The coronavirus crisis continues to keep museums and cultural organizations closed to the public, and closures are predicted to continue for weeks to months more. As a result, many institutions are facing disruptions to their revenue streams and finding it hard to connect with their members, donors, and constituents without in-person interactions and events that allow members to gather.
This week over 1,000 guests joined Dan Sullivan (Head of Growth and Partnerships @ Cuseum), Elizabeth Epley Sheets (Chief Advancement Officer @ Cheekwood Estate & Gardens) & Bradford Talley (Membership Manager @ Museum of Pop Culture) as they discussed the ways they’ve been honing their communication and messaging to connect with their members and donors during this difficult time. They discussed the potential of “virtual events” and gatherings that can help members stay connected to your organization and with each other.
View the video recording here.
Read the full transcript below.
Dan Sullivan:
Hello, everyone. I am Dan Sullivan. I am the Head of Partnerships and Growth at Cuseum. First of all, I just want to say thank you to all of you for being here today. Hopefully, you all find yourself safe and healthy. To all of our first-time watchers, welcome. For those who are repeat visitors, thank you again for being here. We're going to have some great insights today. I'm really excited about our panelists. As always, it's really important. We're going to have about 1,000 community members that are joining today, so feel free to introduce yourself, as many have in the chat. Feel free to also use the Q&A functionality to ask questions. Another thing, you can upload questions that people ask in the Q&A. They'll be sent higher up towards the top so we can address them with panelists. Again, taking a minute to introduce yourselves. I am personally glad that you're all here, and I do want to wish you all another safe and healthy week.
At this point, you probably notice a trend that this webinar series is part of our Membership Monday series. It's a weekly webinar. It's held every Monday at 3:00 PM Eastern time. We spotlight new ideas and perspectives from membership professionals who are stepping up to the challenges that Coronavirus is throwing at us. Membership Mondays tackles a variety of membership related challenges. For those who missed it, last week, we talked about fulfillment renewals and budgets, with Alice Stryker from the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, as well as Kim Kirkhart from the Santa Barbara Zoo. All prior recordings can be found on the Cuseum website.
One thing I want to say quickly too, these webinars are for you, they're for the membership community. It's really important for us to continue to feature your peers as well as organization to share great insights and we can learn from each other. In that vein, if you know anybody who would be a great panelist for a webinar like this or for Membership Monday's, somebody who really thinks outside the box, somebody who is really helping their organization to push forward, let us know, even if that person is you. Let us know we'd love to hear from you.
Two last quick housekeeping things. Cuseum has three more awesome webinars this week. Supporting Communities With Digital Programs During Coronavirus, that's Wednesday at two o'clock Eastern. And then by popular demand this Thursday, we're hosting a second webinar, How to Manage a Remote Internship Program At your Museum, that's also at two o'clock Eastern time. And then the third one is MUSE, ZOOS, & CLUES, it's our weekly hour of happiness and happenings and cultural trivia to end your week. The third one will be this Friday at 4:00 pm Eastern Time, mark your calendar. Last Friday was super fun. We've had some appearances by some steampunk related contraptions.
Many of us now are heading into week five or possibly Week Six of quarantine. Cultural organizations are continuing to face these prolonged physical closures, possibly for many weeks or months to come. We truly do not know how long this is going to continue. For many organizations and membership professionals in particular, processes honing messaging, asking for renewals and donations and connecting with members and donors have been an enormous challenge during these prolonged and continued closures. Additionally, many museums and organizations are seeing just how important member and donor events are to fostering that connection with your mission and your organization as many begin to launch virtual concepts for different types of engagements. I am super excited to welcome our awesome panelists today. We've got Elizabeth Epley Sheets Sheets, the Chief Investment Officer at the Cheekwood Estate and Gardens. And we've got Bradford Talley, the Membership Manager at the Museum of Pop Culture. Thank you both for being here. To get us kicked off, Elizabeth, why don't you start by introducing yourself and a bit of background about, about Cheekwood.
Elizabeth Epley Sheets:
Sure, thank you, Dan. I am happy to be here. Thank you for hosting. Cheekwood is a multifaceted institution in Nashville, Tennessee. We are a botanical garden and we have 55 acres. We also have a historic home on the property and the home serves as a museum that includes history as well as art. We have a collection of about 7,000 pieces of art, primarily American art of the 20th century as well as outdoor contemporary sculpture. We have about 15,000 member households, and our annual budget is roughly $10 million in a regular year. I'm happy to be here.
Dan Sullivan:
Thanks for being here. Bradford, how about you?
Bradford Talley:
Thanks, Dan. My name is Bradford Talley. I'm the Membership manager at Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, Washington. We are of course a pop culture museum. We've been around since 2000. Currently we have about 7,000 active membership households, we see about 700,000 visitors annually. Just like pop culture, our content exhibits vary wildly from music, science fiction, video games, and it changes, it's everything under the sun. At MoPOP our aim is to make creative expression a life changing force by offering experiences that inspire and connect our communities.
Dan Sullivan:
Awesome. Well, thank you very much. We've got some questions for the different panelists. As a starting point, how do you typically communicate with your members and donors, what platforms and what channels do you use? Bradford, do you want to start us off with this one?
Bradford Talley:
Yeah, sure. We've been communicating about 90% digitally since 2017 when I took over the membership department. This partially is due to our visitor base which leans a little bit towards the younger side, so it wasn't that difficult of a transition. The money spent on a lot of our direct mail campaigns and stuff cannot be founded. So, we move to digital. We have two evergreen postcards we currently send for renewal. Right now those things are on hold. But typically it's mostly digital, I would say when it comes down to the end of the term 99% digital communication.
Dan Sullivan:
Awesome. Elizabeth how about on your side?
Elizabeth Epley Sheets:
We skew digital as well. On our communications we do send out on a regular basis, we would be sending out hardcopy renewal letters, and then we do a hard copy mailer once a quarter to members. Generally we're doing a lot of communications via email. Then we have a wide social media reach as well, which is, of course, a variety of members and non members.
Dan Sullivan:
Great. Elizabeth, have you switched up the channels that you're using during this closure? What are you finding to be most effective right now?
Elizabeth Epley Sheets:
We are really trying to hit our members via email and social media and then directing people to our website, we're doing a lot more blog posts. I know we'll touch on this later but we have moved some of our programming over to the digital realm. Really, at this point, we've stopped all print communications since we're not in the office at this point and also due to budgetary restrictions. We're just going digital.
Dan Sullivan:
Awesome. Bradford, how about you? Have you seen any channels performing better than others?
Bradford Talley:
I would echo honestly what Elizabeth said, with our digital communication we didn't change up much with our newsletter content. We have always been pointing towards our website, or pointing towards our blog. We've had some really cool engagement on our blog, and our active engagement on our blog with MoPOP Madness that replaced the March Madness Bracketology type fun stuff. In my opinion, I think I've been seeing some pretty decent rates with all member newsletters. With those we're seeing open and click rates staying as high as they normally are. I feel that's promising. It seems like we're staying relevant in their headspace. Even while the doors are closed, hopefully we see something come from that.
Dan Sullivan:
Awesome. Let's talk about messaging and tone for a second here. When you're sending renewal acquisition campaigns, even just asking for donations, what messaging or tone are you using with that right now, and how has that shifted due to Coronavirus?
Elizabeth Epley Sheets:
We have really been trying to keep a positive tone first and foremost. We look forward to welcoming you back to Cheekwood when we can. With that said, please renew your membership. We need your support now more than ever. We're also doing right now if you renew you will automatically receive 13 months for the price of 12. We have some other promotions going as well. But that's our general tone.
Dan Sullivan:
Bradford, how about on your side?
Bradford Talley:
At MoPOP we are staying positive as well. The voice between GA and member folks hasn't really changed. It still is speaking to what we're missing, what we are missing out on revenue wise. We are always asking for gifts in there. That carries over to all of our renewals as well. Fundraising messaging during this has been pretty personal. It's been forthright telling the story that the donor can help our doors stay open. Also being frank about the revenue loss, you got to be straightforward with them and as transparent as you can. These are important folks in our revenue lines, helping those folks remember that how we impact their lives, and the way that we impact their lives could be affected by how we come out of this.
Dan Sullivan:
I think that's super interesting, that idea of being transparent, open and honest about the fact that all organizations are seeing no gate revenue coming in at all. Being transparent about the fact that, "Yeah, we've really taken a hit. This has been a very challenging time for us." That does go a long way. What about membership extensions? A lot of people wonder about this. We have covered this in most of our webinars, but how are you handling those and how are you reinforcing those membership benefits, or the value of your memberships during this time, whenever one's asking for an extension?
Bradford Talley:
Yeah, I always use it as a thank you when I'm speaking to folks. I have not really received a lot of questions regarding that, but we've also dribbled our extension information into just about every piece of communication, without having to put a stake in the ground as we get to how long that will be, because we truly won't know the extent of it until we come out of it. The way I view it though, we closed in March, the folks that expire in March are still due. At least a half a month to a full month more of their membership benefits before we expire their memberships. Of course, they'll be renewing a second renewal cycle when we get there, but we'll find out what that's going to be like.
Dan Sullivan:
You're just extending for the number of months that you have been closed?
Bradford Talley:
Yes. We're going to do a blanket extension. We're on Tessitura. They actually really early after this all began released utility to make that pretty easy with our CRM. I went through some testing rounds with it last week and everything came out really nice and clean. That's the way we're going to do it. Leading into it, I was asked to put together a full workout of what it would look like with a one month extension, all the way up to a six month extension to look at what revenue and missing revenue in 2021 will look like. There's a point that's like, "Oh, no." But there's also a point that we can fix this. It's going to definitely be a mark in the books for a while.
Dan Sullivan:
For sure. Elizabeth what about on your side?
Elizabeth Epley Sheets:
We don't know yet when we're going to or how long we'll extend memberships as well. We haven't made a final decision on this. We use the Blackbaud product Altru for our database, which is where the front of the house and the back of the house can speak to one another pretty easily. And I saw at least one comment already pop up about Altru. But they announced today that they will also have a tool where we can implement a widespread membership extension when the time comes. We do plan to utilize that, I don't know at this point when we will be reopening, we need to figure out what that will look like.
At this time upon request, we've been doing it manually for any member who contacts us to complain about us being closed or they've complained about not getting their membership value. I think we were doing so much promotion earlier in the year. We had a lot going on this spring that we were promoting and pushing membership. We had a children's garden that opened on March 7th.Then we have two other gardens that have been under renovation that should have reopened during the past six weeks. We've been trying to address concerns around that missed value.
Dan Sullivan:
For sure. As far as the way that you're approaching communication, how has that shifted over the last six weeks? Have you taken an agile approach where you say this is not working, let's shift that. Can you talk a little bit about that? Elizabeth, you want to start there?
Elizabeth Epley Sheets:
I will. We've really tried to from the beginning when we first closed. Well, I think the first week or two, we were really, I would say a little bit on the defense because we weren't expecting this to happen.We really had to get our messaging straight. But since that time, we have had to come up with the plan to bring Cheekwood to you. While we had thousands and thousands of tulips blooming on the property and Cheekwood in Bloom, our big seasonal festival, we did as much as we could to try to share photographs and share videos with our visitors and members through digital outlets.
As far as members communications specifically go, we have shifted a bit, we've changed our messaging for our regular renewal communications. We did end up sending out a member email where we tried to come up with a few special things that we could offer members that wouldn't be available to other people who are on our general email list. We had a few things that we were able to offer there.
Dan Sullivan:
For sure. This question is from Maria Reynolds, she asks, "What kinds of renewal rates are you seeing with these kinds of efforts." Elizabeth and Bradford, do you want to share a little bit about what you're seeing?
Bradford Talley:
Yeah, most of our membership purchases, probably 90% of our membership purchases since we closed our doors have been renewals or reinstatements from various months. I've seen renewals as early as July expirations already jumping on. Maybe this may be their only opportunity to renew their membership, all the way to reinstatements from three years back. It is interesting to not see any new ones. However, we have closed down most of any acquisition efforts or digital ads and things like that for the time being. I would say if our approach towards communication is shifted, yes, of course, our newsletter is not talking about any in person type events right now. But I think most of all, you've got to be ready for anything, as we all know everything is changing every moment, every minute, every hour, depending on what state you're in. I think nothing should be set in stone until about 30 minutes before you actually click the deploy button, when it comes down to it. That's always not the best feeling in the world to not have all that content circle around and dialed in by that point, but at the same time, it is the nature of the right now.
Dan Sullivan:
Absolutely. Elizabeth, what are your thoughts on that?
Elizabeth Epley Sheets:
Our renewals are really under where they should be, and our overall revenue from membership is down significantly. We also had very high projections for March and April based on all of these events that we had planned. We are just reassessing right now where we think that we will be able to go. We have a membership base that really likes to visit. We have changing exhibitions, changing seasons. I think once we are able to reopen the property, I would hope to see a spike in membership renewals.
Bradford Talley:
To add on to that Dan, I also think with summertime around the corner. If anybody is in a tourist destination as we are here in Seattle, this summertime when we reopen there's not going to be many folks flying into town to see us. I think there's going to be a lot of staycationers, I think it's going to open a big huge door for us, as far as renewals, reinstatements and those new relationships from the neighborhood. Personally here in Seattle, we have a lot of new residents all the time, it's just a matter of getting them through the doors or even outside the doors to us, or engage a conversation. I think hopefully just to open up that door for them. Then content, content, content. That's what our people come for, is what we have.
Dan Sullivan:
Absolutely. This question is from Lindsay Nielsen. She asks, "do you communicate separately with the membership base, as well as including them in general communication, member newsletters, phone calls, direct emails." Can we talk a little bit about that for a second? Elizabeth, you want to kick us off there?
Elizabeth Epley Sheets:
Absolutely. We typically include our members in all of our general email communications. We often send a separate additional note out to members at a different time. We're staggering it so they don't get hit too frequently. We sent about 10 days ago, probably an email that was just to members. We sent a digital puzzle that was taken from a photo of Cheekwood. We found a tool online to create this digital puzzle that you could do. As well, we sent them some virtual backgrounds that could be used either for their screensaver or for Zoom backgrounds. We offered our members the opportunity to do a question, answer session with one of our gardeners.They could email their questions, and then we filtered those through to our gardening team and sent personal notes back to the members who had questions.
The other thing that we are in the process of doing right now is actually making personal phone calls. With 15,000 members, we can't make a phone call to everyone based on our staff. We are starting with all of the members who have either joined or renewed mostly renewals, the past six weeks, as well as our upper level members. We are calling people to thank them and let them know that we are thinking about them and we miss them and look forward to welcoming them back.
Dan Sullivan:
It's interesting too, other folks have mentioned the same thing. We're calling people and we don't typically do that. People are quite receptive to your loss and some of them are even a little bit chatty to the point where I think people are, maybe some are sick of talking to the same people that live in their house. Bradford, how about you on that one?
Bradford Talley:
Yeah, I also get sick of talking to my cat all the time. Yeah. The difference between our GA member communication throughout most of my time in my involvement with our newsletter. We are messaging very similar things in just different ways for both of those groups currently to try to trim down on how much the volume of email that's going out. Considering that's primarily the way, well, 100% of the way that we're engaging with folks aside from social media, to try to make those as much as a line as possible. There's a newsletter going out, I'll make a renewal version of it. We'll have a member version of it and a general version. More slightly varying parts of the blurbs, or the blurbs being entirely different. Just depends. Once we get reopened and get everything rolling again, then we'll go back to a normal smaller groups receiving segmented messaging. But currently we're trying not to overwork our email guy right now, because we know there's a lot coming down the pipes for him.
Dan Sullivan:
For sure. While we're on the subject, Elizabeth, this question is from Alison Mallard. She's asking, "What type of content does your quarterly mailer include?" Can you talk a little bit about that?
Elizabeth Epley Sheets:
I will, yes. We generally have this beautiful foldout quarterly mailer that we send, that includes upcoming events. It’s typically pretty photo centric. It's more of a marketing piece honestly than a newsletter. We have all of our programs, any exhibitions on the property. We do things like dog days, we do a lot of special weekend events that are seasonally driven and concerts. Generally that fold out piece is more of a marketing piece. We only print it and send it to members. They will have the first opportunity to sign up for different programs that we offer as well as utilize their member discount.
We actually just relaunched a printed newsletter this past spring, we sent our first one it was rather a booklet, in place of one of the member mailers. It was really informative, but again focused primarily on content around these gardens that we've invested a lot of resources in renovating the past couple of years including our Sculpture Trail. There was content on the new Children's Garden Sculpture Trail and then we have a Japanese Garden. That magazine I would say focused heavily on that content.
Dan Sullivan:
Awesome. Bradford, do you guys do anything like that, a type of quarterly newsletter or something along those lines?
Bradford Talley:
Nothing mail, no. We typically do a monthly newsletter, general version as well as a member version. We have some standalones in between some ad-hocs in between there as well for standalone invites or specific lists, let's say we have Minecraft opening and you have a list of folks who proved to be a super fan by signing up for your newsletter list to find out the newest and greatest when it comes to the Minecraft exhibit and utilizing those. Currently we're not doing that, but I'm sure we'll be getting back on that road again.
Dan Sullivan:
Absolutely. Let's talk for a second about personal connection with members. Elizabeth, you talked a little bit about making phone calls. Have either of you found whether it's phone calls, or video messages, or even handwritten notes? What are some of the most effective ways that you're finding a connection with your members right now?
Bradford Talley:
I've been here for 10 years, I've had interactions with some of these folks from the counter level, to the phones to email, and otherwise. And I've reached out to the ones that I am personally invested in as far as friendship wise, it goes a long way. With those personal reach outs, I have to admit the reactions that I've gotten from the few that I've actually done have been pretty amazing. We've also got some folks who participate in our Autism Spectrum Mornings. That program is something that we offer our members. One of the best things that I get is updates from those folks, just to see what those kids are doing with their time right now, because this is really disruptive to a lot of their patterns. One of my favorite parts in this job is some of the
Dan Sullivan:
That's awesome. Elizabeth, how about a couple of your side?
Elizabeth Epley Sheets:
We generally have had support from our members and donors and really constituents all around about what we're putting out there, especially on social media. We've had a lot of great feedback. We've posted some videos of garden walkthroughs and exhibition walkthroughs. Generally, the feedback has been good and positive. I think anything that we can do to remain connected and encourage our constituents to feel that we are reaching them, or to make sure that we are staying top of mind. I think that it is really appreciated in this phase of our lives.
Dan Sullivan:
Absolutely. One of the questions from Rhonda Hickey is, "What are some specific examples of panelists, social media campaigns, specifically around membership?" Elizabeth, you were just talking a little bit about that. What are some other campaigns that you've run that you found to be successful?
Elizabeth Epley Sheets:
On social media, one thing that we did recently for members is, in the member email that we released, I think I mentioned about 10 days ago. We encouraged them to post on social, post a picture of their time enjoying Cheekwood, and then to tag us. We've re-posted a lot of those images in our stories. And people write really nice things and we are a place of great beauty. It's been fantastic to see that they are keeping us top of mind. We tend to get heavy engagement on our stories all the time. It's been great to have that user-generated content to share.
Dan Sullivan:
Absolutely. Bradford how about on your side, any interesting social media campaigns?
Bradford Talley:
There was a lot that was in the works prior to this even going down. And we're in the middle of our 20th anniversary this year. Happy birthday, 20 years in the making, and then we have to shut the doors, for the first time. We had some campaigns that were already in the works for, like I said earlier, the MoPOP Madness Bracketology, that we had already planned on rolling out. This timing worked for us, that everybody was at home and on their phones looking at screens at that time. Some other really good engagement that we took advantage of this time was we've been doing MoPOP mailbag on our blog, which we basically kind of took questions from social media, and then translated them into blog posts. We're utilizing what was the weirdest story you had that came in with an artifact? What was the craziest thing you found and an artifact? That had some really good engagement rates as well.
There's such little known about the museum industry on the whole when it comes to museums in the museum space. That helps us out. And again, engagement wise, let's teach the world what a curator actually does, and those kinds of things.That's been some pretty cool engagement to see.
Dan Sullivan:
That's great. What are the most asked questions that you've received from your members during this time? How are you responding? Have you developed any messaging, or templates, or scripts to respond to some of those frequently asked questions. What's helping you be more efficient there?
Elizabeth Epley Sheets:
Well, I would say the number one most frequently asked question right now is, "When are you going to reopen?" We do have a script that we came up with. I don't have it in front of me at this moment. It basically states that we are abiding by the regulations that have been put into place by our local and State governments. And that we will look forward to reopening as soon as we can.
Dan Sullivan:
Awesome. Bradford, do you want to jump in on that one?
Bradford Talley:
I'm a big user of sent messages. I can usually remember the last time I responded to a similar question in the past week. I’'ll go back to that message and literally copy and paste it and alter it for whatever guest I'm speaking with at that point. In my mailbox as of recently, it's been membership extensions. Really, I think one of the cutest things is I had a 10 year old kid, reach out on his own behalf and let me know he is part of a family membership and he's very concerned that the Minecraft exhibit would close before we reopen. And he was wondering about the extension of that and his membership. And he was super stoked to hear that we are going to extend memberships.
I've had an ask for a refund. I responded to them with my best response possible, to let them know, I will do anything I can to keep them on board just to stay tuned. I haven't heard back from them yet. Then a couple exhibit run questions and a handful of folks asking about their fulfillment from their purchase, just prior to doors closing, physical fulfillment, but it's one of those things where usually about a week after sales. Everybody from about March 7th is still sitting unfulfilled at this point. There hasn't been much action in that space to be honest. But those are the questions we've been seeing. We message with everybody, and everybody tends to understand that we're going by what our State officials are saying. Hopefully when it comes down to it, our State officials are really clear about the guidelines, especially for the reopening of whatever industry you're in, so we can clearly message that on to our members.So, they know they're going to expect differences when they come to see us, but I think it is clear as day the importance of letting them know that different experience that they may have when they come to see you, get that out in front of them.
Dan Sullivan:
Absolutely. This is more towards Elizabeth, On Tuesday, May 5th, many organizations are organizing #GivingTuesdayNow campaigns. Is that something that either of you are doing? Can you talk a little bit about what your participation looks like there?
Elizabeth Epley Sheets:
I will. We are participating in Giving Tuesday Now. We do like everyone else. We greatly need donations and contributions at this point, and need as much revenue as we can get in the door. We will be participating. We're wrapping it into a local fundraising effort that our community foundation of Middle Tennessee has which happens to fall on the following day. We have Giving Tuesday Now, followed by the big payback, which is local and then we have National Public Gardens Week. We will be using a campaign called, Keep Cheek with Blooming. That will basically take us through that time period and try to raise money around those dates.
Dan Sullivan:
Awesome. Bradford are you doing anything around Giving Tuesday Now?
Bradford Talley:
Yeah, our advancement department is actually. We have something locally here. It started out in Seattle now it's spread out into the entire state of Washington called GiveBIG. GiveBIG Washington is a fundraising event that starts with early giving on April 15th, and culminates with a 48 hour public campaign on May 5th and 6th. For our GiveBIG we're going to have a full day long social campaign, along with a little bit of social lead up, as I've said, we're communicating a little bit heavily via email right now. I think we're staying out of email for this campaign in particular. But we're going to be soliciting the all day social campaign pretty hard. We're going to be asking donors to donate through our personal GiveBIG site that they set up for each organization that's participating. We hope to see some action from it.
Dan Sullivan:
Absolutely. And this is an interesting question from one of our anonymous attendees, they ask, "How are you ensuring quality and professionalism of newly developed content throughout this period? Are you doing it yourselves? If you're not doing yourself, how are you handling that?"
Bradford Talley:
I personally have not been involved in any of our virtual programming that we've done with MoPOP. It's been our wonderful, wonderful, wonderful audience engagement and public programs, and education folks handling all that. I have to say with our content at MoPOP in particular, it does lend itself pretty easily to the digital realm. The fandom will follow no matter what. There's some bumps and learnings in the road on your way there. I think we've done really well with our online programming, and each time has proved to be more popular, and more people are staying online.
Dan Sullivan:
For sure. Elizabeth, how about on your side?
Elizabeth Epley Sheets:
To maintain quality, it's been a real collaboration between the marketing team and more of the programming side of things. We have an education team, an art team, and a gardening team. They have really worked closely with our marketing team that I oversee to create these programs that can be communicated digitally. We have really kept it to things that people can do on their own time, rather than trying to schedule events. We've tried to give people content that they can enjoy and utilize on their own time. We've done some things for kids specifically, we have a Tots program that we have put online. It's usually on site where kids come in, we have story time, we do art or garden activities that are related to the story that's being read that day. We've been trying to post a couple of those projects that parents can do with their kids at home a couple times a week. Similarly, we have to drop everything on read day that we've moved online. These are things that we are developing with our own team.
Dan Sullivan:
Awesome. Here's another interesting question. "Do you have any advice or thoughts about rescheduling postponed Spring events to the fall? How are either of you handling that? Even a gut feeling on how to handle those if you're not in that situation?"
Bradford Talley:
I've personally postponed one of them twice already, we just let them know we're working with State officials' guidance. At this point the event was originally scheduled for March 28th, it moved to May 9th, now it's going to be on August 1st. I'm still messaging regular tickets that they have are still going to be valid for this event. I'm not mentioning any programming as far as the postponement goes because I don't want to put any stakes in the ground as far as, what food I'm going to be serving them, the treatment they can be expecting, because we truly don't know what that experience, or what they're going to be comfortable with by that point. Or what the required experience will be. I'd say, especially if catering is involved, we work really close with them, and try to come up with every contingency plan possible of what could possibly come down as far as open food, bring your own food, anything like that.
Dan Sullivan:
Awesome. Elizabeth, do you want to jump in there too?
Elizabeth Epley Sheets:
Sure. We have canceled a number of events and postponed others. We're looking at a combination of cancellations and postponements on events and programs. Some are still up in the air at this point, we are very hopeful that we will be able to move forward with some of the events that have been postponed, at this point to September. As far as a special event that has a lot of people at it, in the same room, or on the property in a certain area at one time. The earliest we are looking at right now is September. We have a major exhibition that should have actually opened this past Saturday and it has been postponed to the middle of July.
Bradford Talley:
You know, I say get creative as you can with what you can replicate digitally. A lot of the canceled programs that we've had were replaced with online content that's available for free for them to register with Zoom. A lot of those folks that were previously asking for refunds, ask for those to be turned into donations. That's nice fuel to the fire, at least from the nonprofit perspective.
Dan Sullivan:
That's great. Here's another question. "Obviously, all of the organizations that both of you are near are reaching out actively to their members and their visitors and supporters. What are some of the things that you individually are doing to stand out from the crowd during these strange times, specifically, as an organization? What are some ways or some strategies you've deployed to do that?”
Elizabeth Epley Sheets:
I think again, this might sound a little bit redundant, but just keeping Cheekwood top of mind, we've posted so many photos, we've been doing “feel good” quotes that have to do with nature, and really trying to brighten people's days. Which get very long when you're stuck without human interaction, or places to go or your normal routine. That would be the biggest thing that I can state, is trying to be really proactive without reaching out.
Dan Sullivan:
Okay. Let's talk a little bit about budgets. A lot of folks are wondering about how they're going to handle things with their budget or what's getting slashed. What are we doubling down on? Can either of you or can both of you talk a little bit about how you're handling your budgets? Is it a freeze? Where are you thinking about making adjustments? How are you handling them right now?
Elizabeth Epley Sheets:
We have a lot up in the air right now with our organizational budget. We've taken a tremendous hit with gate revenue and membership revenue, as well as fundraising. We're in the process of trying to rewrite a budget really for the entire organization. As far as membership goes, I'm in conversation right now with our membership manager and our CFO to determine where we think that we will be able to land later this year. Luckily for us, our fiscal year is actually the calendar year which is very unusual in a nonprofit organization. I think we have some time possibly to recoup some of our losses. It's challenging. No one knows what's happening right now.
Dan Sullivan:
For sure. Bradford how about on your side?
Bradford Talley:
I'd say, look ahead to 2021, see where those holes are going to be and know when to expect them for this year. Unfortunately, I'm sure everybody's feeling that conferences being canceled and moved online. I would say I'm also looking at one less event than I typically try to plan and maybe, depending on what catering needs, end up with some of those events that I had planned and still have on the calendar. The catering needs, maybe a little bit less and that's going to save a bit of money when it comes down to it. We are lucky enough just like Elizabeth, our fiscal year runs with the calendar year. And we have a really big exhibit that still is on the calendar for late October. We of course have had a little bump in the budget plan for that time. We're really going to have to capitalize on what comes in from that when our Disney exhibit does open.But we'll see when it comes with that. We are always under estimating, in my opinion of what actually ends up coming in with some of those traveling exhibits and things. I think it's wise to do so, but hopefully we'll be able to refill a little bit of what we missed out on at this time.
Dan Sullivan:
Definitely. Let's talk a little bit about virtual events. Lots of folks in the Q&A are asking about this. We're going to talk a little bit about virtual member events, or virtual events in general, even if they're just for visitors. These are something that a lot of organizations are launching to continue to connect with their membership base during closures. Elizabeth at Cheekwood we know you've been doing a little bit about that. Lots of folks were asking about your puzzle related events. Can you talk a little bit more about your approach to these types of events, how you are planning and executing them. Really the nuts and bolts of the platform you serve them on? How do you deliver that experience?
Elizabeth Epley Sheets:
We haven't actually organized people all at the same time to participate in one virtual event in a format such as this, like a webinar or anything like that. Basically what we've been providing are opportunities for followers on Instagram, we've offered stories where we've said ask a gardener, and then we did a video where one of our gardeners actually was out in her backyard, answering the most popular questions that came up. That was general, not just limited to members. We've also have a Drop Everything on Read Day, which is typically an on site program that's a day long, a Saturday event, that's typically geared more toward a school age, elementary school and preschool aged children. That has been made into an online month long event. What we're doing is providing content that then people can actually use on their own. It's not a true event in the sense that it has a specific time and date anymore. The puzzle is an online service where you can actually put a photograph in and make an online puzzle and you can use your fingers on your iPhone, or your mouse to complete the puzzle and it was pretty fun. That was a fun one. And that was offered to members only.
Dan Sullivan:
Awesome.Bradford, are you guys doing anything like that?
Bradford Talley:
We don't have any member specific events going on that we've been able to translate digitally. However, the digital events that we have run, like I said before, where our content really leads itself down the digital realm anyway. We've got a horror movie exhibit, and that horror movie exhibit, we have the 100 horror films you need to see before you die. We've been doing some online virtual watch-alongs. We had one on Friday night with the Blair Witch Project, and actually had one of the directors on as one of the guests on the Zoom call. We actually had our best engagement rates that we've seen yet for these online events that we've done. I think it clocked in at over three hours.I would say, if you guys are in a space where that would be a fun thing for your guys' organization, then this is the time to maybe do those reach outs to celebrities to pull them in. They've got a huge amount of reach, and for them to get online, I can guarantee at least 20 of those people came from that guy's following to come see what MoPOP is up to.
Dan Sullivan:
That's great. Another question. Let's talk a little bit about the in person events of the future. Are you planning those out right now? How do you think those are going to look different? Is there any type of mindset you're applying as you start to put pen to paper on some of those future events?
Bradford Talley:
I try to do a monthly smaller event and I try to do a quarterly larger event. For me personally, the monthly’s don't worry me as much because there's lower attendance, lower propensity for attendance anyway. The larger events make me a little bit nervous because of the cost that goes into those. The more I look at it, if I can cut some costs here and there, it could be wise to maybe have multiple of the same events. That way I can reach a few more households that I really want to get in the doors, if we're living by a less than 250 people in the building type of rule. The other space I see, like I mentioned earlier, is catering.I'm not an expert in this space, I pay somebody to cook and serve that stuff for me. I have no idea what that industry is going to look like in addition to what our industry is going to look like. And when you combine those two, I think, once again, we need to be ready for anything. Catering is one of the things that's a big draw when it comes to those more exclusive events. That's also going to be a big drawback when it comes to scheduling these things we're trying to schedule right now.
Dan Sullivan:
For sure, there's a lot up in the air. Another question from the audience. This is an anonymous question. "Are either of you using time ticketing or planning to use time ticketing in the future due to the current situation? If so, how does that go for members? And what time ticketing software are you using?"
Elizabeth Epley Sheets:
I can speak to that. We are planning to do time tickets when we reopen, we use Altru. I don't know what it is but we have another company that we contract with that help us make the Altru time tickets more user friendly. They connect better to our website so that when people go to the website to reserve their tickets, it's easier to read and easier to use. I think that we are going with hourly slots, and then members will have to log on and reserve their tickets that will be free for daytime admission just like other people who would be buying their tickets online for that same time slot. There are times when we do require or ask members to reserve their tickets even if they are free. For certain big days and big events that we have throughout the year, it always is a little bit of a hit or miss, because numbers are used to arriving at the property and not having to book their ticket in advance.I do think with COVID-19, they will be paying better attention, and this will be an easier process than it normally is for these types of days. I'm hoping that people will be checking the website and all of our communications.
Dan Sullivan:
Bradford do you want to throw anything on there on the ticketing side of things?
Bradford Talley:
Yeah. Our ticketing ops manager is a genius when it comes to finagling Tessitura and to doing things that we really need it to do. Like I said we're on Tessitura. We are looking at the time ticketing moving that direction. We haven't done it for the entire museum before, we've done it for individual exhibits, special exhibits to keep crowds down. This will be a new space for us doing it for the entire museum. But as far as for members, I've been told that we're going to try to keep it as normal as possible, for those folks to be able to walk up. In addition, of course, messaging to them that this is the new normal that your best bet is to reserve those spots online. However, always have a little bit of room space for each one of those entry periods to let members in, and those other handfuls of lockups that you'll have. Of course while pulling those members in before the other walk ups. Time ticketing is pretty finicky even with one exhibit. If you haven't done any studies on dwell time in your galleries or your full museum or full experience yet, it makes it a little bit more difficult, you kind of got to go with what the hearsay is. It's best to be on the safe side though to save some of your cap.
Dan Sullivan:
For sure. Here's a question from Thomas Knowles at the British Museum. "I'm wondering what you're going to do for older members or what you're doing for older members who aren't as tech savvy?"
Elizabeth Epley Sheets:
That's a great question. At this point we are not in the office because we're working remotely, so we don't have access to normal printed materials, stationery and things like that. But we also are on a spending freeze so we are not allowed to really outsource any print jobs or direct mail. When we reopen, we will hit our members most likely with a postcard. We plan to offer a senior hour every morning from 8:00 to 9:00, and as well as Member Mondays. I saw some chats popping up about what we will be doing for members, what different organizations plan to do for members when we reopen. We plan to do most likely a month, maybe, six week-long welcome back time period. Where we will be open from 8:00 am to 8:00pm. And those are longer hours than we typically offer. We're usually open from 9:00 to 5:00. We'll have 8:00 am to 9:00 am seniors only, and then Monday's actually are members only, whereas normally we would be closed on Mondays to the public all together. I do think that they will appreciate that. We do have someone who answers the phone for members and would obviously have that phone number on any communication that we send out, so that they can be taken care of.
Dan Sullivan:
Awesome. Bradford, anything else you want to throw in there?
Bradford Talley:
Yeah, we are mostly digital communicating, especially outside the member realms. The folks who do desire a little bit different type of engagement, we are more than welcome to work with them. I have access to the membership, voicemail, and email and anybody that does need to reach out, that needs to know any more information, we're always here for them, the door is open for them. The email door is open or the phone is here for them. There's a handful of our member base out there that asks for this kind of thing but more and more these days, it's become fewer and fewer.
Dan Sullivan:
Absolutely. We've got time for one more audience question. "Can you talk a bit about any plans or strategies for member experience upon reopening as opposed to the general audiences? Are you going to host member only days early on? Maybe making up for lost time, or doing soft openings for members, or even plans that might affect other traffic flow issues?"
Bradford Talley:
I would love, love, love to kick everything off from MoPOP with just members only. I doubt I'm going to have much traction in that. With our monthly member morning's event that we do, I'd like to hopefully duplicate those efforts further down the line once we figure out what opening is going to look like. I like the idea of opening an hour early more than once a month. We'll see what that holds, but it's going to be a different experience. They should still have their expected entry which should help things out.
Dan Sullivan:
Definitely. Elizabeth, how about on your side?
Elizabeth Epley Sheets:
We will be open for members only on Mondays. Basically until we open our big exhibition on July 18th. We don't know when we're reopening, but as soon as we do reopen, we will offer that member only Monday experience. We also have a Member Appreciation Week that was already scheduled, I think it's been postponed, that will probably happen in August. And we will have some special opportunities for members that week. The property won't be closed to everyone else, but members will be able to come in and enter for certain drawings, get complimentary coffee or refreshments. We are definitely looking at ways to manage the crowds so that we don't have everyone coming for one big event.
Dan Sullivan:
I have one big question left. What is one big takeaway that you would want each person watching to be able to bring back to their respective organizations? Something you've learned, something you feel very strongly about? One big thing for each person to take home?
Bradford Talley:
All right. Nothing too profound or anything. But I miss what we do best more and more every single day. Yesterday, I woke up in the morning and wanted to go to the museum. And I haven't felt like that. I know that we have a massive amount of people out there that feel the same way that I did yesterday morning. Let's get back to doing what we do best because that's what people want.
Dan Sullivan:
Thank you for sharing.
Elizabeth Epley Sheets:
Yeah, I don't know that I have a really profound answer to that either. But I would say, stay positive, keep your communications going out. Make sure that your members and supporters know that you're still there. That you very much look forward to welcoming them back. I feel much like Bradford, I'm ready to get back to doing things the way that we really can perform. This has taken everybody for a loop. We're all missing our regular lives.
Dan Sullivan:
Absolutely. Well, thank you both for sharing. Huge thank you to Elizabeth, huge thank you to Bradford for all your insights. A couple of quick things before you all go. A recording of this webinar is going to be available later today on the Cuseum website. There will also be a link to our shared community Google Doc with Coronavirus resources. Lots of folks are sharing their membership and engagement ideas. Feel free to jump in and share yours as well. Again, thank you, Elizabeth, thank you, Bradford for your amazing insights. A reminder, we've got three more awesome webinars this week. Cuseum is hosting one on Wednesday, Supporting Communities with Digital Programs during Coronavirus, that's Wednesday at two o'clock. And then by popular demand, we actually have a special webinar on Thursday called, How to Manage a Remote Internship Program at Your Museum, and it is at two o'clock Eastern time Thursday.
The last one is the fun one, well they're all fun ones, but last one MUSE, ZOOS and CLUES. It's our weekly hour of happiness happenings and cultural trivia to end your week. And we hope to see you there. That is at four o'clock Eastern time on Friday afternoon. Everybody, thank you again for being here. We really appreciate you. Elizabeth, Bradford, thank you again, and everybody have a safe and healthy week and we'll see you next week.
Looking for more information? Check out our coronavirus resources page.