Measuring Success
Facts & the Human Factor
by Megan Lavell, TAC Executive Director
I
The July 9th Hastings Live performance was in limbo early in the day due to uncertain weather conditions. We have had to cancel three performances already this year, a record for sure. The evening turned out perfect for an outdoor concert: cloudy, about 80 degrees, no rain in sight.
The performer that night was the Thornapple Jazz Orchestra, affectionately known as the “house band of Hastings.” This is a group of 16-ish mostly local performers, most of them retired, who have been playing together in some iteration or another for almost 40 years. It was a great concert with great weather in a great venue.
There were only 95 people in attendance.
“It was a great concert with great weather in a great venue. There were only 95 people in attendance.”
I sat at the concert with my husband feeling bad that not more people were at the show. What could we do to get more people there on Wednesday nights? How could we broaden our reach? How can we make these concerts more appealing to a younger audience? Where is everyone that should be appreciating this show right now!?
But then I looked around at the crowd. There are always regulars on Wednesday nights — the people that make this part of their weekly schedule for 12 weeks every summer. There is also a part of the audience that changes every week – they know someone in the band, they like this particular music, their schedules finally allowed them to attend, they got out of the house and away from the kids for the night. As always, both groups were represented there that night.
Suddenly, instead of seeing the swaths of empty grass where I thought there should be more lawn chairs, I saw people tapping their feet and singing along. I saw generations brought together by the arts. I saw older people who had been listening to that music for the last 70 years, floating back to their youth on the sound waves coming from the stage.
“Suddenly, instead of seeing the swaths of empty grass, I saw generations brought together by the arts.”
In those moments of quiet observation — watching people as they watched the band — I remembered that while we want to reach a lot of people, that is not always the measure of our success.
II
It is hard sometimes when I report to funders, donors, sponsors, grantors (read: people who give us money) because they want numbers: hours volunteered, tickets sold, dollars raised, programs distributed, views, and click-throughs tallied. When thinking of success, my mind often goes directly to how I would quantify a success to someone who has never attended our events, sitting behind a big metal desk in a land far away, who has to make our impact and identity fit into a spreadsheet.
As a nonprofit that relies on donations, sponsorships, grants, gifts for our survival, we have to be able to tell the story of WHY we are worthy of those contributions. And that’s fair! Every organization needs money – we need to be able to illustrate why we are worthy of it.
“My mind often goes directly to how I would quantify success to someone who has to make our impact and identity fit into a spreadsheet.”
It’s just that, instead of talking about how many people were in the audience, I want to talk about what those people felt. I want to talk about how we gave them a space to connect with friends they had not seen in years. I want to talk about how people with disabilities feel welcome when they haven’t always. I want to talk about the tears that roll down a widower’s face when the band plays the song he danced to with his bride in 1974. I want to talk about how parents with young kids can enjoy a concert while their toddlers run around in soft grass because there is no financial burden on that young family to attend the event. I want to talk about how music flowing from the stage is a siren song to people who did not even know they could enjoy free live music on a Wednesday night in Hastings.
I want to talk about what we bring to the human experience. The experience of community. The experience of arts that are for everyone.
It would have been great if there had been 200 more people in the audience that night. But the reality is, the people who were there needed to be there. Sure, they were there for the music, but they could have listened to that at home. They were there for the experience of connecting, feeling, and being alive.
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