Priming the Pump: Fueling Integrated Arts Marketing, Fundraising and Sponsorships to Optimize Revenue

November 9–12, 2008

Hilton Americas—Houston

A Program of Americans for the Arts

2008 CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Americans for the Arts invites you to submit a proposal for the National Arts Marketing Project Conference in Houston, November 9–12, 2008. For the first time, this internationally-recognized conference by and for arts marketers invites other revenue-generating colleagues to the conversation! With a theme of integrated revenue optimization, the conference focuses on skill-building, and is designed to provide attendees with concrete tools that have immediate practical application in the field.

We are seeking proposals for three types of involvement with the National Arts Marketing Project Conference. Conference Sessions should be complete learning experiences with specific outcomes and learning objectives. Mosh Pit Exemplary Practices Presentations give you the opportunity to show off your most innovative, most successful, and best-of-the-best marketing and development practices! Roundtable Discussions will be facilitated group discussions on topics of interest and importance to development professionals and arts marketers.

Text Box: Americans for the Arts welcomes proposals from:

• marketers and fundraisers from arts and culture organizations
• marketing and fundraising consultants
• corporate and foundation funders
• board members
• government agencies
• educators
• executive and/or artistic directors
• corporate sponsorship and/or marketing directors
• communications professionals
• technology professionals

CONFERENCE SESSIONS

We seek proposals for Conference Sessions for the main conference that drill deeper into the use of technology and the proliferation of audience segments, as well as covering new opportunities, including impact measurement, packaging, pricing, branding, collaborative marketing, and more. We welcome proposals that highlight strategies and tactics designed to promote revenue-generation, marketing and fundraising integration, and best practices within both areas! Sessions will be considered for the main conference, taking place over three days (November 10–12, 2008).

Sessions will be divided into three tracks:

Marketing
Fundraising
The Intersection between Marketing and Fundraising

Each track will be subdivided into two sub tracks:

101-level for beginner/intermediate skills level and small organizations
201-level for intermediate/advanced skills level and large organizations

Topics of special interest for Conference Sessions this year include but are not limited to:

Marketing:

Target segmentation
Impact Measurement
Branding
PR
Budget management of online and off line marketing
Beginning and advanced podcasting
Optimizing collateral pieces
Beginner and advanced social networking
Hands-on technology sessions
Audience research findings
Collaborative marketing
Cultural tourism
Museum and visual arts issues

Fundraising:

Sponsorships
Target segmentation
Individual donors
Planned giving
Young philanthropists
Values-based development
Impact Assessment
Donor research findings
Collaborative fundraising
Online donations
Fundraising in an economic down-turn
Motivating your board to fundraise on your behalf
Virtual fundraising with online donation tools
For-profit & nonprofit collaborations
Annual funds: direct mail or online?
Data mining and prospect research

Marketing and Fundraising Intersection:

“Operationalizing” integrated marketing and fundraising
Loyalty programs
Memberships
Dynamic copywriting
Single voice communication

MOSH PIT EXEMPLARY PRACTICES PRESENTATIONS

Back by popular demand! We are seeking proposals for Mosh Pit Exemplary Practices Presentations of your most successful practices to share with your colleagues on a national stage. Don’t miss this opportunity to show off your recent efforts, creativity, and successes! We’re looking for collateral material, websites, signage, subscription and single ticket promotion, annual appeals, individual donor campaigns, branding efforts, guerrilla marketing or peer-to-peer tactics, TV and radio spots, e-newsletters, anything that is new, now, hot, and exciting—while exemplifying best practices and innovation! The goal is to showcase the exceptional work that is going on in the field and to provide conference participants with direct and informal access to those doing exemplary work.

During this 90-minute time slot leading marketers from approximately 20 arts organizations will share their successes over the past year, hand out samples of their collateral material, and discuss what’s working in the field today.

If selected, you will set up a display of the practice that you are sharing, which may be as simple as displaying brochures or something more elaborate. Then staff your table as the rest of the conference participants surf the room looking for ideas.

In developing your Mosh Pit Exemplary Practices Presentations please consider only your most exemplary practices and tell us the details. We want to know what you did, why you did it (your goals), and how it worked (the outcomes). Please consider the criteria listed in the Proposal Preparation and Format and the Selection Criteria and Process sections below in preparing your application.

ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSIONS

Occurring simultaneous to the Mosh Pit, these casual small group discussions are designed to allow exploration of topics of interest to the attendees in a smaller, more interactive setting. We’re looking for conference attendees who are willing to lead a discussion on a development or marketing topic of interest to them. You don’t have to be an expert to lead a roundtable. Roundtables are designed for peer-to-peer mentoring. Simply propose a topic, and list the 2–5 things about that topic you’d like to examine in a roundtable discussion.

PROPOSAL PREPARATION AND FORMAT

Conference Sessions, Mosh Pit Exemplary Practices Presentations, and Roundtable Discussion topics will be based primarily on this call for session proposals, so the selection committee encourages sessions developed for basic to intermediate and intermediate to advanced levels; however, advanced-level sessions are strongly encouraged. We also welcome and encourage sessions representing all arts and culture disciplines (including museums, visual arts organizations, performing arts centers, historic preservation, and science/botanical/zoological organizations).

It is essential that Conference Sessions show project impact as well as ways in which they can be replicated by others. It is critical that sessions be developed with your specific learning objectives in mind.

Session Design

Please consider the following factors when developing your session proposal.

· Target Audience: What type of audience is your session designed for? Executive Directors? Fundraisers? Marketing Directors? Large, medium, or small budgets? Various levels of professional experience?

· Learning Objectives: What three things do you expect attendees to learn from this session? Sixty minutes fly by! Focus your topic so that attendees know exactly what you did, how you did it, and what the results were. Allow time for questions as well. All sessions should be enriched by case examples or case sharing among participants.

· Relevance to Theme: How does your session link to the conference theme Priming the Pump: Fueling Integrated Arts Marketing, Fundraising and Sponsorships to Optimize Revenue?

· Program Replication/Applicability of Topic/Model: Show how could your program be replicated in a different size organization or differently resourced organization? Show how the idea might be replicated outside of your own discipline?

· Level of Completion: The committee will consider projects across varying levels of completion:

Whether tested knowledge is supported by research and evaluation.
The practice that appears to work is based on empirical experience.
If the exciting new idea is one that is still being tested and developed.

There are several possible approaches that can be taken when developing a proposal to lead a Conference Session or Mosh Pit Exemplary Practices Presentation. Please consider using one of the following when crafting your proposal:

Successful Marketing or Fundraising Campaigns: Have you recently completed a successful campaign that got results beyond your expectations? Did you have a campaign with surprising or unintended results? Share your results with the community!
Integrated Marketing/Fundraising Initiatives: Have you worked with marketing staff to adapt tools and techniques for fundraising, or vice versa? Have you looked at, or formed, an “external relations” staff to bring the two functions together? Do you have success stories around synergies in the “development” of both audiences and supporters?
Issues and Trends: There are always new and emerging trends that affect arts marketers in your area and throughout North America (e.g., diversity is now a national issue, not just an urban issue). These sessions will be forums for discussing such trends and considering potential solutions to emerging issues.
New Research Findings: Every year, arts organizations across the country undertake market research, at times with the backing of a funder. And while this research provides interesting information for the sponsoring organization to make managerial and marketing decisions, it also often yields findings that can be applicable to the entire arts community. Use the conference as a forum for disseminating your research findings!

Format

(These format guidelines applicable to Conference Sessions only.)

The selection committee is particularly interested in Conference Sessions that engage conference attendees in unique ways that reach beyond the standard presenter/PowerPoint model. Please be creative in conceiving the format for your session! All sessions should focus on what was done, why it was done, how it was implemented, how it was measured, what results were found and what it cost. Some suggestions include:

· Case Study: A written description of a situation handed out to the participants as the session begins. Participants evaluate the situation and give feedback that may lead to the solution of a real or perceived problem. This format must articulate why this case study is unique or exemplary, encourage a great deal of attendee interaction, and provide examples of processes that can be adapted to real-life situations. Proposals for case-studies are encouraged to represent more than one arts organization.

· Forum: Questions and answers between people—an expert on the subject matter and practitioners in a talk show format. This allows the expert to ask probing questions of the practitioners and get answers to “real work situations,” offering a broad perspective by seeking multiple points of view in a talk-show format.

· Panel Discussion: Two or more people giving brief presentations on one topic. This format allows for one topic to be covered in depth from multiple points of view.

· Point/Counterpoint: A discussion that offers opposing points of view, facilitated by a moderator who channels the discussion among panelists and the audience in a debate format. This topic works best when the topic is controversial and requires divergent viewpoints and well-drawn arguments.

· Research Sessions: Investigate results of an ongoing or completed study conducted using standard research methods.

Selection Criteria and Process

Our goal in programming the conference is to create the best possible learning experience for attendees. Therefore sessions should highlight models and strategies that attendees can apply in their own organizations. Session reviewers will consider the following aspects of all proposals:

Overall quality and timeliness of topic;
Practical application of the session models;
Presentation skills and knowledge-level of suggested speakers;
Relevance to the conference theme;
Well-defined focus of both topic and presentation;
Clarity and completeness of the proposal; and
Relevance to the future of arts marketing, fundraising, and revenue optimization.

A committee of arts marketers from the National Arts Marketing Project Conference Advisory Committee will review all proposals. They will present a slate of final sessions to the full committee for approval.

No presenter may participate in more than two Conference Sessions.

If two session proposals are similar, the two presenters may be contacted to determine if they will be willing to share the session.

There is no fee to submit a proposal.

KEY DEADLINES

Proposal Submission Deadline: March 14

Review Period: March 17–31

Acceptance Notification: April 4

Session Descriptions Revision (for inclusion in preliminary promotional materials): April 4–18

Registration and Housing Open: April 9

Presenters Confirm Attendance: April 18

Presenters Submit Conference Registration: May 30

Session Moderators Receive Paperwork and Begin Work with Session Speakers: June 6

Speaker Paperwork, photographs, biographies, contracts and waivers due: July 16

Conference Housing Closes: October 10 (discounted sleeping rooms at the conference hotel are limited; presenters are encouraged to reserve their rooms 30 days prior to the published cutoff)

Session Materials/Handouts Due to NAMP Staff: October 24

National Arts Marketing Project Conference 2008: November 9–12

PROPOSAL APPLICATION

E-mail this completed document with your submission to artsmarketingconference@artsusa.org.

Session Title:

Primary Contact Name:

Phone Number:

E-mail Address:

Additional Panelists:

Phone Number(s):

E-mail address(es):

Session Type: (check one)

Conference Session Mosh Pit Session Roundtable Topic

For Conference Sessions

Track:

Level: (check one) Advanced Intermediate Beginner

Target Audience:

Primary learning objectives:

Session Description: (Please provide a description of your session in 500 words or less telling what you did, why you did it and what the outcomes were.)

Session Format (check one)

Case Study Panel Discussion Research

Forum Point/Counterpoint Other (please describe)

For Mosh Pit Presentations

Presentation description: (Please provide a description of your session in 500 words or less telling what you did, why you did it and what the outcomes were.)

Mosh Pit applicants should also send four (4) copies of original print material or four (4) CDs of media work or still/moving images of online work for review.

For Roundtable Discussion Hosts

Topic Description: (Please list 2–5 things about the topic you’d like to examine in a roundtable discussion.)

Presenter Name:

Nickname (for badge):

Title:

Organization:

Address:

City, State, Zip:

Phone:

Fax:

E-mail:

Co-Presenter Name (if applicable):