{"id":843,"date":"2006-01-31T08:51:15","date_gmt":"2006-01-31T16:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2006\/01\/is_an_audience_a_crowd_of_indi\/"},"modified":"2006-01-31T08:51:15","modified_gmt":"2006-01-31T16:51:15","slug":"is_an_audience_a_crowd_of_indi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/is_an_audience_a_crowd_of_indi.php","title":{"rendered":"Is an audience a crowd of individuals, or a gathering of groups?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A great piece by Malcolm Gladwell<\/a> on the astoundingly successful Saddleback Church suggests that connection and commitment are not products of individual affiliation to a large organization, but of interaction with a small group. Says Gladwell:<\/p>\n


\nMembership in a small group is a better predictor of whether people volunteer or give money than how often they attend church, whether they pray, whether they’ve had a deep religious experience, or whether they were raised in a Christian home. Social action is not a consequence of belief, in other words. I don’t give because I believe in religious charity. I give because I belong to a social structure that enforces an ethic of giving.
\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Saddleback Church founder Rick Warren has harnessed the collective power of small, intimate groups to build a faithful congregation of tens of thousands. And their connection is expressed not just in attendance and volunteering, but in money. In one Sunday, for example, the congregation gave seven million dollars in cash and fifty-three million dollars in commitments…not because of a targeted and tested case statement and campaign strategy, but because Warren asked them to give. It’s an essential lesson for any faith-based organization (like arts organizations, where our faith is in human creative expression).<\/p>\n

Recent studies in the arts, like the Wallace Foundation’s study of audience motivations to attend<\/a>, have reinforced the driving power of social groups in both choosing to attend arts events and evaluating the quality of experience they provide. But Gladwell’s article suggests that the small, social group is more than just a tactic to sell tickets, it’s a path to encouraging lasting and meaningful connections through the arts.<\/p>\n

It raises some questions: Why do we talk so much about ”single-ticket sales” when our tickets are rarely sold one by one? And why are ”group sales” focused exclusively on large numbers (20 or more), a number too big for the most powerful group connections? There would seem to be a world of promise in connecting with our audiences not one at a time, or 20 at a time, but in groups of three to eight.<\/p>\n

Thanks, Diane, for the link!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A great piece by Malcolm Gladwell on the astoundingly successful Saddleback Church suggests that connection and commitment are not products of individual affiliation to a large organization, but of interaction with a small group. Says Gladwell: Membership in a small group is a better predictor of whether people volunteer or give money than how often […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-843","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}