in job creation. But, as we suggested to the GM of the QCCC, if job creation and revenue generation is the most important thing, then why not create the hotel and conference centre and expand the banquet business currently in place? Inter-cultural learning and sharing is superfluous.

3) Whose project is this? (Who generated it? Who will provide oversight throughout? And, who will lead it through to completion?)

We arrived at the last question by way of a conversation with the Aboriginal Studies Department head of the newly formed Vancouver Island University, and through reflection on previous Aboriginal tourism projects. Doug was involved in creating a marketing plan for Six Nations' disparate tourist attractions in Ontario as well as a revitalization of Wanuskewin Heritage Park, out in the Prairies.

The issue of "Aboriginal tourism" is divisive. Even where tribe leaders or band councils decide to move forth with tourism planning and consulting, there has been dissent within the community, members who don't want tourists on the Reservation and certainly don't want to invest in bringing them there or making them feel welcome. Is the community interested in sharing its culture and history with non-Aboriginals? How much of it? What is sacred and cannot or should not be shared? Who will have the right to disseminate this information and in what way? These are questions that can only be answered by the communities themselves. And the answer has to be, yes, we do want to share because...in the case of Wanuskewin, "to increas[e] public awareness, understanding and appreciation of the cultural legacy of the Northern Plains First Nations people."

Do the Cowichan tribes want to share? And if so, why? These questions have to be answered before we can move their project forward.

(Photos: Julia Dow)

New project takes NetGain to Vancouver Island

Photo: Cowichan Feather Headdress, courtesy of First People

NetGain is off to Duncan, B.C. next week to contribute fundraising expertise to the redevelopment of the Quw'utsun' (Cowichan) Cultural and Conference Centre, located in the Cowichan Valley. It is a matter of public record that the Centre has been plagued by mismanagement, dwindling popularity amongst both the native community and tourists, and, as NetGain can say with confidence at the launch of most projects, "the status quo is intolerable."

B.C. interests have risen on a crest of excitement and goodwill around the 2010 Olympics, but business is general, as we are all aware, has not been great.

More to come and I promise to send photos when on site as well.

Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places

The following text is adapted from a lecture Managing Director and Senior Consultant Doug Simpson gave at ANDPVA (Association for Native Development in the Performing and Visual Arts) on how to (and not to) develop audiences and members in non-profit organizations. I am going to post it two parts.



LOOKING FOR LOVE IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES – PART 1

I'm old enough to remember when small arts organizations burned up volunteer resources running bingo instead of building membership support. When bingo ceased to be a big money-maker, a lot of organizations started running Nevada tickets. Raffles and lotteries seemed like failsafe money-makers for a while, until there were so many of them they fell out of favour.

I also remember when I was running a theatre company in Peterborough so long ago that our big annual raffle featured two new inventions: the VCR and the wind surfer. The Board failed to sell enough tickets, and the Board Chair walked off with both first and second prize. It took me a week of guilt tripping to get him to give them back. But it wasn't just a small market phenomenon. At about the same time, the Canadian Opera Company, with one of the wealthiest memberships in the country, was losing big money raffling off Mercedes sedans and fabulous trips. The whole herd of non-profit fund raisers had to move on and find a new technique for getting money out the community.

But I want to step back from techniques for raising money, and focus on the good old honest practice of audience and membership development. What could be more simple and straightforward than accepting admission money from people who want to experience what you offer, or then to invite them into a deeper relationship with the organization through membership, and in return, giving them a more profound understanding and appreciation of the thing they love?

There's no trickery or salesmanship at root here. It's not about techniques that you can swap with other organizations. It's about establishing and cultivating a unique relationship between your organization and those in the community who appreciate what it does. Underneath all the marketing jargon and sly, seductive direct mail techniques is the genuinely powerful connection between what you do for the community and those in the community who really care about it.

Relationships. That's what we're really talking about. Lasting supportive relationships. Not one night stands, but relationships that have a better than average chance of enduring and becoming stronger.

When I talk in this simplistic way, people get uncomfortable because it sounds too much like a TV ad for an online dating service, not the tricky and important business of membership and audience development. But let me ask you, honestly, what lasting relationship starts with borrowed techniques? How many movies or plays have you seen where some lovesick swain asks his womanizer friend to help seduce the woman of his dreams? Will Smith's, Hitch, is the latest example. Cyrano de Bergerac might be the most famous one. In fiction, as in real life, it works so badly, it's funny.

My contention is that we should let the unique essence of our relationship to members and audiences determine what fund raising and marketing techniques we use, rather than the reverse.

Too often, out of habit or desperation, we employ techniques that fail to present us in our best light, or that attract people who aren't right for us. When that happens, when we don't get the results we want, it's tempting to try harder.

For example, if we budgeted for a 3% response rate to a mass mailing and we only get 1.5%, it's easier to rationalize sending twice as many letters than it is to back up a step and consider whether or not we're sending the right message to the right people, or whether or not we're using the wrong medium altogether.

Seriously think about how many non-profit organizations try to expand their support base by buying mailing lists from other organizations! Yes, you may find a few more prospects, and convert a few of those into new supporters, but the cost is high relative to an approach that is focused on the unique relationship you're seeking and on the need to motivate your future member to become involved with you. It’s worth doing for the 800 pound gorillas in our field, but not for the vast majority of small cultural organizations.

Here's the most fundamental thing I can tell you, and I think it puts everything else into perspective. The currency of membership and audience development, as for all kinds of marketing, is not dollars, not number of impressions, nor privileges, benefits, or services; it is emotion.

Anytime you get someone to get out of their easy chair to start a transaction with you, you first have to convince them that they feel like doing something about what you've offered them. You then also have to convince them to choose your offering over everything else available to them at that moment. And finally, given that it is a non-profit offering in which they are donating to or buying something of uncertain dollar value, you have to leave them with a good feeling: a feeling of pride, of pleasure, and a desire to do it again - donate monthly by credit card instead of once by cheque, for example, or to buy a series subscription instead of a single ticket. By analogy to online dating, this is the true "love connection."

Underneath it all, the currency of the transaction is emotion. Everything else is a secondary consideration that comes into play only AFTER the right feelings are stimulated.

How do we know who to approach and how should we approach them to arouse the right feelings? Let me give you some examples that you might be able to relate to, and think about how your organization behaves when it's looking for love, when it's trying to build lasting support relationships.

Part II - Tomorrow - Concrete examples of successful membership developement and some common pitfalls.