If you couldn’t make it you our special webinar this week, How Membership Departments Can Prepare for the Impact of Coronavirus, we have the next best thing. Dan Sullivan (Head of Partnerships at Cuseum) and membership experts Dana Hines (VP, Membership Marketing, Gabriel Group) and Alicia Lifrak (EVP, Fundraising, Gabriel Group) came together, and you can see a transcript of their conversation below. You can also check out a recording of the entire discussion.
Dan Sullivan:
Well. All right, well let's get started. It's 3:30 Eastern Time. So first of all, we've got a great group, joining us today. So I figured we could start with a quick introduction. So we're going to be talking today about how membership departments can prepare for the impact of coronavirus. We've got some great folks from Membership Consultants in the Gabriel group today, who will be able to talk through some of the challenges that are going to be faced. I'm not going to share my screen the whole time, but Alicia and Dana, why don't you take a minute to introduce yourself, if you will.
Dana Hines:
Sure. Hi, this is Dana Hines. I've seen a lot of familiar faces out there. We've been in the membership biz for a very long time and part of Gabriel group for the last two years. We pretty much do anything and everything to help membership programs grow both in size and in revenue. So I'm happy to be here today and thanks to Dan for putting all this together.
Alicia Lifrak:
And I'm Alicia Lifrak. I'm the Executive Vice President with Gabriel Group. I oversee all of our nonprofit services, so membership and fundraising. I've got about 30 years of experience in the nonprofit sector, raising money, running organizations, dealing with membership and all the fun things that we all do. So I'm excited to be with everyone today.
Dan Sullivan:
Awesome. And I'm Dan Sullivan and I'm the head of partnerships at Cuseum. We work in the cultural space but with attractions as well to help them better engage visitors, members and donors using digital tools. So first of all, I'm going to stop the screen share there for a minute, but I just want to say thank you who's joining. After this webinar, the first thing we're going to be posting the recording, if you can't stay the entire time. So you want to share it with colleagues? You'll be able to do that. You can find that on the Cuseum website as well as the blog. Also, feel free to reach out directly if you have any questions at all. So after this world's going to be doing something a little bit new and unique in the museum world.
So my team has put together a publicly available living document where organizations can share some of their best practices, find other ideas, and ultimately we can kind of help bring the community forward together. It's really going to be a central repository for organizations to share their best practices around how they're planning to deal with Coronavirus and the impact that it might have on their departments. So we wanted to bring everybody together from different forums and email chains and things like that, get them all into one location. So that'll be circulated as well as available on the Cuseum website after. First thing I'll say too is, by being here, you're taking initiative on behalf of your organization to get out ahead of this coronavirus impact and you're empowering both yourself and your organization to really start to put together a plan and take some responsibility for your membership base.
I think the impetus for this webinar was really born out of an urgency to put some plans in place. Many of our customers have been coming to us with questions on the topic. We figured, what better way than to help the entire community than to do a webinar where we start to put our thinking into action; and there's just so much uncertainty now and I think we're all, experiencing this at the same time - the stock market, the spread of the virus, the impact that's going to have on our organizations, the impact that it's going to have potentially on our families, even the impact it might have on ourselves. I think one thing that many of you are likely noticing is the way with which we communicate has changed substantially. I'm sure all of you like me are getting constant updates on this coronavirus - so a new case, a presumptive case, a school closure, a self quarantine we were talking about it before we got on the line here. A conference cancellation too. I'm actually supposed to be at one tomorrow and that was canceled here in Boston. So I think one of the interesting and unique observations about what makes this different from past pandemics, like H1N1 one SARS and things along those lines, is just how fast this information is spreading. A hundred years ago during the Spanish Flu, you know, people would not have even known that this was happening until it arrived in their town. Nowadays we're tracking diagnoses from literally across the world in real time. So since you're paying attention to this, it's safe to say that your members likely are as well. So that prompts a lot of different questions and uncertainty. Do we stay open or do we close? What policies do we need to change? How is this going to impact us in the short term? How is it going to impact us in the long term? How should I communicate or change communication with my members? So we're tracking the ripple effects, which are already being seen in the stock market, in our daily lives, and ultimately they're going to trickle down even further. So there are so many questions that need answering and certainly the first thing I'll say is we're not going to be able to answer all of them today. Or even pretend like we know all the answers. But the goal here is to take a few proactive steps in the right direction. So I've got a number of questions for Dana and Alicia, just want to say thank you again for joining. And with that, let's kick things off. So Dana, Alicia, what are some of the things that membership departments really should expect in the coming weeks or months? Question. Go ahead.
Alicia Lifrak:
I was just going to say, I think uncertainty is the key word of the day. If you look at where we were even a week ago as it relates to Coronavirus to where we are right now, the change is happening very, very quickly. And I don't think any of us, I can't believe the number of cancellations I've even seen just today. Major events that they're pulling the plug on that are still several months out. So I think not knowing where things are today versus where they're going to be a week from now is probably the new reality for all of us to just wrap our brains around. And the best thing that anyone can do at this point is to, with all that uncertainty, really try to be prepared. And my suggestion would be starting with whatever your institution is, whatever your organization's priorities are, sit down and strategically put together three to five, to seven "what if" scenarios and play it out and figure out like what if there's an involuntary closure of your facility? What if, all the schools in your community close, what if, there's a significant staff disruption due to illness. Like figure out what those kind of five key items that would really be a major disruptor to you and put a one page plan together. If this happens, this is how, this is what we will do. This is how we will respond. And I think to be as detailed as you can, not just here are the tactics that we want to put in place, but who's going to do them? And if they're going to be done and you're locked out of your facility, can they be done remotely? Start putting all of those components into place so that you're ready. So when something happens, you have the flexibility and the ability to respond in real time versus trying to figure it out as it's happening. So I think, but I mean, the reality is I don't think any of us know the degree to which this will disrupt all of our normal daily lives.
Dan Sullivan:
And just one thing to jump in there also to this idea of saying, okay, well what happens if we have staff members that are out, what some of us are departments of one, some of us are departments of 10 or more. So how do you plan for that? If you have a 10%, 25%, 50%, of your staff being out, how are you going to account for that? How do you, you know, make accommodations? How do you keep up with things? And I think these are things that people just need to start to wrap their heads around and, in plan for essentially in Dana as you were here, you were going to say [inaudible].
Dana Hines:
Right. So, I think that we have to look at taking care of our members, taking care of our own staff and taking care of our institution, especially longterm, financially. So, you know, one place to start is with our own internal staff. What capabilities are you going to have if there is a closure. Can you work remotely? Can you dial into your CRM database system and continue working? Can you keep answering those phone calls if people leave messages. And probably most importantly, I think we all have to move online and keep people engaged, no matter what level of the situation is that we're dealing with. So be prepared to be out there even more so on social media and communicate what's happening - where you're at now, and whenever there's a change in that status, communicate that. And just keep people informed without overdoing it.
You know, the one asset that I think that we all have, that we all in the membership world utilize pretty well is our vast list of email addresses of members. So we have a way to stay in touch with people that maybe some organizations don't. So we need to tap into that. So putting that communication and social and digital plan together with your staff, your entire staff while you're all still there. And then figure out how to handle things remotely and stay in touch with people. Communication is going to be key through all of this. Definitely.
Dan Sullivan:
One thing interesting to add on there, I mean when it comes to communication, there's A), the perspective of communication with your membership base - how are we communicating closures, delays, things along those lines, but also the element of communication with your team. How am I communicating with the folks that are either going to be out of the office or let's say, in some not very unlikely scenario, the team may be working remotely. How are we going to increase communication? And you know, obviously coming from the tech world, there's a lot of tools out there to help with that. You know, one of the, one of the predominant ones that is very heavily used in the tech space is called Slack. It's almost like an instant messaging platform where you can have kind of one to one messaging as well as group messaging and project based messaging. It functions similar to, and I don't wanna date myself, but AOL instant messenger or some type of kind of a chat interface. So that's one option for organizations that may be looking to find a solution and Slack has free options so you're still able to do those types of communication. So shifting gears a little bit back to back to you both. What can membership organizations do to kind of reduce potential disruption? And try to keep things smooth as we continue to find out new information?
Dana Hines:
Well, one thing I think that we all need to keep in mind is that we can't stop doing what we're doing on a daily basis in some way, shape or form. We have to keep things moving. So don't give up on doing your renewal mailings and don't cancel a campaign that you have planned. If you need to reference the fact that during these difficult times, we need our members more than ever. And so we're hoping that you'll renew this month. You just have to keep those requests going. Otherwise, you know, we are going to see a more significant impact financially if we don't keep our plans in place, on a monthly, weekly, whatever the basis that it is. So you know, just being able to keep the conversations and the renewals and everything else that we're doing, going during whatever time span in this situation lasts.
Alicia Lifrak:
I would say that this is an opportunity to innovate and start thinking kind of creatively. If you are closed, can you deliver programming digitally? Can you be online? Can you create a program? If the schools all in your community close, is there a program that you can put together where you're offering kind of services and be a value add and be and be that trusted institution that kept going even through difficulty and challenges? I do think, longterm, that yields tremendous trust from your community because they are going to look to organizations like yours for how to respond and how to react. And so taking the opportunity where this is not great stuff that's happening, but using that to your advantage to create those types of digital programming or online programming. I mean certainly a lot of universities right now are shifting to online classes. They're doing it in real time. I guarantee you six months ago New York University and Harvard weren't planning to have all online programs, but they do now. So I think you can do the same for your institutions. And then creatively, I mean, you have fun with it. Try to make it fun to the best that you can.
Dana Hines:
You know, if you're an art museum and you can have an artifact or a painting of the day, kind of get all the forces together and have your curators be writing little dissertations on each piece of art and push one out every day. If you're a science center, you can do some PR - at home science experiments. Or one thing that one of our clients Zoo New England has been doing is Keeper Talk. So they take some video when they're feeding or caring for the animals and give a little background on the keeper and the animal. You know, if you could push out information like that on a regular basis, you know, it keeps people engaged while you're closed or they're afraid to come out or both. It just keeps you top of mind and they're gonna remember that after the fact that you kept them thinking about something besides the coronavirus during this time period.
Dan Sullivan:
Sure. And I think you're making an important point, which is that so many people turn to cultural institutions, museums, zoos, aquariums, gardens as a reprieve from the craziness that is their daily life. And I think all of us can attest right now our stress levels are probably a little bit elevated as we watch this kind of creeping effect into our communities. So being able to utilize the communication channels from these cultural organizations as a mechanism to add a little bit of light into what's a very serious time for a lot of us, I think is a great way for cultural organizations to not even necessarily reinvent themselves, but to extend their brand and extend their value that they can bring outside the walls of their organization. So along those lines, what are some of the key things that let's say, membership staff specifically should be keeping in mind through all this?
Alicia Lifrak:
Yeah, sure.
Dana Hines:
You know, that people do want to hear from us so to keep them updated. You know, let's keep other each other thinking positive and having a good attitude through all of this. I think anything that we can do to lighten people's moods and just make them feel like we're here for them and that, you know, we're all part of a family.
Dan Sullivan:
Alicia, did you have anything you wanted to throw in there?
Alicia Lifrak:
I mean to go back to what you were kind of addressing before, but just in terms of recognizing that utilizing your list, if you will, to build on that sense of community and making people feel like they're part of something that's positive and uplifting, will really be one of the coping tactics that people can use. And don't forget what a powerful role you play in bringing that community together, and even if, in the face of not being able to be together in person, you can have that opportunity because you do have such a vast reach within your organizations, with your members and visitors and donors. And make sure that they understand that you're there for them - and of starting there with your staff, making your staff feel like they're a part of it as well.
Dan Sullivan:
And I think there's some organizations that do a particularly strong job of this - being really upbeat and, you know, imagining their content or reinvisioning their content in a variety of different ways to make it super entertaining. I think the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston does a really good job of that. I'm not just being a homer cause we're based here, but I really think that they do a nice job with their content and you know, they have a lot of good humor. And again, I think it's a great opportunity for these organizations to add a little personality into the mix there and really let their true selves shine a little bit. So just to bring some kind of light and some of that happiness to those members, to those visitors and to those folks that they've been cultivating likely for a very long time to try to get them to support the institution.
And again, there's so much up in the air now people are thinking about the stock market and the ripple effect that it will have on their own wallets. But also, these organizations that all of us are thinking about, well how is that going to impact our fundraising, how is it going to impact our membership base? There's a lot to think about there. So I think it's safe to say for many organizations that we may be anticipating a bit of a slow down as far as attendance goes. So what are strategies that can be put in place to encourage visitors and members to continue to engage with the organization?
Dana Hines:
One thing I want to get back to that I said earlier was taking care of your institution as well. The leaders are all nervous about what is going to happen here too. So I think this is our time to do a little bit of preparation and get some stats from years past - you know, revenues by month, and for the last couple of years. So that we have something to compare to when the director calls and says, how's membership doing? You know, how is this impacting us? So get those numbers together now so that you could start tracking and give them some real time information. It goes back 20 years or so, but I was managing the membership program at the garden here in St. Louis and St. Louis had some really devastating flooding going on. It didn't impact the garden. In fact, it didn't impact some of our strongest zip codes. But, you know, on national news, everybody thought the whole city was underwater and definitely people were pitching in. They were sandbagging, they were giving money to Salvation Army and food banks and all of that for the people who were affected. But because I had good numbers on renewal rates on a month to month basis, when the director did make that call and say, "how is this affecting us?" I could say, "well, you know, we're down about 20%." But then when it came back and the crisis had been addressed or people got tired of dealing with it I could say that three months later we were back on track. So I think you can give your own leaders some assurance if you can really be able to answer some of those financial questions and your own financial questions so that you know: what is the effect here and what, how long will it take us to get out of that?
Dan Sullivan:
And, something to add to that too I think. I think - Alicia, I know you want to jump in there too. You know, I think one thing is just kind of having that open line of community communication and being open and honest about this is where things are, we know where A), the communication you're alluding to with your team upwards to likely your supervisors and your executive directors. Just being honest. "Hey, we're, we're likely going to take a bit of a hit here as far as our membership base goes. Attendance goes." So being realistic about that component of it, but also just really making sure that again, those lines of communication are open. So nobody's getting blindsided in a situation like that: "Hey, I, to be completely honest, I'm anticipating this effect or type of ripple effect." I think that can help organizations walking into these types of scenarios with their eyes open.
Alicia Lifrak:
I would, wonder, there was a question actually in here that sort of speaks to this a little bit as it relates to customer service and dealing with disappointed members. And it kind of goes around this. From the starting point, there is going to be a disruption and interruption in your normal business because it's just because that's the reality of what we're dealing with. I think recognizing that taking the hit in the short term is going to pay off much larger dividends in the long term. So in terms of giving refunds for canceled events, maybe extending member benefits for an extra month or whatever our solution is where here.
Dan Sullivan:
Alicia, I think we lost you a little bit there on the wifi. But yeah, I think you're making an important point, which is just how, how can we figure out some strong ways to keep our, our members happy. And, Dana, well, while Alicia's wifi is kind of getting back up, can you talk a little bit about some of the ways that you've seen how do we address disappointed members? How do we address people who are angry that again, service has been canceled or events have been canceled or there's been disruptions in their membership. What are some things that you've seen there?
Dana Hines:
Well like Alicia mentioned, think ahead. What can you offer people if you do have to close for a week or two weeks or however long? And I think, you know, extending everyone's membership by a month would be a very generous thing to do. But you have to prepare now: is there a way for you to automatically extend all memberships by one month beyond their expiration date? So, you know, do some investigation there. I had a boss one time that said, don't give money back, so we're not going to be refunding membership money here. We could be extending, but we're not going to be refunding. I think, you know, because membership organizations are usually pretty event heavy, I do think you have to look at the next couple of weeks or months or look out into the next quarter or so and evaluate each one of those events or activities that are going to be happening and say, are we going to have a camp during spring break?
Dana Hines:
Or are we going to have the gala or are we going to be pushing that back? So sometimes you can look at that at those events and that is something that you wouldn't necessarily cancel, but you might postpone. And if you can just kind of do a little planning ahead on the event side to figure out what will happen. I know I was on a call the other day with some new folks and they were talking about the potential of having to cancel one of their major events and the sponsor was coming back to them and saying, "Hey, I want my money back." What do you do about that? You know, that is going to be a case by case basis, but, you know, none of us like to give money back and you might have to say, "Well, we're going to do this in the fall rather than spring."
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. And, and I think it's interesting, this idea of, okay, we know we're going to be in a situation where we're going to have some people that are upset. We're going to have to inevitably cancel some of our programming. Like you said, what are the ways that we can retain them? So it sounds like giving them some incentives to come to future events - we're likely not going to be in this situation in five months, six months, 12 months, and our mission is still going to be the same if not stronger. So how do we encourage people to get back and back? So maybe incentivizing them to come to future events or again, like you said, being generous as far as their membership dues, maybe try giving them a month while things start to blow over. So I think that it's an interesting idea to start to really tap into the benefits that you already provide.
Dan Sullivan:
And maybe that's also a great way to, thinking off the top of my head here, if you have a variety of different membership levels, if you've got benefits at higher levels that you have the potential of offering to some of those to mid tier or lower tier members and you can do so in a way that's not going to either a break the bank or break the backs of your staff. You know, maybe there's some ways that you could give people kind of a taste of what those higher level memberships would be like and give you an opportunity to maybe even incentivize them to join later on down the road. So another, another question that we had was, can we talk a little bit about how institutions might be able to optimize some technology as a means to generate revenue or maintain some connections with members?
So I think one of the, one of the big things, at least from what we've seen is it depends on how your membership base is made up. So, let's say for example, you've got a lot of members who are remote. Maybe they're in other countries, they support you for your mission. Maybe you've got a lot of members who are maybe not directly within the range of people who would be visiting fairly frequently. So, I mean, one option for doing that would be, like we've talked about before, using social media as an outlet to get people content and keep them engaged with the subject matter even though they're not physically visiting. How do we get their eyes on subject matter in the museum?
I think another option would be for those that utilize a piece of technology, like a digital tour for example. It could be a great way to give them a way to navigate their way through the space even though they're not physically doing it. And then I think the last, last option would be really just utilizing technology that can enhance lines of with your members. So whether that's using even like digital membership cards or a digital tour or something along those lines. Even if you've got a lot of email addresses or whatever it may be, figuring out ways to utilize technology to keep that line of communication open. I think that will be super important. Moving forward. So, Dana, one of the other questions that we've got here is: if the museum's looking to stay engaged with the community by being a community resource, what are some ways to keep that in mind? As far as, you know, not being a potential liability?
Dana Hines:
Well, I don't know about the liability thing, but, during the economic downturn, zoos became the way that people just forgot about their troubles and they were a resource for people that said, "Hey, we've got to get out, we've got to do things, we can't take everything out of the budget." And so they actually, did better than all the other cultural institutions just because, you know, mom could give up her membership to the art museum, but they were going to keep that zoo membership so that the whole family could enjoy it. So reminding people that you are a place of respite and community and all of that. If not now, then you know, after the fact.
And I think we do have to think about what comes after this as much as what happens during. So, you know, again on a call the other day, with a client who had been through a flooding situation in Chicago and she said, you know, start taking it; just keep track of everything that you're doing and maybe everything that your institution is spending, to sanitize and whatnot, because she said FEMA came back after the fact because they were so hard hit by the flood and there were some costs and lost revenue somehow that they were able to somewhat recapture. So, you know, think about how you might be able to quantify either lost revenue from membership or visitorship or other expenditures. And like I said, take care of your institution after the fact. So it's almost like we have to anticipate everything all the way through.
Dan Sullivan:
Sure.
Dana Hines:
And then, you know, I was just going to say, the other thing is that whenever any of us are in need, we do have that membership pool of people who will come to our rescue. So hopefully most people are going to mean understanding if we have to close or if they're not going to be able to take advantage of their membership benefits for awhile. And in the end they would be willing to help us out of whatever financial hole we might have dropped in. So be thinking ahead on some appeals and some efforts to our ways to ask people to help out because I think they're going to feel like, "this is my place and I want to do that."
Dan Sullivan:
For sure. And Alicia, welcome back. Some wifi challenges over there. But you know, one thing is for visitation based organizations, one of our questions is: what are some strategies and talking points that you would recommend to help mitigate or at least kind of manage a flood of refund requests? What are some ways that you'd be able to kind of handle something like that? Dana, are you there?
Dana Hines:
Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were asking Alicia.
Dan Sullivan:
It looks like we're still wrestling with some wifi problems over there.
Dana Hines:
Okay, sure. You know, this is not anything of any of our doing. And so I wouldn't think that you're going to get refund requests for membership. Now, you know, if you have to cancel an event, that may be another situation. If that event is going to be rescheduled. And I would think most people would be okay with you holding onto their funds. If they're not, then yes, maybe you do have to give a refund. But the membership world is pretty much not into giving refunds for membership. So I would say that that request might be few and far between. And I would hope that, you know, even ask that,
Dan Sullivan:
What about running a membership sale? Is now a good time to do that? You know, an idea that I was talking about with my team earlier today was, what about for those folks that are going to be coming up for renewal in the next three or so months? What if we incentivize them in some way to renew now and said, well, let's re-up for a year or you know, even longer. Is this a good time to be running a membership sale and incentivizing them?
Dana Hines:
You know, we always believe in putting in offers in any appeal that we do. So whatever you might be doing now, I would continue that. If you feel like life is more difficult and you do have to offer a discount. I think a lot of us have gotten away from that deep discounting that happened during the economic downturn. So I would not say, get into deep discounting. If anything, it's like we need you now more than ever and this is a great value and I would not go down the discounting road. We've all gotten over that I hope.
Dan Sullivan:
Okay. And also just worth putting out there. So we've got a lot of questions coming in and we likely won't be able to answer all of them. There's a Google doc which will be circulated. There's a section specifically for questions that the community will be able to answer for each other. Again, the goal here is to bring everybody together into one spot to be able to answer them. So Dana, another question that I've got, kind of for you is, when attendance starts to really slow down, are there any other strategies that you can think of that to help keep those folks engaged beyond the communication side of things?
Dana Hines:
I think communicating with them that you are still open that you have sanitation practices in place. You know, maybe you do have some special offers on the admission side to get people in. I think you probably need to brainstorm these with your marketing team and your visitor services folks. But it's just a matter of communicating and working together with other team members to allay people's fears and hopefully get them to still come and visit. But the media might be working against us in that regard because the people aren't feeling comfortable.
Dan Sullivan:
Sure. And, another question that we got was, what about announcing major events right now? For example, someone planning a big fundraiser in late May was maybe originally going to plan to announce that this week. You know, obviously we've had this kind of slew of cancellations and all of us are probably being bombarded on our phones with cancellations. What are the thoughts on either announcing a major event now holding that? What have you seen?
Dana Hines:
I don't know that I'd be announcing anything this week that seems a little against the grain. You know, you might keep it on the calendar, on your website - but making big announcements, kind of seems to just, you know, go against the flow at the moment.
Dan Sullivan:
Yeah. And one of the other questions is, how much communication is too much? And I think one of my opinions is I personally have not gotten to the point where I feel, "okay, this is too much communication about coronavirus or about COVID-19, whatever you want to call it." I think people are pretty thirsty for knowledge right now and for just staying informed and staying in the loop is a really important part. These are shifting sands so nobody really knows quite what's going on. So obviously sending people 10 messages a day might be a little excessive, but, you know, keeping people in the loop, whether it's a few times a week or every few days: "Hey, just letting you know..." In many ways, and for many institutions, things are day to day. They are very much evolving. So I can't tell you what's going to happen on Friday right now cause we legitimately don't know. Literally since we've been on the call here, Massachusetts has declared a state of emergency and they've also announced that there have been 51 new cases literally just here in Massachusetts and that was in the last 15 minutes. So I think this is this idea of we're being bombarded, there's so much information coming in, but people want to know right there. Memberships to their favorite cultural organizations are a narrow part of their financial picture. So I think finding a happy medium as far as communication goes. We're not obviously not bombarding them, but keeping them in the loop. People just want to feel like they've, they're informed and they're heard. And it looks like we have Alicia back. Hey Alicia.
Alicia Lifrak:
Hello? You guys hear me? Yup. Yup. Sound great.
Dan Sullivan:
Coronavirus also affects the internet. So, one other question that we've got here is, let's say events are canceled. What are some thoughts as far as preventing members and visitors from believing that the institution as a whole is being closed? I mean, just my, my initial take on that one would be, again, having strong lines of communication. Are you communicating by email? Do you have a following on Facebook or Twitter or the different kind of social media channels? Meet people where they are. If you've been communicating with them on one medium or another, stay on those mediums. If you've built up a following. I think that's really important, with keeping people in the loop saying, "Hey, just so you know, this event has been canceled, but overall we are remaining open and maybe we have reduced hours or you can come and see us at this time. Feel free to call our, our membership department with any questions." I think that's one way to tackle that.
Dana Hines:
So just to back up and talk about how much communication is too much. We've always been a proponent of communicating weekly is not too often, you know, so 52 emails a year is not out of the ordinary at all. And I think, you know, we are all kind of walking the tightrope here. We don't want to alarm people, but at the same time we want to keep them informed. So I would say, you know, Alicia was talking about having five or seven, "what if" scenarios and anytime you move from one scenario to another to another communicate that change. So if you're open and everything seems to be fine, communicate that as well. So, don't overdo it, but keep people abreast of what's happening at your place.
Dan Sullivan:
Sure. Alicia, do you want to throw anything in there around communication and what's a positive frequency?
Alicia Lifrak:
Sure. I guess what I would suggest is, you know your audience best and you know what your typical cadence is. I think if you're going to kind of follow three rules of thumb, I would make sure that when you're communicating to do it effectively, start from a position of empathy, understand the people you're talking to. They want to know that you take this seriously, that whether your institution is closed or not, that this is having a very real impact and effect. So taking it seriously, but on the same note, being calm and being kind of a voice of reason, not demonstrating any kind of panics, and making sure that you represent yourself as sort of the voice of reason and calm. And third, I would suggest that there's relevance to whatever you're talking about.
Alicia Lifrak:
If you're just sending out an email to let everybody know that you're watching the Coronavirus, but nothing has changed, I don't know that you need to send that message. I think you want to send out a message to talk about enhanced cleaning protocols or adjustments in schedules or changes in member benefits or digital programming. I think you want to make sure that you have content that is relevant, that gives you a reason to speak in that space. Because I'm monitoring the number of emails I'm getting on the Coronavirus. And they're probably at this point 20 a day. I've been emailed from every airline president that there is. And there's really no changes. But I think they've been letting us know like, okay, well this is what's happening on our planes. This is what we're doing to change. If you need to change your travel, you can do it without any penalty. So I think making sure that you have a message that needs to go out and start from there to make sure that you're not just filling in space because otherwise when you do have something important to tell them, they're going to have tuned it out. So I would keep those three key points, being empathetic, being calm and being relevant.
Dana Hines:
Hey Dan, I see a question here from Jennifer asking about how her organization was preparing to launch an acquisition email campaign this month: Would it be better to focus on our spring, summer renewing households instead? I'm an ardent proponent of don't change it. Anything that you have planned. If you're getting ready to do that email acquisition campaign, go ahead with that. At the same time, I would also focus on spring and summer renewals. So, you know, keep doing everything. You just don't want this to get us, you don't want this to affect us because you stopped doing things.
Dan Sullivan:
Sure. And I think one, one thing that goes along with that is, you know, this idea of a rising tide lifts all boats. So I think when this kind of the panic has passed and we start to be in kind of assessment mode and say, all right, well where do we go from here? How do we change from here? That's a good time to say, all right, you know, how can we revisit? And there's another question that Steve had. Dana, you had mentioned preparing to ask donors to help cover lost revenues. Would you recommend waiting until the crisis has passed rather than asking while it's still happening at the risk of sounding like an opportunist? What are your thoughts on that?
Dana Hines:
You know, I think I would wait a little bit. If it's something that you didn't have already have planned, I think I would hold on it for a little bit just to see where everything is going. But definitely, get it in the works and sometimes it does take a little bit to put something like that together. So you could start working on it now and decide the right moment to drop that.
Dan Sullivan:
And I think something worth noting to add on here is this is really a good time to revisit that age old question of mission versus value as far as membership goes. You know, are people members more so because they are believers in your mission and they love what you do and love the cause that you're furthering? Or are they members because they have a financial incentive to be, because, you'd go X number of times it'll pay for itself. So I think going back to this concept, if people are really in line with your mission and they love your mission, they are going to be more inclined to support you because they know that you're in a position in which you're struggling. And you may be, depending on how the economy goes, we all may be in financially challenging positions, but I don't view that as necessarily being opportunistic. If people really believe in the mission that you have, helping them understand where you're coming from and helping them realize this is wherewhere we need help, this is where we need funding, really gives you an opportunity to connect with them on a very different level than just to a financially incentivized one.
Dan Sullivan:
Alicia, do you have anything you want to add?
Alicia Lifrak:
Growing on that? I would only add, and I'm not sure if it was already mentioned since I have been in and out of this call, but we have one of our clients as a result of the California fires that did sort of an emergency appeal, and it went predominantly to California. And so they were all in the same boat and all experiencing the same sort of varying degrees of disaster. But they let them know that they had had some structural property damage needed help. It was not a planned appeal. They let their members know that they needed some assistance. And I think they generated, in one mailing, $88,000 of unplanned revenue that just came in to help with that cause. And so I think you know, those who love you will help if you let them know that you need the help. So don't discount, don't say no for someone else. I guess that would be my best fundraising advice is, let people know where you need assistance and those who care about your organization will step up and help if they can.
Dan Sullivan:
And I think that goes back also Alicia, to organizational personality, you know, whereas if you're an individual, if your members really connect with your organization kind of on that level, being able to communicate with them in an open and honest way and let the personality of your museum or zoo or aquarium really shine. I think that's just a way to be real with them and connect with them on that level. By the way, if anybody has questions, you can feel free to post them in the Q&A section which will be at the bottom of your screen. Feel free to ask. So another question I have is: should we be expecting higher than average drop in membership this spring due to the coronavirus and the economic uncertainty? I think it's probably safe to say that we have no idea what's going to happen, but what's the initial read on that? This this is pretty unprecedented, isn't it?
Dana Hines:
It is unprecedented. I think the only thing that we have to go on are some of our local crises that people have been through - you know, the floods, the hurricanes, that kind of thing. And normally what we've seen is that yes, there is a slowdown. A lot of times people are giving to other causes that maybe directly address that crisis. So they give to Salvation Army, they give to food banks, they give to, other relief type organizations. And whenever there was a earthquake or a hurricane somewhere, I think we've always kind of had our eye on how funds get diverted for a period of time and the more local that is maybe the more impact that you will see. But it all comes back after a while, as long as we don't stop doing what we're doing. So, you know, we just have to have faith in the future and the times will get better. Whatever the effect we do end up seeing. So that's why I think it's just really a must to keep your fingers on the pulse of all those renewal rates, because that's kind of like the canary in the mine, if you will. You know, that's the first thing that we have to go on in terms of how our departments and our bottom lines are being affected.
Dan Sullivan:
Sure. And I think something to put in there too is we've seen our communities come out strong when a lot of other or cultural organizations have faced disaster themselves. So, for example, the name escapes me, but there was a museum, I think it was in Albany, New York, that had, I believe it was like a roof collapse or a flood or something along those lines. And the community really came out to support them. We also saw it in Brazil when they had the fire and then we also saw in Paris last year. So I think there's a lot of different opportunities to illustrate how the community kind of comes out in force to support their cultural institution. So I believe that helping people understand where you are and where things are and how it's impacting you is a good strategy. Alicia, did you want to throw something in there?
Alicia Lifrak:
I guess I think probably the biggest difference of what we're facing right now is that right now what we're seeing is a global impact of an event is it truly is unprecedented. And I think, depending on what your plan was going into 2020, most of the organizations we work with fully expected from a fundraising standpoint that 2020 was going to be an atypical year in the fundraising space just because it was an election year and we expected it to be disruptive to the fundraising. And certainly in the advertising and communications plan, this is just adding a whole new level. So the unknown is exponentially greater, but it doesn't change the fact that even knowing going in with the election that things are going to be different. You still put a plan together, you still follow through. I think you need to keep moving forward because regardless of how bad it is, your institutions will still exist when this moved on. And so you need to do what you need to do to keep your doors open and keep your members engaged. So recognizing that no matter how bad it gets, you still need to keep plugging along.
Dan Sullivan:
For sure. And I think I actually compiled a few questions that organizations might want to ask themselves as they start to put their plans together. So first of all, when it comes to renewals and your members, how might they respond if their membership is coming up for renewal today, next week, next month, they might be thinking about how frequently they are going to be visiting in the next few months. So putting yourselves in their shoes is going to be really important. And then what impact will the museum potentially being closed for an unknown period of time have on your member base? Will that impact their likelihood of renewal? Again, that goes back to that idea of their incentive for being a member. Are they in line with your mission? Are they a believer in your mission or are they aligned with the value that they're getting out of the membership?
Dan Sullivan:
And what about incentives to encourage people to renew their memberships right now, knowing how many unknown future challenges we may face or potential economic uncertainty. That's another element. Another thing to think about. How would you be impacted if your staff was temporarily reduced? We talked about this a little bit earlier by the illness, let's say 10% 25%, 50%, 75% of your staff, and if you're a staff of 1, 100%, you know, consider those ripple effects and the delays that you might be related to fulfillment. And then other things to consider. What can you do to improve communication with your members during the times of uncertainty like this? What channels are you going to communicate with them on? What changes do you need to make in order to be able to make more effective communication or have more effective communication with them? And then lastly, are you prepared to work remotely? If not, what needs to happen in order for you to effectively communicate and contribute to your organization from a remote workstation. Just something we're thinking about. So we've got about 10 minutes left. If anybody has any questions, they can feel free to post them. The conversation will be available later. We'll also repost this recording. It will be available in the Cuseum website. We'll also have that shared document, which we encourage all of you to contribute to. So Dana, Alicia, anything else that you want to throw in there as people are starting to try to get their heads wrapped around this?
Dana Hines :
Dan, were you going to put the slides up? The example of how one organization kind of came back from a kind of a double tragic tragedy. That campaign that we did with Santa Barbara Zoo. As you may remember a few crises ago definitely California and Santa Barbara and the surrounding area dealt with those horrible wildfires. And then unfortunately right after that they had mudslides. So, you know, from one extreme to the other and their tourism was pretty devastated. People didn't know that it was safe to go back or what the scenario was. So literally the season after those disasters the zoo wanted to do something we already had. They already had some funds budgeted for some kind of digital effort. And they also had kind of a call out from their convention and tourism Bureau in Santa Barbara, just in the whole business community. Like, what can we do to convince people that, "Hey, we're here, we're back, we want you to come. We're ready for you." And so, we put a couple of campaigns together that ended up being fun and light and engaging. It was called Keep Santa Barbara Cute. And the zoo was getting ready to host the koalas who were coming to visit from the San Diego Zoo. And so what better time to introduce cuteness than with these koalas? So we put together kind of a Buzzfeed-style survey questionnaire. And you answered a series of questions and you found out if you are a Flamingo or a Koala or a Meerkat. And so you answered, what were your sleeping patterns? What did you like to eat? That kind of a thing. And it determined which creature you were most like. And the whole idea was to get people to enter a contest where the price packages were focused on what is most popular in Santa Barbara, which is coming for a weekend stay, staying at a hotel, going to their great restaurants, going to wine bars and wineries. And so the price packages included all of that plus a membership to the zoo. And you know, it was fun for people. They, they were sharing it and liking it and doing it and then sending it on to their friends. And so, it was a very engaging campaign all focused on just, you know, Hey, come back to Santa Barbara and the zoo and have a good time. So, the end result of that was that they collected about 3000 new email addresses from folks. Of course we utilize those emails to send some additional communications and a membership ask. And in the end the zoo got about a hundred new members and three lucky winners got a fabulous weekend and Santa Barbara. And I think it created a lot of positivity and fun and cuteness for the zoo and for Santa Barbara. So that's just one kind of idea of, you know, maybe things you can be thinking about when all this is over and we want to get back to having fun. Again.
Dan Sullivan:
Something I really like about that too is it's so local centric, right? You're encouraging people to come back and do activities in the area, even if it's not necessarily related to the institution itself. You're still just getting them back, getting them back into the swing of visiting, which obviously kind of on the periphery will allow these organizations to drive more folks through the door. So I think that's a great idea.
Dana Hines:
Yeah. And it was kind of mission-related too, you know, with the animals and educating people about the behaviors of each animal. So it was more than just fun. It was mission related, and a bit of a fundraiser for them too in the end.
Dan Sullivan:
Awesome. So we've got, we've got about four minutes left. So any parting thoughts for the folks that are listening?
Dana Hines:
Stay brave. Yeah, keep doing what you're doing. Be positive. You know, maybe this is an opportunity too, for you to work with other departments in your organization that you haven't had to rally around a problem or an issue like this before. And you know, I think, in the end, good will come of this, but, we just have to kind of hang together and keep each other motivated and encouraged because we're all doing great work for all the wonderful institutions and organizations that you represent. So just stay positive.
Alicia Lifrak:
And I would, I would add to that, just that there is the sense of community that exists for your institution within where you locally reside is broadened even more so with this community, that online today and that you have a lot of others who are in the same predicament that you are and are not your competitors. So look to this group. And Dan, I'm sure you'll share it again, that living document is a source of opportunity. But you rely on and lean on those who are living and breathing it in real time with you and some of your best ideas and resolutions can come from that. So rely on this community, your community of fellow membership organizations. So tell cultural institutions to depend on that we'll all get through it together basically.
Dan Sullivan:
And I think that's one of the great things kind of about this community, about the cultural spaces. It really gives, and you've got organizations all over the country that are not competing with each other, but they're all facing the same problem. So it's such a good chance for everyone to really be able to benefit from the best practices. And I'm just posting that document one more time there in the, in the chat box. So feel free to check that out, add to it. But again, I wish everybody the best of luck as obviously these times are very uncertain. They'll continue to be, at least for the foreseeable future, but rely on the community to identify those best practices. And you can use Alicia, Dana, or myself as a resource. I think all of our contact info, we can circulate that after. But, again, good luck to everybody and thank you so much for being a part of this today
Alicia Lifrak:
And thank you Dan for putting it all together for us. We appreciate it. Definitely.
Dan Sullivan:
It's my pleasure. My pleasure. All right. Thanks everybody. Take care. All right. Bye. Bye.
Alicia Lifrak:
Stay safe. Wash your hands.
Looking for more resources on managing coronavirus at your organization? Check out our resources page or contact Cuseum today.