Obviously Covid has been a tremendous challenge for all travel and hospitality-centric brands. As the pandemic has subsided in the U.S., can you discuss the challenges the tourism board and its members have faced in re-engaging consumers and promoting the city as a tourist destination they need to return to?

When the pandemic began, NYC was the epicenter, as I’m sure you remember. So, after conducting a consumer insights study to understand any sentiment challenges, our first challenge back in 2021 was creating urgency, letting the world know that we were open, that we were still the NYC people knew and loved, and that it was time to visit NYC (hence our latest campaign tagline, “It’s Time for New York City”). We were also very cognizant of the need to communicate our Covid safety and protocols. We undertook a concentric circle approach to our audience targeting like most destinations did at the time, focusing first on locals before anyone could travel, then the NE region and U.S. domestic, and then overseas markets as soon as they opened up that November. Now, it’s more about keeping NYC top of mind as a destination of choice since there’s a bit more competitiveness in the marketplace. We may still be considered but are not necessarily the automatic number one destination of choice for many markets, so we need to continually (re)educate the travel trade, where there was a tremendous amount of turnover during the pandemic, and remind prospective travelers of our product offering and all the diversity, culture and authentic experiences that can be found here, unlike any other destination in the world. 

How does the New York City tourism board use research and insights to measure its marketing effectiveness? 

We rely on our internal research team to deliver us the macro insights we need to understand what is happening in travel to NYC in general, for example in hotel occupancy, airlift, overarching trends, and economic conditions. They are also examining what is happening on a market-by-market basis in terms of currency fluctuations, political concerns and consumption habits of our top feeder markets. However, our marketing insights efforts led by our EVP of marketing and digital, Janette Roush, and our VP of digital and media, Carissa Parrish, are truly helping to take our marketing and media insights to the next level across all of our owned channels. We are continually testing and learning to understand the effectiveness of various creative iterations and outlets, and as part of our website update, we’re building a first-party data strategy to better build and understand our audience and consumer journey, since the end is nigh with cookies. We, of course, examine our media effectiveness closely in terms of traffic, impressions and engagements, but the most exciting part is putting the art and the science of all our findings together to create a more well-rounded approach, and always continue to learn, refine and improve.

Have the measurements that typically matter most to you changed in a post-pandemic world?

Our most important metrics haven’t changed post-pandemic, but they’ve certainly become more important. Of course, we look at the total amount of visitation for the city on an annual basis, but we also want to know how much tax revenue has been brought in and look at the total employment numbers in the tourism and hospitality industries as a key indicator. In addition, we are always striving to disperse the economic benefits of tourism throughout the five boroughs in an equitable manner, which was especially important as we came out of the pandemic.

We launched a multiphase survey with SMARI of our global tourism campaign to better understand the impact and ROI more directly there, measuring those who saw our campaign how many of them booked a trip and how much did they spend while here. We do not capture travel bookings on our site, so we get those results either through our travel partners who participate in the tourism campaign around the world or studies like this. Our 2021-222 domestic campaign brought in $352 in visitor spend for every $1 spent on the campaign, $5B in total visitor spend and 2MM trips to NYC between July 2021 and January 2022. Phase 1 of our international campaign, which brings in an even higher value visitor (international travelers are about 20 percent of our visitation but 50 percent of total spend), brought in $241 for every dollar spent, $822MM in visitor spending, and 346K trips between January and July 2022. The latest findings from Phase 2 of our international campaign are even more promising and we’ll be sharing that soon.

Wow—seeing that kind of return from your marketing efforts must feel great. How has your content strategy evolved post-pandemic? I absolutely love the “local legends” content your team produces, which seems to bring people into communities across the city that don’t sit squarely in the typical tourist spotlight. What was the inspiration behind that work? What else do you have cooking in the content category for storytelling of the city?

We have always celebrated the cultural diversity of our city in our content, however, with the hiring of our SVP of diversity initiatives and content, Rondel Holder, we have definitely doubled down on those efforts since the pandemic. We will continue our Local Legends series to complete all the boroughs, and after that will continue building our Black, Latin and Asian Experience content platforms, which highlight New Yorkers and small businesses throughout the five boroughs, sharing their perspective on some of our most vibrant and culturally rich neighborhoods. And, of course, coming up soon is the 50th anniversary of Hip Hop, so we’re very excited to launch our content hub around that next month with guides, interviews, interactive maps and more, with a special spotlight on The Bronx.

I was a hip hop DJ many years ago (I won’t give away my age) so I’m looking forward to the anniversary festivities! Looking ahead, what new strategies or initiatives is the tourism board considering to further engage consumers and promote tourism to the city?

We look forward to continuing the work we do every day, which is bringing in leisure and business event travelers and dispersing that visitation and equity throughout the five boroughs. We have fantastic content but our budgets are limited, so we will be focusing on building our revenue to ensure we have robust distribution plans to ensure that content gets seen by the right audiences, so that will be a big focus of ours moving forward. We’ll be continuing our efforts domestically and internationally to encourage both bookings and exploration throughout the five boroughs, and as we wait for the return of China, continue diversifying our approach to focus where we’re seeing great incremental growth in markets like Brazil, India and Australia. As mentioned earlier, we’ll continue refining our digital strategy as we relaunch our website in May with better personalization and targeting to further fine-tune our understanding of the consumer journey in our digital ecosystem across social, our site and email channels.

As someone who sits at the center of working with so many incredible NYC iconic businesses and having just lived through helping them navigate a very challenging time, what’s the one word you would use to best describe the character of New York City? 

It may be an overused term at this point, but I have to say RESILIENCE. NYC has been through a lot over the years, from 9/11 to the pandemic, but we always come back better and stronger than before. You can’t keep NYC down!

Damian Bazadona: From a U.S. Open perspective, what does it mean to be a tennis fan? Are the majority of fans also tennis players? Or do you have a lot of fans who are primarily spectators and just love to watch the sport or individual players?

Nicole Kankam: While the U.S. Open definitely attracts what we call “entertainment seekers,” people who like to attend events and place a premium on the experiential, we also know that about half of the attendees play tennis, so it’s an audience that’s highly engaged in tennis participation. Most fans purchase their tickets prior to knowing the schedule of play, so the data shows they are attending because they are fans of the U.S. Open and the full experience it offers, or fans of tennis in general. However, this year, with Serena announcing her “evolution” from tennis, there was obviously a tremendous surge in interest in wanting to see her at what was expected to be her final Grand Slam event. But we’re also excited about the new crop of players that have emerged and are already generating interest and excitement around our sport.

How do you grow your fan base or expand that definition of what makes a tennis fan?

One of our key priorities for the U.S. Open is to expand beyond the two weeks of the main draw. We did this by creating U.S. Open Fan Week, thus hosting a three-week tennis and entertainment festival. Returning after a hiatus due to the pandemic, U.S. Open Fan Week provided a host of free activities and content on the grounds of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. The goal is to introduce new fans to the U.S. Open and the sport of tennis. Throughout the week, there was no shortage of content, including the qualifying tournament, where future stars compete for the final slots in the U.S. Open main draw, up-close access to top player practices, a marquis legends match, a free concert by Joe Jonas’ band DNCE, and our first-ever U.S. Open food festival. While access to the grounds was free, we created Fan Access Pass as a mechanism to enhance a fan’s experience with certain gated activities. This also allowed us to capture fan data to foster engagement post-event and entice them to return next year.

I know a big part of your efforts were also centered on showcasing inclusiveness. Tell me more about that.

As an extension of our #BeOpen campaign, now in its third year showcasing inclusiveness and support for diverse communities, we’ve developed programming and events that create space for these communities to be seen at the U.S. Open. Some examples from this year’s U.S. Open include HBCU Live at the U.S. Open, celebrating the rich history and culture of historically Black colleges and universities and their connection to tennis; Open Pride Day, honoring the LGBTQ+ community on-site and across our channels; and Be Open Armory Off-Site—a partnership with the Armory Show to highlight artists from underrepresented backgrounds with a display of unique sculptures on the grounds of the U.S. Open.

In addition, the USTA’s mission is about growing tennis and making it look like America. And with tennis participation seeing tremendous growth, adding more than 5 million players over the last two years, we see the U.S. Open as another opportunity to inspire a love for the sport. An integral part of that strategy is leveraging U.S. Open attendee data to draw them into the broader USTA ecosystem and funnel them toward play opportunities to keep them engaged in the sport.

How did the pandemic change how you engaged with your fans? For example, I saw 2020 was the first U.S. Open without spectators in the tournament’s history. How did you approach developing new, creative ways to keep your fans engaged without one of the biggest touch points you have with your community—the live experience?

Like everyone else in the sports and entertainment business, 2020 was a tremendously challenging year. The U.S. Open, perhaps even more than other events, thrives on the in-person experience because we like to think that part of what our fans enjoy goes beyond the on-court experience. From the premium culinary offerings, to all the engaging activations our sponsors bring to life, to the upscale shopping experience, it’s a true festival-like atmosphere. But in addition to that, the U.S. Open is a global event, broadcast in 200+ countries with a digital presence that is more international in reach during our tournament. So in 2020, once we determined we would host the tournament without fans, we focused on engaging that global audience with fan activations that brought the fan more into the in-stadium experience, including the U.S. Open Fan Cam that we featured on the screens around the U.S. Open court. We also created a virtual player box to help recreate the experience of having the coaches and entourage cheer on their players since they couldn’t be there live. And we created a new merchandise product offering, the at-home suite, which was a curated box of all the U.S. Open essentials, including the glasses for our signature beverage, the Grey Goose Honey Deuce, with the recipe so fans could make at home. Now that we’re back to fans on-site, the at-home suite is still an ongoing key part of our merchandise offering.

Not always a part of mainstream conversation, tennis has become a bit more a part of the zeitgeist in recent years. What do you think has changed that has brought more attention to the world of tennis? Has the celebrity status of certain tennis players impacted that?

Serena and Venus Williams have undoubtedly changed the landscape of tennis, not just with their amazing talent on the court but with their interests beyond tennis. They are cultural icons who have been large drivers of the expanding interest and presence of tennis in popular culture. They have also inspired other tennis players, like Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka and others, who are emerging champions on the court but are also thinking about their impact and influence beyond tennis. And with Roger Federer also announcing his retirement, it’s evident how he has changed the game on the men’s side in being a world-class athlete as well as a global ambassador for the sport.

But beyond these world-renowned superstars, each year the U.S. Open is an event where the convergence of sports, celebrity and entertainment attracts attention from all corners of culture. Leveraging our own channels, as well as expanding the storytelling beyond sports media, is an area where our communications and social teams have been very successful. This year’s event in particular was our most successful event, from record sales and attendance to site traffic and social engagement. So we will look to continue to leverage the cultural relevance, even as attention shifts to a new crop of superstars.

There is a truly unique culture around tennis and many time-honored traditions like the quiet before the serve, the dress code, etc. How do you nurture the old, while welcoming the new? How do you navigate growth?

We do seek to strike a balance in honoring the history and tradition of our sport while being open to embracing innovations that help bring in new fans. We are very intentional about connecting to the distinct persona of New York City through branding and marketing efforts. This year’s campaign, “Spectacular Awaits,” was created as a nod to the U.S. Open being a sports and entertainment spectacle unlike any other. It essentially informed all aspects of the event and our desire to deliver a spectacular experience for fans both on-site and watching and following around the world, from advertising and promotional efforts, to on-site branding and LED screens, to social media engagement and beyond. All of our messaging, even how we discussed plans internally, focused on this singular idea and created a framework for teams across the planning spectrum to innovate and ultimately deliver on the positioning. It is a platform that can have longevity as we look to navigate growth for the future.

If 10 years from now you and I were to sit down again for this interview, what do you think would be the biggest changes to the world of tennis from where we sit today?

We have lived in an unprecedented era of tennis where a few players have dominated the tennis conversation for quite some time, so I imagine over the next several years we will see a number of stars emerge who will capture the attention of old and new fans alike. How and when fans make the decision to attend the U.S. Open, what they expect from an engagement perspective on-site, and how they consume the product around the world will likely shift and evolve, but in 10 years I expect we will continue to be agile and willing enough to respond to those changing dynamics.

Afternoons, you can expect to stumble upon pop-up performances in various locations in the park. Live performances of dance, music and circus. Buskers—the energy and variety of street performance is the energy on tap.

During the evenings, Little Island hosts a range of events, all summer long, for visitors of every age, throughout the various spaces of our park. The Amph, our 687-seat performance space facing the Hudson River, hosts ticketed events featuring artists across all disciplines. The Glade, an intimate stage set at the foot of an inviting lawn, hosts all free events—music, comedy and arts workshops for visitors of all ages. The Play Ground, our open plaza, offers food and beverage options, pop-up performances, and late-night programming including trivia nights, bingo and sing-alongs. 

How would you describe the Little Island community? I would imagine you would have such a diverse range of visitors.

Little Island’s community goal is to look like the inside of a New York City subway car. We want to achieve that diversity from all angles. Our staff, artists and visitors come from New York and all over the world. To our delight, there are times when the park is filled with more everyday New Yorkers than tourists, which means we are successfully saving a space for local people to enjoy this new world-class attraction. 

Little Island is a space where people of all ages and backgrounds are invited to engage, explore and thrive. We provide educational programming in the park and host various community and arts organizations every summer, including Greenwich House Music School, MoCADA, Children’s Museum of the Arts, the Free Black Women’s Library and more. We also partner with neighborhood schools, provide job opportunities for young people, and provide free tickets to all of our performances in the Amph. 

Our partnerships with Hudson Guild, Greenwich House and the Westbeth Artists Residents Council have brought art, dance and theater workshops to local older adults. Participants in these partnerships work with our Little Island artists-in-residence on public programs, creating and sharing their art with park visitors. Our teaching artists have led Latin dance nights with the community at Hudson Guild; Greenwich House hosts a weekly musical Creative Break in the park; and the seniors of Westbeth performing original stories as part of the Little Island Storytelling Festival.

How do you look at the ways Little Island can engage the surrounding community? It’s one thing to get people to be a part of the community, it’s another for the community to be active. Are there any particular investments you think are critical to build, grow and maintain a passionate community for Little Island?

We think the way to build community is to engage, educate and employ local people.

Making sure our employees have everything they need to be successful is the best investment and mission critical. We are a public-facing enterprise. Our whole reason for existence revolves around generating joy and holding space for people to connect with each other using art and nature. So, providing every single one of our employees with authentic opportunities to learn and grow—a fair and engaging workplace—that is the soil that we need to be able to cultivate community on Little Island. 

We partner with local community-based organizations to offer free tickets to all of our shows, and we support creative communities. Our Teen Night is a great example of the kind of impactful and multi-level community partnerships we are interested in creating.

Produced in partnership with The Door, a social service agency that serves youth in crisis, Little Island’s Teen Night offers a safe and brave space for young people ages 16–24 to have fun, learn, perform and engage with art, nature and community. Young people are invited to join us for this weekly series of art workshops, panel discussions, open rehearsals and performances in the Glade. The event is joyful and open to the public. Visitors make up the bulk of the enthusiastic audience for this event, so we are putting people together who would probably never be in the same space—a tourist from Sweden and an LGBTQ kid from the south Bronx, for example. 

Through our Community Ticketing Program, we partner with the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) and the New York City Department of Education’s Office of Arts and Special Projects (OASP) to distribute free performance tickets to organizations and families throughout NYC, ensuring that a broad diversity of New Yorkers have access to Little Island’s programming. In our first year, we distributed over 40,000 free tickets. 

How do you keep your finger on the pulse of your community to bring them the experiences they want most?

We listen to our visitors, and we try to be responsive. We conduct formal observations to see how visitors are using the park and interacting. We track which items are moving off the food trucks. We use all the usual tools like a visitor survey, audience survey and even the odd focus group when we need help making a decision. We invite visitors to complete a survey after the show, and staff review a snapshot of survey results, including visitors’ comments, at the end of each month. 

Finding the right balance of programming will always be a moving target, but the quality of a visitor’s experience really sinks or swims on more mundane things. Clean bathrooms. Clean bathrooms. Clean bathrooms. Our standard of care, the way we maintain the park, is paramount. People need a safe, clean, inviting place to sit and just be human. It is not an extra.

Given you do such a wide range of arts programming, what’s your message for artists and creators to come present their work at Little Island? It’s a beautiful, outdoor public space on the water—while it’s an amazing experience for the patron, that must be a unique canvas for artists.

New York’s artists and performers help bring Little Island’s park landscape to life, inspiring discovery and joy for all who visit. Through our artists-in-residence program, we partner with a cohort of innovative performing artists and visionaries to help curate and lead programming and events throughout the park. 

Local artists interested in bringing their talents to Little Island can apply through our annual Perform in the Park open call program, for paid performance opportunities. Perform in the Park invites artists who can channel New York’s iconic spontaneity and energy and bring that spirit to life on Little Island’s dynamic stages and spaces, surrounded by nature, water, and city views. In 2021 and 2022, we presented approximately 75 Perform in the Park artists.

In practical terms, we are always working to present artists and entertainments that make sense within the context of a public park. Artists must be comfortable working outdoors, sharing work that embraces the unique challenges of each of our venues. Finally, and most important, we value artistic excellence, which means different things depending on the discipline. 

As an organization that is still reasonably new to the market, how do you think about investing in building new relationships and supporters while keeping a bond with those that have been engaged since when you first launched? You have visitors who live less than a mile away, and at the same time, visitors who reside across the world. How do you balance these needs? 

For local people, we’re their neighborhood park, a clean, well-lighted place that they can rely on. For tourists, we are an attraction—a place where they are hoping to have a memorable experience. Serving both those needs is a balancing act. The hard part is that we must do it 365 days a year, consistently. 

Our visitorship and our audiences are wildly diverse, but no matter who you are, we want you to feel like we thought of you before you came. That’s the hat trick we are trying to pull off, every day. When a visitor, whoever they are, has a need, we want to be ready and able to meet it. Whether it is making sure the park is fully accessible for someone who uses a wheelchair or putting entertainment onstage that is accessible to the widest audience. That $3 ice cream cone, that rollicking musical variety show in the Amph, and that family-friendly circus performer that just pops up in The Play Ground might feel like serendipity to visitors, but a lot of planning goes into making the park experience feel surprising and whimsical. The way we program Little Island, even down to the offerings in the food trucks, reflects our desire to offer a little bit of something for everyone, every day. 

One of my favorite things about Little Island is the incredible workforce program you’ve created for the next generation of talent in the city. I wish more organizations would take an active role in this. Can you explain what the program is and why we should be excited about its impact? 

Little Island’s Workforce Development Program is called Pathways to Employment. It’s really a suite of programs and activities that are about giving people more opportunity to learn, earn, and build a career. In simple terms, Pathways reflects our commitment to caring about our employees’ next step. 

Some of our work in this space looks traditional and some of it is more organic and opportunistic. Through our partnership with the City University of New York (CUNY), college students and recent alumni can learn professional skills and receive pathways to employment through paid opportunities with Little Island. 

We launched our Internship Program in July 2018 with two interns recruited from our partnership with Hudson Guild, which serves the local NYCHA houses. We launched our Fellowship Program in 2021, offering six CUNY students a work/study program that aligned with their career goals. This year, we launched our Usher Corps Program to provide summer jobs for an additional 16 CUNY students.

Our alumni group for these programs now totals 41 people, and we are serving more people every year.

That’s real progress. Congratulations. This must have a profound impact on the people in your organization.

Pathways is about our commitment to creating high-quality jobs for our staff, especially our seasonal staff. Everyone on our staff gets access to professional development and training that helps them be better at the job they have now, or a future job. As we enter year three of our operation, I can say that people are routinely being promoted from within. I would say this work makes it more likely that our employees know that we care about them and it demonstrates that there is room to grow at Little Island. Our approach to workforce starts with the idea that there are lots of talented people out there who just need a chance to shine. We now have a slew of success stories featuring staff who have either been promoted internally or have found worthwhile opportunities elsewhere, with our support. 

If more employers took this kind of approach, we think the world of work would be improved for New Yorkers who need good jobs. Just by trying to make our seasonal employment opportunities, of which there are many, a little bit more rewarding, we are changing people’s lives for the better. 

Little Island is now a part of the fabric of New York City. What’s the one word you would describe the future of our amazing city? 

Opportunity.

The New York Philharmonic experience is undoubtedly one of the most incredible experiences you can have in New York City. So much so that it has created a remarkably passionate community of supporters over the years. I was lucky enough to recently spend some time with arts and culture marketing maven Lisa Grow, who is currently VP of marketing and customer experience at the NY Phil, to get her take on the success of this iconic brand and its deep-rooted impact on so many audiences. It was a true pleasure, and I think you will really enjoy her valuable insights.

Damian Bazadona: Describe what you think it means to be a “fan” of the New York Philharmonic. For those who aren’t part of the community, one might assume it’s a singular identity of people who have a deep passion for classical music specifically or only come from certain demographics. Have you watched the definition of what constitutes a fan evolve over the years?

Lisa Grow: There is no one definition for who a fan of the NY Phil is. There are a lot of generalizations about what a fan of classical music or a NY Phil fan looks like—grey-haired, high household income, a certain level of education, etc. Of course, if you look at the demographic background of subscribers at many organizations, one can say that generalization is true at the moment. But it’s important that we expand the definitions of “fan” and “community.” If we limit ourselves to defining fandom as a repeat, high volume, in-person customer, we miss out on a wide array of self-defined fans—someone across the country listening to our rich back catalogue of recordings, a child being exposed to one of our many educational programs, a ticket buyer who may only come once a year on a special occasion but is an active part of our social media community. 

I think the classical music “community” stereotype has many barriers, like an insider club where you need to know everything about the music or artists, where the cost of entry is high both financially and emotionally—”What do I wear?” “Do I belong?” Of course, we love our core classical music fans who nerd out on our social media pages or dig into our archives, but we need to balance the niche with the new. As a leader in the nonprofit performing arts world, we are striving to create an inclusive space where these generalizations can be broken down—a 360-degree approach where everyone can be a fan, at the level they choose, and that shift needs to be organization wide—programming, partnerships, marketing, customer experience and more. 

Over the years, the general concept of a fan has shifted from one-sided fandom to a two-sided relationship. Organizations need to give back to their fans, listen to them—even if we don’t like what we hear—and give back to our community. I am lucky enough to have many years of survey work and audience studies to help understand who our fans are, but it is so incredibly important to listen to our fans. The performing arts industry can also learn from other industries in terms of fan engagement—think of Beyoncé’s surprise album drops, or limited-edition merchandise at Comic-Con, or the personalized Spotify Wrapped year in review. 

Founded in 1842, NY Phil is one of New York City’s oldest institutions. How have you approached maintaining the longstanding traditions that many of your fans may have come to know and love while expanding your approach to reach new audiences?

When I first joined the NY Phil in 2017, I learned about so many traditions, both external and internal. Our history is so rich, and luckily, so much is documented and you can be overwhelmed by the history—whether watching videos of Young People’s Concerts with the iconic Leonard Bernstein or marketing materials for subscriber clubs from the 1980s. While we celebrate and maintain traditions, it’s important that we make room to create new ones. Some people view “legacy” or “legacy brands” as negative qualities these days. But if we actively question our past, we not only build upon it, but truly understand who we are today and how and where we need to change, as well as what we should celebrate about our past—sharing those things with audiences both new and tenured. 

We have programs that are 50-plus years old—Concerts in the Parks, Young People’s Concerts—and others that will be new this coming season, including a pay-what-you-want NY Phil @ Noon series, which takes place in the new Sidewalk Studio in the just-renovated David Geffen Hall opening in October 2022, including a digital wall in the new lobby on which people can watch live concerts. And while programming is a key part of reaching new audiences, the way we communicate this programming has shifted over the years. While just listing composers and works may be effective for a segment of our audience, in this crowded space we need to meet people where they are—both from a placement perspective, but also in messaging and content that places value on the experience.

There are also composers creating incredible new music today. NY Phil has always supported contemporary composers, and it’s our responsibility to expand the classical music canon to bring in new audiences and educate and expose our audiences to new sounds, composers and artists. We have also found that meaningful partnerships with other organizations across New York City and literally giving a stage to these partners not only creates a deeper relationship with communities in the city, but is a moment for us to learn and listen as an organization. 

The 2022-23 season kicks off a self-described new chapter for the NY Phil through programming that “engages with today’s cultural conversations” and focuses on “revitalizing connections with New York City communities.” Why did it feel important to bring both of those things into focus for this season?

In October 2022, we return “home” to David Geffen Hall, but it will be an entirely new hall—a renovation in partnership with Lincoln Center, opening almost two years ahead of schedule. While this is an incredibly important moment for us, it is certainly not an “If you build it, they will come” scenario. Of course, for some fans who have been waiting for this project to come to fruition, it will be. But this is an opportunity to engage a new audience and the broader New York City community—and a new hall is not enough. Our programming needed to reflect today’s conversations, so we are focusing on four themes this coming season: “home,” with a month-long opening featuring community partners and new works; “liberation,” exploring themes of social justice; “spirit,” focusing on the human spirit; and “earth,” which tackles the important subject of the climate crisis.

Relevance is incredibly important for arts organizations—how do we connect with people? How do we encourage a meaningful experience? Along with these programming themes, we will also feature popular programming such as Jurassic Park in Concert, part of our Art of the Score film series, which historically brings in the most new-to-file audience members each season. The season also introduces new series which push the genre boundaries a bit for us, as well as audience favorites. It is important to acknowledge that the audience journey is not linear and to provide many points of entry to this season and to the NY Phil in general.

The variety of programming is important, but so is the marketing and communication, which will include new ticketing programs and new partnerships. We also recently launched a rebrand, which was a research-forward process aiming to help us connect with a wider audience by exploring not only our visual identity but how we communicate. The in-person experience will also be pivotal, which is why we are working with our partners at Lincoln Center to redefine the concert-going experience to create a welcoming environment. Beyond the in-person experience, we aim to be a part of shifting the general perception of classical music and cultural arts organizations—that we can embrace change and be a part of society’s dialogue. 

How did the pandemic shift how you keep the passion of your community alive? Did you learn anything new about what your fans crave most about what you give? How do you keep them engaged outside of the theater?

Like most organizations, the pandemic forced us to become a content distribution studio overnight. At first, we looked at our calendar and shifted what we could to online. We launched an online Mahler festival, which included a partnership with Google Arts & Culture; a mini-festival that featured Instagram Live broadcasts with a mixologist and a DJ, who is also a member of our Orchestra; along with many other digital events. We were also very lucky to have our incredible musicians creating content in their homes, launching NY Phil Plays On, which provided content to our audiences when we could not gather in person, including activities for kids that were home all day—videos like Bolero, which featured many Orchestra members from their homes, and others.

We eventually launched NYPhil+, which we based on what people were engaging with at home—Disney+, Netflix, Hulu. Instead of modeling it off a per-concert model like a live event, we priced it at a low, monthly cost for access to hours of content. We learned much about our fans’ viewing behavior, which is informing our content strategy now that we are back in person. But we also paid attention to our fans who were not engaging with this content and reached out to them with postcards of notes from our musicians and holiday messages by, yes, direct mail. It was incredibly important to not leave any of our audiences behind in a time where they could not engage with us as they typically do. 

When it became a bit safer to be outside, we launched NY Phil Bandwagon—a series of pull-up concerts across the city where the goal was to bring music to our neighbors. We learned a lot during this program including the importance of cultivating partnerships, which led to NY Bandwagon 2, where we shared the stage—a 20-foot long mobile shipping container—with partners across the city. This program, created with countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, gave us perspective in continuing to build on the important work our Education and Community department has been doing for years, which is developing a platform for partners with the goal of meaningful audience development. This season and next, we are working with many of these partners to develop programs including a new Community Partners-in-Residence program.

What we learned from all of this is that what our audiences crave from us varies by person and it is important to show up where they need us most. Whether it was on their screens or on their corner, we explored what audience engagement can look like without traditional stages to perform upon, and I believe we are a stronger organization because of the flexibility we maintained during this extremely difficult time. 

In the size of a tweet, I would love a look into the Lisa Grow crystal ball: “The future of arts and cultural experiences looks _______.”

The future of arts and cultural experience looks varied depending on the work the org puts into true audience development. Relevance will only come if we are willing to roll up our sleeves. There are incredible opportunities for the arts to open doors, minds and hearts.

I think the classical music “community” stereotype has many barriers, like an insider club where you need to know everything about the music or artists, where the cost of entry is high both financially and emotionally—”What do I wear?” “Do I belong?” Of course, we love our core classical music fans who nerd out on our social media pages or dig into our archives, but we need to balance the niche with the new. As a leader in the nonprofit performing arts world, we are striving to create an inclusive space where these generalizations can be broken down—a 360-degree approach where everyone can be a fan, at the level they choose, and that shift needs to be organization wide—programming, partnerships, marketing, customer experience and more. 

Over the years, the general concept of a fan has shifted from one-sided fandom to a two-sided relationship. Organizations need to give back to their fans, listen to them—even if we don’t like what we hear—and give back to our community. I am lucky enough to have many years of survey work and audience studies to help understand who our fans are, but it is so incredibly important to listen to our fans. The performing arts industry can also learn from other industries in terms of fan engagement—think of Beyoncé’s surprise album drops, or limited-edition merchandise at Comic-Con, or the personalized Spotify Wrapped year in review. 

One of the biggest consumer behavior shifts to come out of the pandemic was the massive and rapid adoption of people experiencing virtual events. From trade shows to major concerts to acclaimed cultural performances, the explosion of virtual event technology boomed in ways and at a speed I could never have imagined.

One of the major players in that sea change was the innovative startup Stellar, which was founded by leading live entertainment visionary Jim McCarthy. I’ve known Jim for many years, so it was truly a pleasure to sit down with him to get his take on where things are in the world of virtual events, and what’s to come.

Damian Bazadona: Your company, Stellar, both was born and boomed during the pandemic. What was the problem you saw in the virtual event space that you were most passionate about trying to solve? Why did you think you were the right ones to solve it? And why was this the right moment?

Jim McCarthy: We greenlit the Stellar project in May 2020 after thinking long and hard about it for several weeks. The shutdown brought our Goldstar business to a complete halt, of course, and we were very confident that the crisis for live entertainment was going to be long. In the early days of the pandemic, live event creators were admirably scrappy, stringing together different tools and software to create an OK-ish online event product. We felt that live event creators would get more sophisticated as time went on and would want a real system for ticketing, streaming and generally delivering a professional, quality online show—and that’s what happened.

Was there anything about the innovation curve of that period that frustrated you?

Eh, not really. People are going to adopt when they adopt. Right now, many of the people who jumped in have jumped out. Partly, that’s because getting back onstage for in-person events has been a harder lift than any of us imagined. That’s the part I sympathize with. The other part is that some people never really tried online events. They did something half-baked with a minimal budget, didn’t get any traction, and then said, “See? That didn’t work!” Those are the people who ultimately are threatened by the disruption that online events represent. The early adopters and innovators who are in right now are figuring out a formula that’s going to make things very, very challenging for their competition in a few years. They’re just going to have the audience, the reach and the resources to out-compete those who can’t think in terms of hybrid.

But all of this is exactly how it’s supposed to be. Early adopters figure things out because they’ve got the temperament and mind for it. Done right, they become legendary. After that, some people follow their lead and do very well. It’s the ones after that who find themselves in trouble. They’re suddenly underskilled, under-resourced and unable to give their audience what they want. But that’s just how it goes. I’ve seen this play out on a large scale twice in my career. Once with the adoption of the internet and World Wide Web, and then again 15 or so years later with mobile. Some people got it first, others followed fast, and others got flattened. 

What was one of the most interesting things you observed about the shifts in consumer behavior in entertainment across the last 2+ years as people shifted to virtual events?

Consumer preferences and behavior are up for grabs right now, especially in live. If the shutdown or lockdown had been short, or even if it had been a few months, most of the old habits would have just picked back up. But after two years, we are, in many ways, different people. So there’s a jump ball of sorts right now. It’s anybody’s game because habits have changed and/or are being re-formed. Some things that people used to do are gone forever, at least for them. Given time to think about what they were doing, they’ve reconsidered. In fact, wouldn’t it be sad if we just time-warped back to March 2020? Obviously, it’s exciting to be able to do some things again that we couldn’t before, but if you haven’t used this time as an opportunity to rethink your personal life patterns, there might be something wrong with you.

We traditionally think of fandom as something that has its roots in the physical, live event experience (i.e., the stage door after a show). Having worked in both spaces, what would you say is one of the most interesting differences between the fandoms of virtual events vs. in-person events? What has changed about the way fans show their fandom?

Only theater people think of fandom as being a primarily in-person thing. What do you have, maybe 100 people at a stage door? That’s very cool, but 100 is still a really, really small number. If there are 100 people who can and will stand outside on a Manhattan sidewalk to see a performer, that probably means there are 10,000 or 100,000 who would do that or something else to express their fandom if they had a chance. But the industry does a lot, unintentionally, to make that impossible or very hard for people. In the rest of the world, 100 people expressing their fandom is a rounding error of a rounding error. Live events, even if they’re online, are a major, peak experience for fandom. 

We’ve seen so many examples of thousands or tens of thousands of fans joining in online for a live event and geeking the hell out on whatever their fandom is. We sold a chainsaw for $2,500 to a fan of Evil Dead during a live online event. People propose to each other in chat. They stick around for an hour after events just to be with each other. Both kinds of fandom are great, and in fact, they’re a continuum of opportunities. You’ve heard me say this a million times, but imagine if sports fans could only express their fandom at the stadium. The NBA would be a LOT smaller. It’s time for the live world, and theater in particular, to lock onto this concept.

Now that we have gravitated so much toward virtual, live events in the pandemic, what do you think is the “magic ingredient” an in-person event needs to have to really convince someone to come out of their home and have that experience?

First, I have to make sure to say that I love in-person live events. It’s one of the things that I really missed during the pandemic, among many others that I did not. There’s absolutely no danger of virtual events “replacing” in-person events. They’re two different experiences. The great event producers, like Eva Price for example, are figuring out that the future really is hybrid, and the experience of the same show in person and online are two very different literal things.

If you want a good example of this, watch the VOD of her production of Cruel Intentions, which was on stage live in December and also live on Stellar at the same time. The online audience saw things that the in-person audience didn’t, and vice versa. It was innovative and amazing, and that’s what’s coming as time goes on. 

The magic ingredient of in-person live is that it’s in-person, but producers shouldn’t over-rely on that. Make me so happy I’m there in person that I can’t imagine being anywhere else. It’s not about the fact that only X number of people can come to the show. That’s a scarcity mindset. It’s about the power of being in the same place with other people. You’ve got to leverage that as an in-person event producer.

If you had a crystal ball, what do you think the future of virtual, live events looks like now that we have returned to in-person experiences as well?

Actually, I wrote a book on this subject that’s coming out in a couple months. It’s called Beyond the Back Row, and it’s a quick but juicy primer for getting up to the starting line if you’re interested in online events. I’m especially excited to get it into the hands of the people who want a seat at the table in this industry and can’t get one. Online and hybrid might just be the way in for them, and they might knock over a few things getting there. Would that be so bad? I don’t think so.

But more to the question, the future of virtual is hybrid for the next few years. When producers and venues learn to leverage the shows they’re already doing to get an incremental audience, great things can happen. Financially, artistically and in terms of reach, it’s a long-needed improvement to the industry. The choice is whether you’re going to be leading the innovation this enables or following it. It’s OK to follow, especially, as I say, if you follow fast. But some people, in the medium and long term, will get obsoleted by this. Especially as Gen Z moves into the workplace and becomes key consumers.

Digital isn’t a threat to live entertainment. It’s a major, major opportunity. But it is a threat to people who stay in the old mode for too long, so don’t let that be you.

The world of arts and culture is home to some of the most passionate communities there are. The experiences we have in this world inevitably shape who we all are today. That is the power of the magic and impact of arts and culture brands.

If you’ve ever purchased a ticket to an arts or cultural experience, odds are you did so through the Tessitura Network. Tessitura is the leading ticketing and CRM platform for nonprofit arts organizations. And in the age of Covid-19, few industries were impacted more significantly than the arts and culture business. The last two years challenged age-old norms of the industry and forced a reimagining of what the future can (and must) bring for these communities to thrive.

I sat down with someone who is on the front lines of this industry transformation, Andrew Recinos, president and CEO at Tessitura, to get his perspective on building communities in a world full of new realities.

Damian Bazadona: You recently stepped into the role of president and CEO at Tessitura, succeeding its co-founder who held the top spot for 20 years. When an organization is going through a sea change, what have you found to be most effective in keeping your community strong, connected and moving forward? 

Andrew Recinos: Our co-founder, Jack Rubin, built a very successful, member-owned technology company. Sometimes a new CEO is brought in to tear it all down, but that isn’t what Tessitura needed when I took over. The company is in solid shape. At the same time, we serve an industry that has been thrown into chaos by the pandemic, and we need to evolve rapidly to meet that challenge. 

As a leader, I have tried to keep one eye on our core strengths and the other on innovating as quickly as possible to meet the ever-changing needs of our sector. That is the crux of how I have approached this leadership transition for our team and our members: We are the same Tessitura you know and trust, AND we are evolving in real time to support you.

As you were preparing to take over as CEO, you embarked on a nine-month, “listening tour” where you interviewed more than 100 of the leaders of the 750+ arts and culture institutions Tessitura supports. Why was this tour so important? And how critical has the (often not so) simple act of listening and vulnerability been in building and sustaining your own community?

On average, once a day I speak to the leader of a cultural organization that is part of the Tessitura community. My agenda is always a single question: “How’s it going?” That one question can lead in countless directions. “What are you hearing in your community?” “How’s your team?” “What is keeping you up at night?” “How can Tessitura help?”

Sometimes the calls become very specific discussions of Tessitura functionality. Sometimes the calls become philosophical ruminations on the future of arts and culture. Sometimes it is a free therapy session for one or both of us. I can’t imagine doing this job without that daily touchpoint. It informs every decision I make, from technology direction, to service offerings, to our messaging.

Did you hear any overarching themes from these calls?

Yes, absolutely. I was so impressed by the sheer grit of arts and culture leaders right now. Leaders I spoke with consistently emphasized the importance of accepting the reality of their situation and being transparent with their teams. There was also a huge theme around caring for their teams when life and work both had such huge struggles. This, of course, was especially poignant as it was coupled with the economic reality of huge layoffs across the industry. To me, the most surprising insight—and I heard it many, many times—was that this time has become a moment of deep soul searching. The combination of the enforced pause and the existential nature of this crisis led many in our sector to turn inward and examine the “why” of their organization’s work.

As we all know, arts and culture institutions were among the hardest hit during the pandemic. While some chose to stay shuttered until live experiences could return, many of the organizations you support chose to massively innovate how they engage with their audiences. What were some of the most creative and successful approaches that you saw? What do you think made them so successful with their communities?

The sheer innovation of cultural organizations is one of the great unsung stories of the pandemic. The successful ones had a ruthless focus on their core missions. The most exciting leaders I spoke with saw the pandemic not as a disaster that shut their doors, but as a grand challenge to continue bringing culture to their communities. 

Just one of the many visionary leaders I spoke with is Zenetta Drew, executive director of Dallas Black Dance Theatre. They became the first major dance company to launch a paid digital dance season, within months of the shutdown. Unable to perform for a live audience, and uninterested in devaluing their work by offering it for free, they began a series of digital films featuring their dancers on rooftops, street corners and gardens around Dallas. They ended their pandemic fiscal year in the black, having touched thousands of new audience members around the world.

A nonprofit, digital CRM company might not typically be a place you’d think of having a deeply rooted, vast community, but you’ve made almost an art form out of connecting with the institutions you serve, as well as arts and culture as a whole. You continuously invent new technologies and services to better serve your community’s needs—especially during the pandemic—and you host hundreds of events every year to bring together thousands of Tessitura users. Why has taking such a hands-on, communal approach to something that others might view through only a transactional lens been so important to how Tessitura functions?

Community is why we exist. Tessitura is more than a nonprofit, we are a member-owned nonprofit. We are a co-op. I report to a board made entirely of executives of Tessitura member organizations. In the earliest days, our “annual conference” was just 100 arts administrators in a room discussing and debating what the next features of the software should be. I don’t know how you get more community than that. 

Last August, we had 4,000 people from 10 countries at our virtual global conference. And while it (still!) includes discussions of new features, our gatherings have evolved to conversations large and small about arts, culture and innovation around the world. As an executive told me a few months ago, “The best thing about Tessitura is that you are us and we are you.” I nearly wept. I can’t imagine it any other way.

When the pandemic hit, one of Tessitura’s core functions—helping arts and culture institutions sell tickets—came to an immediate halt. We know how devastating this was for the institutions themselves, but you’ve mentioned how traumatic it was for your own team as well. When going through such a massive and unexpected change as an organization, how do you keep morale alive? How do you grieve what is happening, but simultaneously reset the course and create hope for the future?

We are a fully work-from-home company, and always have been, with staff living in about 100 cities around the globe. In the second week of March 2020, on our internal company Slack channel, people started posting links, Tweets and press releases as Tessitura organizations began closing. The Slack room would ping about once a minute. New York. Closed. London. Closed. Miami. Sydney. Perth. Chicago. It was heartbreaking.

The closures were personally wrenching to the large portion of our team who are also active as musicians, actors, dancers, artists and scientists. And for the first 24 hours we just felt helpless. We all derive meaning by helping cultural organizations succeed, and we couldn’t.

But then we did what we always do: We started listening to our members. The team watched the Tessitura member chat rooms and new helpdesk tickets and quickly saw a major trend emerging. Our organizations were forced to cancel hundreds of events and potentially give back millions of dollars of ticket revenue, which would have cratered their businesses. They were desperate to hang onto some of that revenue and started posing questions: “Can we ask the ticket buyer to turn that refund into a donation?” “Could we ask them to put that money on credit for a future performance?” 

Well, those are smart and important questions, as there is nothing worse for an arts organization than giving back hard-earned revenue. What did they end up doing in response to the money being lost to cancellations? 

That was the moment our team channeled the energy of despair into energy of innovation. Our engineering team quickly figured out that they could develop functionality that would present all refunding ticket buyers with a friendly option to donate or hold their money, rather than refunding it. Our team worked nights and weekends and, within six days, donations were rolling in. Nothing I could have said to the team would have improved morale as much as being able to genuinely help.

A few months later, we ran the numbers. That one utility allowed Tessitura organizations to retain more than $20 million in contributed revenue that otherwise would have been refunded. That was our first feature created in response to the pandemic. We would ultimately put out more than 40 others during the lockdown.

I truly appreciate your time for this interview, as I know you are knee deep in getting arts organizations back up and running across the globe. In closing, I would love you to complete the following question:  “The future of passionate arts and culture communities looks _________.”

Pervasive. When the early 2020s chapter of arts and culture history is written, I actually suspect that the biggest catalyst for change in the sector won’t have been the pandemic, so much as the reckoning that resulted from the murder of George Floyd and the protests that followed. The story of arts and culture institutions has for so long been a story of haves and have-nots, with artificial barriers separating cultural experiences from society–geographic barriers, economic barriers, racial barriers. My greatest hope is that the energy that has been unleashed around equity will remove those barriers and lead us to a place where arts and culture is a meaningful part of every life.

I’ve had the great privilege of working with the Anti-Defamation League and the super-talented Debora Lehrer over the years. Whether you are familiar with their brand or not, I’m sure you have felt their impact. ADL is among the most active advocates in combating hate in our country and has built a passionate community of supporters along the way. I recently sat down with Debora to get an inside look into the very important world of combating hate and the role that a strong community plays in supporting their efforts.

Damian Bazadona: ADL/The Anti-Defamation League does such incredible work combating hate across the country and has built a remarkably engaged community. What would you say is at the core of why the community remains so actively engaged?

Debora Lehrer: This is a great question and one we think about and focus on constantly. I think there are a number of reasons we have such an engaged community, but one of the major contributors that we are all reading about in our country as we have this interview is that there’s been a lot of hate recently.

Over the century-plus since ADL was founded in 1913, we have cemented our reputation as the leading organization fighting antisemitism and hate of all kinds. We have built a great deal of credibility and expertise in that time, which is why people turn to us early and often.

And unfortunately, we have witnessed historic levels of hate in this country over the past few years. It’s been almost pervasive and a constant presence in the news cycle. We’ve been tracking antisemitic incidents for over 40 years, and in the last few years we’ve seen some records. Hate crimes have been high, and that’s even with the knowledge that they are often underreported. We’ve seen alarming rises in hate aimed at the AAPI community, the Black community, the LGBTQI+ community, immigrants, Latin Americans and so many others. Sadly, we’ve also experienced deadly violence that is fueled by hate and extremism. 

Being an anti-hate organization, ADL is where so many people turn when they experience, hear about or read about these terrible trends and occurrences. Our community turns to us because they know we’ll have data, resources for understanding the data and the trends we’re seeing, ways for them to take action in their own communities and, often, reasons for hope even when it seems unlikely.

It’s so impressive to see how far ADL’s work spans in combating hate. How does that practically play out in the work your organization does?

We provide resources and actions for everyone. Part of why we are able to keep our community so engaged is because our work affects and impacts so many people in a community. Our anti-bias programs reach over a million students each year. We have educational resources for families, educators, administrators and students at all levels. ADL partners with civil rights organizations to enhance advocacy efforts for all marginalized communities. We engage with synagogues across the country to address issues of antisemitism and safety. Our Center on Extremism works closely with law enforcement as they monitor and disrupt extremist activity, often before it has the chance to turn violent. As online hate has erupted across platforms, our Center for Technology and Society offers ways to report online harassment, while at the same time working with tech companies to address fundamental platform governance issues. 

And we are also focused on not just providing resources and working on behalf of our community, but on making sure they have ways to join us on the frontlines themselves. Whether declaring their school No Place for Hate, contacting representatives to push for key legislative action, reporting antisemitic or bias incidents, Walking Against Hate or attending our annual Never Is Now Summit, the ADL community is constantly being given opportunities to use their voice to help fight hate for good.

I know aside from having a sizable digital footprint, you also have a physical presence with offices in many places across the country. How does that impact the depth of your relationship with your community?

A key differentiator for ADL is our regional office network. We have 25 offices around the country that cover every community. These offices provide ADL the opportunity to engage on local levels and address the issues that are affecting communities on the ground. It is our regional offices who are responding to incidents when they occur. When the terrifying hostage crisis unfolded in Colleyville, Texas, it was our regional director who was on the ground, working with the Beth Israel community and law enforcement as the day’s events unfolded.

So many people in the ADL community have their first ADL encounter through one of our regional offices. This often provides them a more personalized experience with ADL because they are engaging with issues that are close to home. They always have the option of activating with ADL at a national level, and no doubt hear from us on our national channels, but I firmly believe it is our regional offices that keep our supporters enthusiastically engaged through their work on the ground.

Do you find that this drive for action is something that comes naturally to the ADL community? Or is it something that ADL works to cultivate? It’s one thing to get people to be a part of the community, it’s another for them to be active.

With the rise in hate, I hear from so many people that they feel helpless and are looking for something to do to fight back. That’s where ADL comes in. We are incredibly focused on making sure that the vast majority of our communications, no matter the channel, provide ways to take action alongside key information and resources.

A trend we’ve seen with our community is that we do such a good job of keeping them informed of trends and incidents that the obvious response to reading something like our annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents is to say “So, what can I do?” Part of this being the common response also speaks to the kinds of people who join the ADL community. The vast majority of them are joining the community because they care about fighting hate and the work ADL does every day. Being a concerned member of society is often correlated with wanting to be an active member of society, fighting for justice and fair treatment for all. This is something we keep in mind as we look to bring more people into our community as well.

I’ve long admired ADL’s ability to engage and respond quickly against the hate that we are reading in the headlines. With the importance of speed in responding to often complex, fast-moving stories, I’m sure you’ve learned a lot in how to navigate communication. What’s the biggest “no-no” in how and when you engage with the ADL community?

This is something we’ve unfortunately become quite adept at doing. By far the biggest no-no in my book would be not communicating internally before we communicate externally. When an incident occurs, we are responding in so many ways. Our Center on Extremism is most likely in touch with law enforcement. A regional director will be on the ground at the site of the incident. Our Center for Technology and Society will be looking to see how things play out online. Our Government Relations team is reaching out to lawmakers and partners. With so much happening at one time, it is critical that the marketing team and the communications team are looped into everything happening and ensuring that no matter who at ADL is responding where, we are doing so with one voice and message. This is critical for our community, who have their eyes turned to us in times of crisis. When our CEO is on CNN, we want that message to be similar to what’s in our tweets, our emails, on our website, etc., so that wherever people are hearing from us, they are getting the right message, resources and ways to take action. This is going to be the surest way to keep supporters informed, engaged and active. 

What investments are necessary to continue to build, grow and maintain the ADL community? As an organization that’s over 100 years old, how do you reinvest to remain relevant in building new supporters while keeping a bond with existing supporters?

Another question that we think about and talk about every day. A key here is recognizing that our supporters are going to be showing up in different places and we need to recognize that. For instance, we know that our direct mail audience tends to be an audience that has been supporting ADL longer than some other channels. We also have learned that our email audience tends to be interested in certain topics more than others. We have been investing more and more in research and measurement tools to track what’s resonating and where so we can better keep these existing audiences engaged. We’re also constantly testing acquisition methods on different channels alongside continued integration of multi-channel campaigns. 

At the same time, we also need to be focused on awareness building and bringing in new generations of supporters. This means not just investing in things like research surveys, but also new platforms and channels. We’ve recently been doing more with texting. We use our advocacy platform as a way to generate new leads by bringing people in on certain issues they care deeply about that we address. Our social team is constantly looking at new platforms and ways to engage new audiences there. 

Another key way we look to bring in new supporters is by investing in partnerships. Innovation and partnerships have been key drivers of our approach the past few years. By forming strategic partnerships with like-minded organizations, we are reaching thousands more potential ADL supporters who we know are already motivated by at least one or more of the issues ADL addresses. 

How do you navigate being at odds with your community? Sometimes your community may want something from you that you’re not able or willing to do.

I think this is something every organization and company grapples with, whether you are selling consumer product goods or are mission-driven like ADL. At ADL, we are, of course, focused on what our community wants and expects from us, and are constantly monitoring that feedback. However, ADL has always been driven by principles and it is those principles which drive our policies and positions. It’s never politics and, at times, it’s not what everyone in our community wants, either. Part of staying principled, and adhering to our mission “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all” is knowing we aren’t always going to make everyone happy all the time. 

Recognizing that we are sometimes going to be at odds with portions of our community also means that we are hyper-aware of how we message our positions. We look to explain our statements and actions thoroughly and lay out the ways they are based on principle, precedent and priorities. If there are those in the community that still don’t agree, we respect their disagreement, try to learn from it, but ultimately, we’re going to keep calling balls and strikes.