Angela Besana

Alternative Resources: Revenue Diversification in the Not-for-Profit USA Symphony Orchestra

This article investigates revenue diversification in order to verify if it is advantageous for nonprofit creative entrepreneurs to improve their price and product marketing, fundraising, and other financing. The article also focuses on U.S. symphony orchestras that cope with Cost Disease (Baumol and Bowen 1965) thanks to the revenue diversification. Today these creative nonprofits are targeting several stakeholders and rent holders. In this article, they are clustered according to performances of their marketing, fundraising, and investing. As seen in 2008, U.S. symphony managers diversified and maximized total revenues of contributions, program service, interests, dividends, sales of assets, special fundraising events, etc. Thanks to the Ward cluster analysis (1963), two main profiles emerge: the Fundraiser and the Marketing Expert. The Marketing Expert is the most developed profile, but contributions are always exceeding program service revenues, and fundraising is more profitable than marketing.

Economics, Competition and Coopetition of the Italian Private Welfare State: A Cluster Analysis

At crisis times, Public Welfare States are not more enough in order to support the growth of the social and nonprofit economy. This article addresses pivotal and different roles of the Welfare State of private grant-makers in Italy, when competition is not more useful in order to solve allocation of scarce public and private resources. Thanks to coopetition by means of networks, partnerships with several stakeholders, pooling of resources and project leadership, the Private Welfare State of Italian Foundations of banking origin (IFBOs) will be clustered for 2012s performances. Economic performances concern financial assets, which affect solvency, gains and philanthropy. According to reports coopetition is estimated for intensification from pure grant-making and resource pooling to partnerships. Six profiles are significant. When investments are modest, these foundations are profitable and solvent, though coopetition is not optimized. Increasing investments are combined with increasing philanthropy and coopetition. The article concludes that profiles experience a different intensity of coopetition. Findings constitute practical insight into the issue of philanthropic best practices in crisis times.

U.S. community foundations: building a generous society in challenging times

ABSTRACT Community foundations are nonprofit organizations promoting philanthropy for projects useful in a defined geographic area. This paper aims to highlight how U.S. community foundations are building a generous society with the engagement of multiple stakeholders. Our study analyses the marketing strategies of a sample of 100 of the largest U.S. community foundations in 2010 and 2013. A cluster analysis examines financial performance, average number of recipients, and related organizations to discover the level of philanthropic activities and relationships, revenue diversification, and the level of competition on the fundraising side.

Economics and Marketing of E-Commerce at 0 km and Further on the Path Towards S-Commerce

E-commerce gives evidence of the contemporary economics of attention, when consumers virtually reveal their preferences everywhere and for everything. Social media, above all, amplify attention, opportunities, markets, shopping, rankings and, as a consequence, economic growth. Web domains and social media enable consumers’ experiences from information flows to persuasion and from shopping to international trade (Nadeem et al., Int J Inform Manage 35(4):432–442, 2015; Verhoef et al., J Retail 91(2):174–181, 2015; Xu et al., J Mark 78(4):97–112, 2014). Boundaries of economies are vanishing thanks to this e-market for everything and everyone.

Economics, Marketing and Performances of US Classical Music: Journeyin’ Together to de Promise Land

Since the beginning of the latest financial and real crisis in 2008, US symphony orchestras and opera houses have revealed adaptation to the turmoil of scarce resources and a very keen competition (Jeannotte and Duxbury J Arts Manag Law Soc 45(2):84–99, 2015; Turbide et al. Int J Arts Manag 10(2):4–13, 2008).

Memory, Marketing and Economic Performances in Usa Symphony Orchestras and Opera Houses

When resources are scarce at crisis times and when competition is intense with other creative supplies, USA symphony orchestras and opera houses memorize and perform their repertoires (or repertories), so that seasons are crucially bundled between tradition and innovation. Since the beginning of the latest financial and real crisis (2007), USA classical music has seen different levels of funding from the federal government and businesses have encouraged more nonconventional programming (Pompe, Tamburri, 2016; Turbide, Laurin, 2009; Ravanas, 2008; Rushton, 2008; Turrini, 2006; Smith, 2007). On one side, fundraisers have stressed bundles (contemporary music with tradition) to sponsors; on the other side, marketing officers have emphasized the repertoire memory to audiences who constantly love Traviata, Boheme and Don Giovanni with echo of famous regisseurs, scenographers, etc. This is quite the same worldwide (Cancellieri, Turini, 2016). Fundraising and marketing affect economic performances of classical music, also thanks to social media and networks. Consumers have access to information about ticketing, rehearsals, present and past performances, etc. Art organizations strive to manage communication via social media to create brand values. Social media support both fundraising and marketing, as they mediate to sponsors and audiences: values, advocacy, videos and photos of the repertoire and nonconventional programming, which continually increase trustworthy relationships and nurture memories.This paper investigates 200 USA symphony orchestras and opera houses according to repertoires, revenues, expenses and gains in 2008 and 2015. With cluster analysis, three profiles emerge with different strategies, performances and emphasis on memory or innovation.

Economics, Strategy and Performance of Italian Performing Arts: When Advertising and Intangible Matter

At crisis times advertising is a strategic priority for Italian Performing Arts. Both the marketing and the fundraising effort, they are maximized in order to exploit willingness-to-pay and willingness-to-donate. If these efforts are maximized, increasing Advertising Expense and Intangible Assets positively affect Revenues, Gains and Net Assets. We clustered a sample of 100 Italian theatres whose reports were collected from the database AIDA. We collected 2013, 2012 and 2011 data for Investments, Intangible Assets, Total Assets, Net Assets, Total Revenues, Own Revenues (of sales), Sponsorships, Public Grants, Total Expenses, Advertising Expense, Gain or Loss. We calculated 2013–2012 and 2012–2011 variations in order to understand the strategic choice and how increasing or decreasing promotion effort affect the latest performances. Clusters in time series analysis show that, there is a strategic shift (increase vs. decrease) for Italian Performing Arts from 2011 to 2013. Most of theatres are concentrated in one cluster both for the analysis with 2013–2012 variations and with 2012–2011 ones. When theatres have increased Advertising Expense and Intangible Assets, Revenues and especially, Own Revenues, they both increase. The positive impact of the marketing effort is on Revenues and at a lesser extent, on Net Assets and Gains.

Understanding Economics and Marketing of Ecomuseums: An Exploration of a USA Sample

The term ‘ecomuseum’ reflects the connection between the museum and its social surroundings and environment. First of all, the paper investigates the definition. This paper looks into the Ecomuseum definition, to point out different contexts and institutions which generate Ecomuseum. Secondly, the paper investigates Economics and Marketing Behaviors of Ecomuseums in support of the competitive advantage, and analyzes the way of creating territorial brand values able to engage communities in the ongoing creation of an Ecomuseum, looking for an interpretative model. A particular focus is on fundraising and online communication in order to have evidence of the wide range of stakeholders this entrepreneur can target. To reach its goal, this paper presents a Cluster Analysis to gain an understanding of Economics of Ecomuseums, and case studies to offer an insight of their Marketing Strategies. The cluster analysis will profile a USA sample according to their marketing and fundraising performances and emphasize the connections with audiences and targets both within and without the communities, town or regions where they are. The sample will allow to focus on vanishing boundaries of the definition and to separate strategies and performances of two main profiles: the Fundraiser with Gain or Loss and the Marketing Expert.

Profiling and Strategies of the Contemporary Creativity: Cluster Analysis of a USA Sample

Creativity is today defining boundaries of cultural industries in Europe and out of Europe. Creativity does not include only performing and visual arts but also material culture, tangible and intangible heritages, education, television, knowledge intensive industries, advertising, etc. The creativity can be both for-profit and not-for-profit, too. Taking into account multiple features and strategies of creative entrepreneurs, the debate among lecturers, policy-makers and researchers is never ending. While the boundaries of the concept ‘culture’ are vanishing into ‘creativity’, main strategies of cultural and creative entrepreneurs are evolving, too. Above all, revenue maximization and diversification are leading the not-for-profit creativity out of the contemporary crisis of resources and funds. Thanks to a k-means clustering we investigated 2012’s costs and revenues of a sample of the USA creativity: museums, symphony orchestras, theatres, universities and public televisions. Four main profiles emerged according to performances of marketing, fundraising, investing and other financing. Bigger clusters are the marketing expert and the revenue diversifier with loss. The revenue diversifier of a less crowded cluster is the most profitable and the most solvent, instead. The fundraiser is not the most crowded cluster but he profits by the second highest gain of the sample.

Sense and sensibility in the contemporary generous society: Economics and social media communication of the biggest grant-making foundations

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the debate on grant-making foundations, deepening the concepts of sense and sensibility as pillars of social media communication and as drivers of significant economics results. There is a limited amount of academic work focused on the use of social media by non-profit organizations including foundations. Firstly, this paper gives an insight on how the biggest worldwide foundations are using social media to engage key stakeholders and enhance philanthropic culture. In fact, social media and the increased emphasis on stakeholder engagement have changed the non-profit scene, and nowadays foundations have to manage stakeholder perception that are triggered by brand identity and shaped by performance. A cluster analysis of the performance of the 100 biggest grant- making foundations in the world, emphasizes revenue diversification, contribution and grant-making ratios as key results of multiple stakeholder engagement, and profiles foundations with different sense and sensibility.