Real ideas for sustainability & revenue

[IllianaLancerContra]

10 hours ago, C.Holland said:

Our budget was large. But we also have a venue to run, dancers to care for (and pay), apprentices to train, studios to operate, classes that were taught, community engagement that happened regularly, free concerts in the park, studio company to send on tours, technical and design staff to pay, stage and production mangers to pay, warehouses to operate for scenic storage and rental …  

 

it’s a large org, engrained in the local community.  My point was more about if you have a great development team, you can make things happen that technically shouldn’t. 

I take it that your performers and support staff all lived in the local community, which helps maintain the visibility of the organization.  You can be in line at grocery store w/ the star dancer, etc.   The problem Drum Corps has is that few, if any, members are local.   How many 2023 Troopers live within 100 miles of Casper?   How many Bluecoats are from Canton?  Do the Rennicks live in Santa Clara?  Hard to build local support when the only thing local is a small office & a parking lot for the semis.  

[ContraFart]

4 hours ago, IllianaLancerContra said:

I take it that your performers and support staff all lived in the local community, which helps maintain the visibility of the organization.  You can be in line at grocery store w/ the star dancer, etc.   The problem Drum Corps has is that few, if any, members are local.   How many 2023 Troopers live within 100 miles of Casper?   How many Bluecoats are from Canton?  Do the Rennicks live in Santa Clara?  Hard to build local support when the only thing local is a small office & a parking lot for the semis.  

Why is there a need for Drum Corps to be local? Except for a goodbye performance and maybe a home show, the main bulk of what a DCI corps does is going to be away from the local town anyways. Parades are not what they used to be (maybe I am being Florida centric on that because nobody wants to sit in this heat) and unless you are really pushing for an off season program, there really is not that much visibility of the performing organization. I work with local community theatres and symphonic bands and orchestras. Its hard to get local visibility even when we perform 10 concerts a year, or 6 plays a year with 10 performances each. 

I just think society has changed so much to rely on local exposure. I remember when I was a senior in high school and drum major of the high school band, I could not leave the house without running into someone I know. Living in the same town 25 years later. I know next to nobody. The community connection is no longer there. 

[JimF-LowBari]

51 minutes ago, ContraFart said:

Why is there a need for Drum Corps to be local? Except for a goodbye performance and maybe a home show, the main bulk of what a DCI corps does is going to be away from the local town anyways. Parades are not what they used to be (maybe I am being Florida centric on that because nobody wants to sit in this heat) and unless you are really pushing for an off season program, there really is not that much visibility of the performing organization. I work with local community theatres and symphonic bands and orchestras. Its hard to get local visibility even when we perform 10 concerts a year, or 6 plays a year with 10 performances each. 

I just think society has changed so much to rely on local exposure. I remember when I was a senior in high school and drum major of the high school band, I could not leave the house without running into someone I know. Living in the same town 25 years later. I know next to nobody. The community connection is no longer there. 

Didn’t see any call for corps to be local. Saw it more as saying how things have changed.

[cixelsyd]

15 hours ago, ContraFart said:

Why is there a need for Drum Corps to be local?

Per the topic of this thread, there are several revenue ideas that would either require, or benefit from, having some local participation.  If a corps wants to run concessions at a local sports venue, operate ensembles for local sports teams, or perform for corporate gigs, those efforts will need people who live nearby to participate.  And an often-raised point regarding large sponsorships is that the biggest thing the corps has to offer the sponsor is visibility....the kind of visibility that local, year-round corps used to have.

That said... 

For a multi-program "youth arts org", maybe the DCI program can remain locally invisible while the other programs provide the local membership that opens up these opportunities.  And for a plain-old drum corps that is not running other youth programs that are more community-based, well, maybe they can live without those opportunities and make up the difference somewhere else.

Remember that as you ask this question, a corps in Pennsylvania recently relocated their home base from one end of the state to the other, over 300 miles away, and is just now wondering why fundraising did not materialize as anticipated.

[IllianaLancerContra]

16 hours ago, ContraFart said:

Why is there a need for Drum Corps to be local? Except for a goodbye performance and maybe a home show, the main bulk of what a DCI corps does is going to be away from the local town anyways. Parades are not what they used to be (maybe I am being Florida centric on that because nobody wants to sit in this heat) and unless you are really pushing for an off season program, there really is not that much visibility of the performing organization. I work with local community theatres and symphonic bands and orchestras. Its hard to get local visibility even when we perform 10 concerts a year, or 6 plays a year with 10 performances each. 

I just think society has changed so much to rely on local exposure. I remember when I was a senior in high school and drum major of the high school band, I could not leave the house without running into someone I know. Living in the same town 25 years later. I know next to nobody. The community connection is no longer there. 

My comment was in reply to a post where author was discussing running a nonprofit dance group and obtaining local support.  
 

I would think that obtaining local support is a lot easier with a local presence.   But that ship has sailed, esp for World Class Corps.  

I suppose that running local bingo (like BD & SCV, perhaps others) at least keeps the name out there. 

[ContraFart]

1 hour ago, IllianaLancerContra said:

My comment was in reply to a post where author was discussing running a nonprofit dance group and obtaining local support.  
 

I would think that obtaining local support is a lot easier with a local presence.   But that ship has sailed, esp for World Class Corps.  

I suppose that running local bingo (like BD & SCV, perhaps others) at least keeps the name out there. 

Florida has these "arcades" that are places with bingo gambling machines. I wonder if they would work for drum corps. They seem to be everywhere

[scheherazadesghost]

17 hours ago, ContraFart said:

Why is there a need for Drum Corps to be local? Except for a goodbye performance and maybe a home show, the main bulk of what a DCI corps does is going to be away from the local town anyways. Parades are not what they used to be (maybe I am being Florida centric on that because nobody wants to sit in this heat) and unless you are really pushing for an off season program, there really is not that much visibility of the performing organization. I work with local community theatres and symphonic bands and orchestras. Its hard to get local visibility even when we perform 10 concerts a year, or 6 plays a year with 10 performances each. 

I just think society has changed so much to rely on local exposure. I remember when I was a senior in high school and drum major of the high school band, I could not leave the house without running into someone I know. Living in the same town 25 years later. I know next to nobody. The community connection is no longer there. 

The standard model of nonprofits is geared towards local support (and accountability) as the hub of generating revenue. You generate the trust of local stakeholders (members, donors, staff, volunteers, etc) that spend face-to-face time together working towards a singular, well defined mission. That hub garners the trust of a localized population and then builds outwards. It's what they're designed to do. Plenty of nonprofits pull away from this models to varying degrees of success, but this is what they're designed to do.

When orgs pull away from that, they're bound to face challenges. Development and grant directors have to work magic to convince potentially nonlocal donors to care about a group that doesn't serve their locality. Saw your post about arcades and am pretty sure that Vanguard Bingo takes advantage of these but I could be wrong. Again, legalized gambling pulls away from mission alignment, which, if you rely on too much, diminishes revenue diversity. It also undermines the standard accountability model that most healthy nonprofits have wherein the money and time donated by stakeholders is an exchange for some oversight. That is the standardized checks and balances system that replaces the market that keeps for profits in check.

I would argue that drum corps can return to this without giving up the national tour. It would be a sea change, but not into a direction they've never been before historically.

[Jeff Ream]

2 hours ago, cixelsyd said:

Per the topic of this thread, there are several revenue ideas that would either require, or benefit from, having some local participation.  If a corps wants to run concessions at a local sports venue, operate ensembles for local sports teams, or perform for corporate gigs, those efforts will need people who live nearby to participate.  And an often-raised point regarding large sponsorships is that the biggest thing the corps has to offer the sponsor is visibility....the kind of visibility that local, year-round corps used to have.

That said... 

For a multi-program "youth arts org", maybe the DCI program can remain locally invisible while the other programs provide the local membership that opens up these opportunities.  And for a plain-old drum corps that is not running other youth programs that are more community-based, well, maybe they can live without those opportunities and make up the difference somewhere else.

Remember that as you ask this question, a corps in Pennsylvania recently relocated their home base from one end of the state to the other, over 300 miles away, and is just now wondering why fundraising did not materialize as anticipated.

BD has several local things happening locally that aren't the DCI corps. but the name is attached.

[HockeyDad]

2 hours ago, IllianaLancerContra said:

My comment was in reply to a post where author was discussing running a nonprofit dance group and obtaining local support.  
 

I would think that obtaining local support is a lot easier with a local presence.   But that ship has sailed, esp for World Class Corps.  

I suppose that running local bingo (like BD & SCV, perhaps others) at least keeps the name out there. 

Re the - that ship has sailed - comment:  many times on DCP this is restated. By many posters. So Illiana this is not directed at you. 
If the ship has sailed, but it’s about to go down on a reef, maybe the ship needs to turn around. Shall we collectively be so stubborn in our refusal to go “back to the future” that we allow the entire activity to die because of unsustainable cost increases?  Maybe contracting and going back local is the way to Save the activity. But oh, would the quality of the product suffer?  Maybe. Probably. Sure. Yes I will boldly state the quality of the product would suffer. I’d prefer that, Much prefer that, to an activity that “evolved” itself into complete extinction.  That’s the cold slap of reality smacking us in the face. 

[IllianaLancerContra]

25 minutes ago, HockeyDad said:

Re the - that ship has sailed - comment:  many times on DCP this is restated. By many posters. So Illiana this is not directed at you. 
If the ship has sailed, but it’s about to go down on a reef, maybe the ship needs to turn around. Shall we collectively be so stubborn in our refusal to go “back to the future” that we allow the entire activity to die because of unsustainable cost increases?  Maybe contracting and going back local is the way to Save the activity. But oh, would the quality of the product suffer?  Maybe. Probably. Sure. Yes I will boldly state the quality of the product would suffer. I’d prefer that, Much prefer that, to an activity that “evolved” itself into complete extinction.  That’s the cold slap of reality smacking us in the face. 

I agree that it would be good to keep the ship from running aground.  The unknown thing is if, say, BD required 2/3 of the membership to be from within 50 miles of Concord, what would that do to their talent pool?  Same with BAC, Bloo, Troopers, Phantom, etc.  I’m not sure if the genie can be put back into the bottle.
 

Also, unlike the olden days, with so few current Corps, many (or most) potential members who want & can afford to march don’t have any local options.