The Venue Theatre in Conifer, Colorado, is a nonprofit children’s educational th

Question

The Venue Theatre in Conifer, Colorado, is a nonprofit children’s educational theatre organization. Established in July 2013 by Nelson Conway, Maryjane Fowler, Joni Havens, and Deb Christensen, the theatre’s purpose is to provide educational opportunities for students at the high school, middle school, and elementary school levels. The Venue’s mission statement explains that “The Venue Theatre exists to provide an accepting and enriching environment for the youth of our community—for discovery, exploration and celebration of their unique and extraordinary abilities.” Each year, the theatre puts on productions starring students at each school level that make up the cast and company of the production, and each company has one of the founders as its director. Nelson directs the high school company, MJ is director of the middle school company, Joni directs the elementary school company, and Deb is the theatre’s orchestra director.

Program goals differ by grade level. For elementary school students, the theatre experience helps to build self-confidence, cooperation with peers, creativity, and concentration and memory. For middle school students, the goals of the program include learning more about narrative and storytelling, and observing life choices and conflicts of characters they portray or study in the plays. For the high school company, students build their self-image, learn to take risks, participate in a community of fellow actors who must support one another on stage, and build respect for peers and discipline through the rehearsal and performance process.

Because The Venue is not affiliated with a public or private school, students come from a variety of schools in the Denver metropolitan area and pay tuition to participate in the program. Rehearsals and performances take place in a leased space in a local shopping center. It takes a significant investment of time, energy, and funding from a number of sources to accomplish The Venue’s mission. As the website states, “The Venue is more than just a 501(c)(3) nonprofit theater—it’s a family of committed parents, volunteers and instructors all working toward one common goal, creating the best environment for children and young adults to become all that they can be.” Parents of the student-actors volunteer their time to create costumes, apply makeup, and build or find props and sets, and students run the sound and lighting during the productions.

The Venue is led by an executive director who reports to a board of directors, which is comprised of a president, vice president (who handles PR, graphics, and web design), secretary, treasurer, six at-large members, three student representatives, and the founders/directors. The families that have students in the program elect the board members annually. Almost all are volunteers, since the only paid positions at The Venue are the full-time executive director, a part-time marketing director, and a part-time stage manager.

Like any start-up business or organization, The Venue has had its struggles and now finds itself at a critical turning point. Each year of its evolution brought successes and unique challenges.

Year One

In July 2013, Nelson Conway signed a lease on an unfinished retail space to fulfill his dream of starting his own theatre. From July to November, Nelson, the founding members, dedicated volunteers, and theatre kids built the interior of The Venue. Nelson supervised, organized, and funded the build. While Nelson handled rehearsals, he also oversaw the installation of the seating, lights, and the sound system. Also in July 2013, a board of directors was formed. In November, The Venue Theatre successfully opened with its inaugural show, Hairspray.

For the next several months, Nelson and the board formed the structure of The Venue while Nelson juggled his roles as board president, high school company director, and all-around handyman. The founders, parents, and student representatives made up the initial board. At the time, the board received advice from a lawyer to help form the bylaws while no official executive director was in place. During the first year, the only internal conflict occurred when the treasurer disagreed with a casting decision during the spring high school show and then subsequently left the board and The Venue over the discord. While there was no formal resolution, the former treasurer eventually returned to The Venue, as a parent, in the spring of 2016 to help her son get involved in the spring production. Nelson and the bookkeeper had to cover for the treasurer during this time.

During the first year, the mission statement defined The Venue and proved useful in keeping everyone focused on creating a successful first season. As a result, the directors, orchestra leader, student representatives, and volunteers united as a team to create a truly special environment.

Year One: Total Students 85, Total Productions 4, Total Shows 30, Percentage of seats filled 70%

Year Two

After a successful first season, the directors and the board were eager to create more structure for The Venue. One of the first steps was to hold an annual meeting in an effort to recruit additional volunteers for general assistance and to fill vacated positions since the first season’s close. The second goal was to reduce some of Nelson’s load by creating an executive director position.

Enter Susan Musgrove, a financial advisor and wealth management specialist with 26 years of experience. Susan joined The Venue in June 2014 as a part-time administrative director. By September 2014, she had been promoted to full-time executive director, and the ability to mostly afford the position was a major milestone for the theatre. One initial challenge at the time was that the income for The Venue wasn’t enough to cover her salary, which prompted Nelson to pay out of his own pocket to cover the difference.

As the only full-time employee, the executive director is stretched with a variety of responsibilities. The ED handles student tuition and registration; works with the treasurer to check finances, make bank deposits, and handle overdue collections; helps with marketing including playbills, posters, and the website and blog; communicates with families and students; coordinates front-of-house duties; contributes to putting on the annual gala and annual meeting; leads executive meetings; coordinates the master production calendar so as not to conflict with local school productions; and attends rehearsals during a production’s final weeks. When hired, Susan had a finance background but no theatre experience. Due to the expanse of duties, the executive director was overworked, putting in on average, 80 to 100 hours a week. Even with the board’s effort to lighten her load, the role of executive director’s duties were not clearly defined so the position became the catchall for any issues that arose. Even with the long hours, Susan kept her positive attitude and was a tremendous help in creating a needed structure for The Venue.

“It’s so rewarding,” Susan says. “If you’ve been to The Venue you get it. What the directors do for the kids and what this does for the community is amazing. It’s the most fun out of anything I’ve ever done. This is just a magic place. The first year that I was there, we got past ‘are we going to make it? Are we going to survive?’”

Year Two: Total Students 90, Total Productions 5, Total Shows 35, Percentage of seats filled 80%

Year Three

Now approaching the completion of its third full year of operations, The Venue will be eligible to apply for many local grants. The board and executive director anticipate that additional funding from grants could alleviate some of the workload on the executive director by allowing the organization to bring on additional staff. The part-time marketing director is leaving in a few months. The board is considering moving the marketing responsibilities to the executive director but shifting the executive director’s finance responsibilities to a soon-to-be-added finance director position.

The board tends to focus more on day-to-day issues than the future strategic plan of the organization. Growth is the biggest challenge. Income comes from student registrations, ticket and concession sales, donations, corporate advertising, and (hopefully future) grants. With a limited space to rehearse and perform, and with limited seating capacity, the organization is outgrowing its current space. Now in the third year of a 5-year lease, the board is exploring options to find a new space, build a new theatre, or add a new rehearsal space. The organization has never had to turn away an eager student who wants to participate, but that may soon happen as The Venue reaches its capacity of funding and space.

Due to the many responsibilities of the ED, one of the board members challenged Susan’s time management abilities because he felt she should be spending more time in the community doing promotion and outreach, such as attending chamber meetings, and spending less time with the day-to day-responsibilities. The board agreed that they would like more community promotion and outreach from the ED as they felt as though her time was already too stretched and she was doing her best. The board member that complained about the ED’s time management felt that he couldn’t support The Venue any longer due to his disagreement with how the ED role was currently being handled. He resigned his position on the board and left The Venue.

Year Three: Total Students 120, Total Productions 5, Total Shows 37, Percentage of seats filled 90%

Current Challenges

The Venue is eager to achieve a number of goals but with limited resources. These include the following:

•Expanding the number of students who can enroll and participate in the productions

•Reducing student tuition to make it more affordable

•Evaluating the possibility of expanding into a new facility

•Repaying Nelson Conway’s original investment in the theatre

•Involving more community members in the operation of the theatre

•Investing in marketing and building awareness of the theatre

While these are all worthy goals, the executive director and board face the difficult decision to prioritize among these goals to ensure the operational health of the organization. Each course of action brings with it advantages and consequences. More students means additional tuition revenue, but there are often not enough significant roles in each production for the number of students that want to participate. More productions would mean greater ticket sales, but new productions would require an investment of sets, costumes, rehearsal space, and a director’s time. More marketing might mean greater audience attendance, but it also means greater expenses and time from the marketing director and executive director.

Susan describes The Venue’s top challenges like this:

This year we have had way more in the account than we ever have. We are past the challenge of surviving and now we want to thrive. Our personality is that if a child wants to be with us, we want them. We don’t want to turn anyone away. We don’t want to audition kids and only the first in the door or best get in. We are getting full. We have 120 now and 140 is probably our max, and then what do we do? We are stretching our directors thin. How to accommodate kids is one issue.

Another is how to grow our directorship. We don’t want to hire outside directors, but grow them internally so they do things The Venue way and not just any old way. Deb is our accompanist for high school and not counting practice and rehearsal time she volunteers 600 hours a year. We can’t burn our directors out.

Also, I don’t want to go in and build a new theatre and have it half full and change the dynamic of what The Venue can do. The charm of the small theatre is the experience.

The board is dedicated and hardworking. They haven’t had as much leadership and direction they should have had. They are always ready to jump in but I don’t think we are taking advantage of their expertise in terms of strategic thinking. We get together and have board meetings for 2 hours and discuss what’s going on and what the president and executive director have done or discuss the next play. But we are at that breaking point now where we are forced to think in the next 5 years, where are we going, how will we get there, versus spending 2 hours in a board meeting focused on the little things. We haven’t given them the direction or marching orders that would serve us well. There is a lot of talent that we haven’t tapped into as well as we should have.

Another challenge is leadership succession. This is Nelson’s theatre. When I first started I told him, “My goal as an ED is to allow you to do what you do best, which is directing.” He’s more and more doing what he wants to do. One of the things we’ve started to talk about is when he decides to retire The Venue is still The Venue and we don’t turn it over to somebody who doesn’t understand what we do.

We want it to be run carefully and run well, but also be a fun place to be. I think parents enjoy volunteering, working front of house, moms enjoy working on costumes together. On Saturdays when people work on props, we crank up the music and little brothers and sisters and parents work on sets together. There are not a lot of places where kids want to be with their parents that much. It’s a safe, healthy place to be in the community and deserves to be run well.

hat do you see as unique challenges in a nonprofit organization like The Venue compared with other kinds of organizations? What are some of the opportunities for organization development work at The Venue Theatre? 2. If you were meeting with the Board of The Venue Theatre or Copyrighted ma the executive director, how would you explain the role of an OD practitioner? How might your explanation differ if The Venue was a large, for-profit theater organization?

Explanation / Answer

The Venue

1.Challenges of Venue as Non Profit organization

Opportunities for Organizational Development:

2.The board of the Venue theater comprises of people who are founders , parents of the students or students who work on the voluntary basis thus they do not have affinity for money and they care more about the community that they are part of and are passionate about the work they do. So meeting with these group of people would require me as an OD practitioner that I understand their work , relate to their mission and believe in their core values and by any means they do not wish to compromise on their goals. At the same time they need to know the strategic   scenario of their organization , their strength , weakness , opportunities and threats. I would describe my role as an professional who offers Organizational expertise and offers solution to improve their issues and achieve there goals without compromising on their goals. How effectively change management can be implemented in the organization and rely on interpersonal relationships. Focus would be on building the people and inspire them to contribute to the development of the organization.

While meeting with a profit organization will vary vastly , if the focus of the board is to maximize the profits and they would not mind expanding the organization both in terms of students and revenue. Their values will differ from the nonprofit in many ways. So I would place myself as someone who understand the as in situation of the organization and provides perspective on improving the health of the organization by solving issues in hand, discuss possible solution , growth plan , investment opportunities and how to grow organization holistically.

3. Skills important for OD practitioner to have an engagement with the Venue -

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