The devil within

Friends’ schemes are the future, according to a recent report on philanthropy by Arts&Business (AP227, p1). And it could be right – there’s a lot of potential to be tapped. Sixty-eight per cent of arts organisations don’t have a friends’ scheme, and many of those that do have never evaluated or developed it and have no idea how much money they make from it – or indeed whether it is in fact a net drain on resources. There’s everything to play for.

So, how can it be that, in an age when sophisticated computerised box office systems and a plethora of digital communication technologies make it possible to implement highly targeted marketing strategies, friends of arts organisations – the most visible single segment of supporters an organisation is likely to have – are often treated as a low priority, an irrelevance or, worse still, the devil within? Quite a few reasons, actually. Do you have any friends like these?

1. The fair-weather friend: if you offer enough in the way of benefits – like discounted tickets or an exclusive advance booking period – they’ll be a friend, and pay you for the privilege, provided they think they’re going to get more out of the relationship than they have to put in.

2. The bully: they’ll be your friend, but because they’re rich and well connected (and you want their money), they’ll try to get you to run your organisation in a way that suits them. The threat of them leaving and taking their cash and connections with them is dangled in front of you when controversial issues arise.

3. The fickle friend: they sign up to be your friend, but their favourite activity is organising trips to other organisations’ events and raising funds for their favourite charities.

4. The clique: they like being friends because their friends are also your friends. They don’t
really want lots of new members, because it’s all nice and cosy as it is now, thank you very much.

5. The eccentric: keen to support your work, they’re happy to pull out all the stops to raise money, but the types of activities they run, and the sort of people who join, are guaranteed to be a turn-off to the vast majority of your audiences.

6. The splinter group: they want to support you, but also want to retain their independence, so they raise money in your name but spend it on the things they’d like you to have, not the things you desperately need.

Because their current friends fall into one of more of the above categories, too many arts organisations have abandoned all thoughts of generating a rich revenue stream from this potentially fruitful segment of their audiences. Marketing and development managers shy away from tackling the problems, because the thought of coaxing a long-established and entrenched membership body into a more mutually beneficial and financially productive relationship is just too much to contemplate.

In fact, they’re probably wise to let the sleeping dog lie until such time as the whole organisation is prepared for the change; the dog could turn out to be a wolf. Upset the sensitivities of the friends and they will undoubtedly sharpen their teeth against you – while a few friends’ groups will jump for joy at the thought of their organisation giving their scheme an overhaul, running it in-house through the marketing or development departments, and reforming it in a way that can better meet the objectives of the organisation, many will see it as a personal insult and a threat to their future. But even wolves can be harnessed, and the key to transforming an underperforming friends’ scheme into a valuable source of support and cash is how the process of change is managed. It needs to have three stages:

1. Prepare for change: assess the culture and history of the existing friends’ scheme and consider who will be most affected by proposed changes, how they can be encouraged to buy-in to the brave new world and what the damage will be if they can’t. Planning for different scenarios will mean you are ready for battle if things turn nasty.

2. Communicate the change: make absolutely sure that the friends understand how your proposals for change can benefit the organisation, and help them to see the change process as something that is being done ‘with’ the membership rather than ‘to’ it.

3. Implementing change: try to involve ‘change agents’ who are currently established members of the friends, who can win round the doubters. And develop visible rewards so that those who give their commitment to the new system can start to benefit from it as soon as possible.

There are no quick fixes for a dysfunctional friends’ scheme, but there is gold at the end of the rainbow for those who are willing to challenge the devils on the rocky path towards it.