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Grow your impact with a thriving arts education program in 2025
Your arts education program thrives most when it’s profitable and fully integrated into your nonprofit’s offerings. Of course, achieving profitability and integration isn’t easy, especially when your organization is under pressure from funders, partners, and community members to prove your impact. Yet, the consensus from the panel of experts at our recent webinar is that education programs can be more than profitable: They can be the key to growth and stability for your arts nonprofit in 2025.
Our own Brian Rahill, CEO of CourseStorm, joined with Laura Wong, partnerships manager for technology ecosystems at Fundraise Up and Samantha Bagwell, client relations lead for the US and Canada at Spektrix, to dig into the challenges and opportunities that arts nonprofits are facing in 2025. They shared their expert insights on why education programs are critical, and how they can thrive in the coming year.
Read on for highlights from the webinar, or access the recording to hear directly from our education and fundraising experts.
Arts organizations face challenges and opportunities in 2025
Arts organizations face challenges and opportunities heading into 2025. The speakers on our panel talk to these types of organizations daily, and are noticing some trends: shifting audiences, fewer funding sources, and smaller donations.
For example, one CourseStorm customer, American Stage in St. Petersburg, FL, saw an influx of young families during the pandemic. While previously their offerings were focused on retirees, there was suddenly a real community need to serve young people. This created a challenge, but also an opportunity.
“Organizations are feeling pressure from all sides – financially (certainly), but also from their local community, patrons, and board,” shared Brian Rahill, CEO at CourseStorm.
Under these conditions, growing and maintaining interest in the arts to increase donations and impact becomes a top priority. That’s where education programs really shine.
Why education programs are critical for arts organizations
According to Samantha and the Spektrix team, 54% of all audiences were first-time ticket buyers in 2023. They anticipate the numbers will be similar as they come in for 2024. This has prompted many arts and theatre organizations to find ever more innovative ways to connect with new audiences and turn them into repeat patrons.
“Education programs are critical for their own sake … But in terms of revenue, they’re also a critical way to connect with new audiences and build their loyalty to your programming,” Samantha explained.
Samantha pointed out that this opportunity makes it even more important to integrate data from your education programs with your central CRM, marketing, and ticketing platform. Teams working with CourseStorm and Spektrix can instantly invite participants along to their mainstage shows, building a multilayered relationship across their organization.
Brian seconded Samatha’s point, saying, “A thriving education program is a unique opportunity to connect in a new way with the community.”
This is particularly evident in the story of one Fundraise Up client, Bric Brooklyn. This cultural organization has built education programs to address the limited representation of marginalized voices in mainstream media and remove barriers to entry for aspiring artists and creators. Toward this end, they have developed workshops, courses and mentorship opportunities for different skill levels, all in collaboration with local schools, organizations and artists.
Programs like these represent a major opportunity to increase organizational impact. It takes both vision and dedication to build them.
How arts education programs thrive
Most arts organizations are focused on making art and theatre more available to more people. Arts organizations can fill the gap left by a lack of arts resources in school systems and poor accessibility within communities. But they only thrive when they have the right technology to streamline administration and operations.
Garrison Art Center in NY is a great example of an education program thriving with support from CourseStorm. With 85 classes on offer, they were using a shopping cart that was designed for physical products. Students had to fill in shipping info to register for a class, which just didn’t make sense. Staff were wrangling multiple spreadsheets for class rosters which led to mistakes and canceled classes. There were so many manual processes, it limited their growth. With CourseStorm, they saved time and effort.
Other examples of thriving programs include Sacramento Philharmonic in California which uses pipeline tools in Spektrix to map engagement with school districts. Wolverhampton Grand in England is building long-term relationships through community ambassador programs and creative projects. Their work pays off with larger, more diverse audiences at their events.
Increasing registrations and ticket sales is just one piece of the puzzle. To thrive in 2025 and beyond, your arts education program also needs to support fundraising efforts.
Fundraising is storytelling: Craft a narrative that moves donors to action
Fundraising is always top of mind for nonprofit organizations in the arts. Our experts offered key insights to put forward your most compelling fundraising story in 2025 and beyond.
Laura from Fundraise Up put it succinctly: “Ultimately, people give to people.Fundraising is an emotional process.”
Organizations need to capture a donor in that emotional moment. Fundraise Up makes this easy, by automating the daily tasks that don’t require a human touch so you can focus on nurturing relationships with storytelling. But what does it take to emotionally compel people to make the donation?
“Be transparent – tell your audiences exactly what their donations fund.” – Samantha Bagwell
Bridport Arts Centre does a fantastic job of this on their support page. At each membership level, instead of listing benefits, they list what that gift amount funds – like providing a free ticket for a carer to accompany an audience member with a disability to an event or subsidizing a full term in their Youth Theatre for a local young person.
One CourseStorm customer, Karamu House in Cleveland, OH offers all their classes on a sliding scale based on income so they can be sure to keep education accessible for a broad audience. This decision is an impact story generator.
Importantly, these organizations also collect demographic information in their checkout process so they can report back to funders the impact of their donations. Highlighting those impacts and telling stories will create a powerful message that inspires donors.
Ways to integrate your education program within your organization
“To make education programs work for growth, nonprofits really need to tie them closely to their mission so it feels like a natural part of what they do, making the impact clearer for supporters.” – Laura Wong
Education programs enable organizations to round out their offerings and provide a rich and complete experience for their community. None of this happens in a vacuum.
Our experts offered some ways to integrate your education program as a core part of your organization:
- Collaborate with fundraising and marketing to tell stories
- Partner with schools, business and groups to expand your reach
- Engage the community with events and workshops
- Use customer engagement data to make relevant, tailored donation asks
For an example of this integration in action, we look to Spectrix client Z-arts. This arts centre in the UK, runs a membership model that gives access to classes, school holiday activities and discounted tickets. This creates a holistic experience for the whole family, which drives revenue and attendance.
It’s critical to see the complete picture of any engaged community member. Spektrix, FundraiseUp, and CourseStorm are working together to integrate and share data so that organizations can use the best technology for their needs and have a single system to see a complete view of a patron’s participation.
Key takeaways to start planning for 2025 today
Each expert panelist had key takeaways to offer for arts organizations that want to build their most effective education programs in 2025:
“Focus on the whole person. People want to be entertained, they want to support and they really want to connect and participate,” Brian offered. “A thriving education program helps round out the ways people can engage with your organization as a ticket holder, supporter, and participant in an arts community.”
Laura added, “Right now is prime time for planning holiday appeals or end-of-year fundraising campaigns. Use the success of your education programs to tell compelling stories and show donors how their contributions can make a lasting impact next year.”
Finally, Sam summed it up with “Stay connected.” Connect your education teams with fundraisers, marketing and box office. Connect your education program participants with your mainstage productions. And, connect your registration software with your central customer relationship management tools, to keep that conversation going in real time, capture powerful stories and statistics, and build lasting links with some of your most enthusiastic patrons.
Want more? Watch the full on-demand webinar to get all of the juicy insights and takeaways from our panel of experts.
Natasha Wahid
Natasha is a seasoned marketing leader with a curious mind and a passion for storytelling and community. A mission-driven person, Natasha has spent the majority of her career in industries that impact people, including HR and education technology. A firm believer in lifelong learning, Natasha is currently sharpening her roller skating skills and dusting off her Italian.