Special Bd. of Aldermen — 10/26/15 Page 6
now, we’d like 10 to 15 people who are connected in the committee who are passionate about this project; who
are fearless about talking it up in the community and to people who are willing and able to make a gift,
particularly in the beginning a large gift to this. People on the campaign committee need to make a gift to the
best of their own ability and those folks have already been asked and they are in process, well many of the
folks have been asked. They will help to identify prospective donors and we really hope that they will work, it’s
not just a matter of giving us great names, it is a matter of “And | know them and I'll call them and set up an
appointment for 2 of us from the committee to go and meet with them”.
They will work with me on campaign strategy and they will lend their name to the effort which is particularly
important | think in this campaign. This is a working group, this is every other week meetings for an hour and
then work in —-between to do follow-up.
Campaign Counsel, that’s me, so | help to devise strategy, | work with the committee to identify prospective
donors. | don’t obviously know donors in every part of every community that | work in, but | Know how to ask
the right questions | think to help people come up with the right names. | support the campaign committee and
| really staff it particularly in an entity like this that doesn’t have its own staff. | help to track donors but it is not
really the role that | typically do; typically there is a staff person and we are working on getting volunteers to
help do that. To keep things on track, | really follow up on people and make sure people are doing what they
said they would do.
Who does what in a campaign? So if any of you serve on a non-profit Board in addition to your City volunteer
work you know that Board members are asked to make a gift to a non-profit to the best of their ability and
Boards are typically asked to add names to the list of prospective donors that we are talking about. And then |
added consider hosting a house party because that is a very effective way of raising awareness about the
project and also asking for the project. In this case | would consider, | hope you don’t think I’m presumptuous,
but | would consider the Steering Committee to be the Board of this entity. And so as such, | thought | would
bring this up because | feel like this is your responsibility in the campaign, in addition to your many other
responsibilities.
Just to keep in mind that this is what we are all shooting for or something that looks like this and we hope that
we will be demonstrating progress soon but it will certainly take many, many volunteers in the community. So
any other questions? | asked Tracy to say a few words as well.
Tracy Cassidy So thank you for providing the opportunity for us all to get together and talk about this. As
many of you have heard from me over the last year or so, not only personally am | incredibly supportive of a
Performing Arts Center but it is something that the Chamber of Commerce here has also gotten behind actively
because of the positive economic impact that we believe will happen to the City as a result and that economic
impact happens in waves; ultimately resulting in people coming to performances and spending money and
getting babysitters and using Uber and going out to dinner and all those things that will happen. But the
economic impact actually starts earlier and it has already started here with the Steering Committee, those
Board Members that Betsy mentioned. | want to build a bit on the analogy that Betsy started her presentation
with of annual campaigns being like housekeeping, it is never over. No matter how many times you sweep the
floor, you’ve got to sweep it again; no matter how many times you empty the dishwasher, you’ve got to do it
again. That is really what annual fundraising is about.
Capital campaigns are that big leap forward. Those really thoughtful major impact things. There is a similar
analogy to campaign giving. So annual campaign gifts are often what | would refer to as “checkbook gifts”.
You get asked by your local non-profit that you support and believe in, once a year and you kind of look at your
checkbook and you go “how much can | give this year”. Is it $200.00? Is it $1,000.00? Are you one of those
donors who make development directors do cartwheels and you are giving $10,000.00, been there it is an
awesome feeling, but they tend to be “what do you have at that moment in time that you are willing to give
back to that organization’.
