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Are you a program hoarder?

Posted by Shoshana 
· Friday, January 13th, 2017 

Have you ever seen one of those hoarding shows? Or, do you know someone that keeps stuff way longer than they need to? It is quite puzzling for most people to witness. Why would someone want to live like that? Can’t they just let go what is no longer needed or used? Sometimes they keep garbage and broken items. What is the benefit of keeping these types of items?

So, I have another question for you. Are you hoarding any programs or protocols that are no longer needed or useful?

In a few weeks, I will be going through strategic planning with one of the non-profits that I work with. Since we are still in the beginnings of 2017, this is a perfect time to look at all that is planned for the year to make sure it all makes sense.

I have mentioned before that is good to do an evaluation before the year gets completely underway. Just like the psychologists suggest to help hoarders take back control of their lives, you will want to organize three “bins” and take a close look at what you are doing:

  1. What programs are still useful and working for your arts business
  2. What programs are no longer useful and what programs are not working for your arts business
  3. Which programs can you make shiny and new or repurpose to work better

I suggest that you do a program audit and look at your programs from all different angles. Are the programs making money? Do they have general public interest? Are people understanding the program? Do people like the program? Were there complaints or feedback about how the program runs? If the program is not doing as well as expected, can anything be done to make it work? Bonus question: What programs bring you joy? You might as well not be doing a program that you hate running.

Taking this general audit of programs and of how you do business makes perfect sense to clear out all the old useless energy so you can spend time on programs that do work.

This will also rid you of the mentality of “it has always been done this way so there is nothing we can do about it.”

There is something you can do to make sure you are not hoarding programs: organize, evaluate, keep, clear out, or repurpose. You will find that this simple tune-up will do wonders to elevating your positive energy for the programs you keep and for the space it creates for new programs to be considered and implemented.

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,
Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza
Chief Audience Builder, Audience Development Specialists

Coming soon! New programs from ADS!

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Categories : Arts, Audience Development, Fundraising, Management, Marketing
Tags : Arts business, audience building, evaluate, hoarding programs, Management, program audits

ADS Founder — Shoshana Fanizza

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