| I've been dealing with non-profits for most of my life. I started working with orchestras when I was about 7 or so, and these idealists (at least in the U.S.) are the absolute worst people to work for. Almost every so-called idealist I've worked with is something close to a cultish sociopath. The non-profit world is full of these people where only true believers can fit in. It's toxic. And the non-profits get a special status for their pathology that helps drive their insanity. I remember doing a market research study for an orchestra that will remain nameless. The point of the study was to do an honest assessment of optimum price points. How to maximize either revenue or attendance. I was serving on the board of this orchestra and did the study at my own expense. When I delivered the numbers, they didn't align with conventional wisdom. And numbers weren't crazy. The bottom line was that people who buy season tickets are more hard-core supporters. They aren't looking for the cheap deal. They are looking for more opportunities to support the orchestra. The one-off people who just buy tickets at the door on a lark are much more price-sensitive. So the solution is to ignore the bulk deal appeal that season-ticket buyers are getting offered. Raise the prices on those. And lower the at-door ticket prices. Lower the barrier to entry for casual users and raise the price for people who are going to pay whatever anyway. It's kind of obvious. That's the math of the situation. Merely talking about these results and presenting them to the board got me kicked out. The orchestra did the exact opposite of that, and suffered the fate that the distribution said it would. A few years later, they decided to try my idea. It worked. Who would've thunk? Liberal, artsy, idealistic brats are no worse than conservative, religious, idealistic brats. They are all immune to logic and science, and just want to keep doing things that don't work because they sound good. I think you should be cautious. People claiming to have a handle on all the world's problems are usually a part of the world's problems. |