Ep. 181: From $2,500 to $10,825: How a Classical Music Nonprofit Won with a SPRINT Campaign
EPISODE 181
From $2,500 to $10,825: How a Classical Music Nonprofit Won with a SPRINT Campaign
About the Episode:
What does it really look like to run a focused fundraising SPRINT™ without a gala, a big team, or running yourself into the ground?
In this episode, I’m joined by Megan Ihnen, Executive Director of Live Music Project, for an honest conversation about what actually changed when she simplified her approach and trusted momentum over perfection. In just two weeks, Megan raised 108% of her campaign goal, not by doing more, but by doing the right things in the right order. We talk about what happens when you stop overcomplicating fundraising, shorten the timeline, lean into direct, human asks, and activate the network you already have. We also get real about burnout, fear of asking, donor psychology, matching gifts, peer-to-peer fundraising, and why speed and clarity almost always outperform polish. If you’re feeling stretched thin, second-guessing your strategy, or stuck repeating tactics that aren’t moving the needle, this episode will help you see what’s possible when fundraising finally works with you instead of against you.
Topics:
Why collapsing timelines creates fundraising momentum
Moving from burnout to clarity with sprint-style campaigns
Activating your personal network without guilt or fear
The power of texting and direct human asks
Matching gifts as momentum multipliers
Board and peer-to-peer fundraising done simply
Navigating rejection, silence, and donor non-response
Using AI as a thought partner, not a replacement
Stewardship and nurturing after a successful SPRINT™
Turning one campaign into a repeatable fundraising system
It’s not your stories—it’s how you’re telling them. If your amazing work isn’t getting the attention (and donations) it deserves, it’s time for a messaging shift. The Brave Fundraiser’s Guide guide gives you 10 done-for-you donor prompts to make your message impossible to ignore. Get it for free here! https://christinaedwards.krtra.com/t/xKuLs6tOiPZa
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“In a world of paywalls, noise, and algorithms, we make live classical music visible. You can find the best Thai food within 3 blocks in 2 seconds. But try finding which string quartet is playing down the street tonight? Bonne chance. Culture calendars bury concerts under monster truck rallies and pop-up shops. Event apps prioritize whoever pays to play. And Ticketmaster? Built to extract, not connect. Meanwhile, real concerts are happening just around the corner.” Megan Ihnen for Givebutter
“I believe that my network believes in what I'm doing, and they want to see the success of what I'm doing.” Megan
“Never lose momentum.” Christina
“Stay strong until the end, and then whatever happens-happens, you're already more successful than last year.” Megan
“Recurring giving has been my most successful other fundraising campaign.” Megan
“Let live music decorate your life.” Megan
“It’s my time, and I’m ready for the next step.”
ABOUT Megan:
Megan Ihnen is the Executive Director of the Live Music Project, a free national platform that connects audiences with live early, classical, and contemporary classical music. Under her leadership, LMP listed 8,330 concerts in 2024 alone and serves roughly 200,000 users annually. She has expanded the organization from a Seattle-based initiative into a national and international cultural resource, secured over $100,000 in grant funding, and scaled audience development programs such as Spontaneous Free Tickets, which has distributed more than $180,000 in free tickets to Seattle classical music concerts. A professional mezzo-soprano and educator, Megan brings an artist’s perspective to arts leadership, with over 100 works written for her voice and faculty appointments at institutions including the Peabody Institute.
Connect with Megan:
Instagram: @livemusicproject
Instagram: @mezzoihnen
Episode Resources:
Givebutter - Fundraising Software For Nonprofits
Little Green Light - Donor Management Software for Nonprofits
FREE Resources from Splendid Consulting:
How to Work with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
Easy Emails For Impact™ - Turn Your Inbox into an Income Stream
Donations on Demand: Build a $5K Email Campaign System in 30 min/week
Connect with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
-
*Links may be affiliate links which means I may earn a commission at no cost to you.
Christina Edwards 0:00
Welcome back to the podcast. We have a very special guest today. So Megan Ihnen is here. She is the executive director of the Live Music Project, She's also one of my clients inside of the sprint method. And when she sent me this email, that was like, We did it all caps and exclamation points. We hit our sprint goal. I was like, you have to come on the podcast. You have to tell us everything. So we're going to talk about to talk about that today. But first I have to say, Megan, I was watching your YouTube videos before this. You are so talented. I think we just need to give everybody the lay of the land, not only of the work that the live music project does. I want to hear about that, but I want to hear about your work, your voice, and you were recently named one of musical America's top 30 professionals of the year. So Wow, congratulations.
Megan Ihnen 0:50
Oh my gosh. What a great welcome. Thank you so much. Christina, this is, this is great. I I like to say that I am a mezzo soprano on a mission to change the world through the commissioning performance and proliferation of new music, which means that I studied as an opera singer in grad school, and I still perform frequently. My the work that I do in music is mostly as an experimental vocalist. And so I work with a ton of composers, and I premiere new works, and I do all sorts of cool out there kinds of music making, and so that that is a huge part of my life, that's a huge part of my professional life. And through that, I have, you know, written a blog for many, many years, and that turned into getting more involved with, you know, arts administration and community building and arts marketing and all sorts of things. And so my career really has like three pillars to it. So the performing and recording side of my life. I am also a faculty member at the Peabody Conservatory, and I I have a coaching studio where I help performers and composers with their businesses, and then the arts administration life, which is part of my work with the with the live music project is I'm the executive director. I am following our founder, which was an amazing, amazing experience of our founder transition, because that can be such a challenging time for a lot of organizations. And so I really have to give a shout out, especially after this, this recognition by musical America, because Shia lion, our founder, is incredible, just an incredible human being who started this, who has had the vision for it. She is still our chief product officer, and helps build all of our own tech. So really getting to work with her so closely and getting to shepherd this organization as the second executive director is such a is such well, it's such a challenge, but it's also such a treat, like it's really, it's really been so eye opening for me to experience this. I've worked in lots of Arts or organizations and all different budget levels and sizes and things like that, but to work being the first person after the founder has given me this completely new perspective and what that means, and I think that's going to translate into some of the things that we're talking about with this particular campaign. Is that live music project began in Seattle in 2014 and it started with our flagship program, which is this, now a national, international concert calendar of classical music events happening, you know, everywhere. But it really was Seattle focused for many, many years, up until 2021 technically 2020 we went, you know, international with the pandemic overnight, because everything moved to online performances, and we pivoted super hard to help our community make that possible. And we could talk, you know, many hours about that, but the and then also during that time, Shia started a program called spontaneous free tickets. And spontaneous free tickets is our second big program, and this connects listeners with live classical music experiences in their community for free. So they get an email that says, like, Hey, these are tickets that are available. Throw your name in the hat, and like. And then they win those tickets. They go to these performances, they feel welcomed by the people who are who are running the performances. And then as part of that process, they fill out a survey about their experience, where they get to tell us about, you know, their spontaneous free tickets experience, but they're also sharing about what that experience of going to hear the music was like with the arts organizations themselves, which may for some, for some folks that maybe aren't as familiar with you know performing arts, they may not know that in the performing arts, we don't always hear from first time attendees, and we don't always get to hear from these people that we really, really want to welcome in. We hear from people who've been here forever that, yeah, super fans, the ones that are very involved with the organization and and so this, this particular program, also sits at a very important juncture for getting that feedback and then being able to provide that to the arts organizations. And I'm I'm also really pumped, because we may ran this in a super manual way, for, like ever, most manual, time intensive way, and then because we are also a tech for good organization that allowed us to take everything that we learned about how that process works, every single step of the process. And then we've recently just built our new platform that's going to be able to take this program national, so that is launching also during this this fiscal year. So I am love it, feeling really good about that, but it's been, you know, these are all just growth changes and going from an organization that was servicing Seattle to what does it look like to grow into continuing our servicing of Seattle, but then all of our other focus cities as well, and becoming a national presence for those things so, so that's, you know, you know, lots, lots that we could talk about for LMP, and that's, I think that's just where it kind of where I want to start with helping people know, like, what we're about, what we do.
Christina Edwards 6:27
Yeah, exactly when you first joined sprint, I remember seeing the name of your organization and just getting so excited, because I worked in live music for so long that I was like, yay. I'm just excited to learn more. And I think with classical music in particular, it can feel a little bit like, if you're new to it, it can just feel like, Is this for me, and I love what the free tickets are doing is like lowering that sort of barrier. And also, on the flip side, what the surveys are doing really, really smart, where it's like, you're already creating belonging. I'm not like first so, so good. I have to read this. So one of the things we do in sprint, which we'll get into, is really look at customizing and optimizing your fundraising page. So like, the story of the fundraiser, and I was looking at it today for the fundraiser that you exceeded your goal, and you like, it's so good what you wrote, you wrote, you put and I think this will help our listeners understand what you do in a world of paywalls, noise and algorithms, we we make live classical music viable. You can find the best Thai food within three blocks in two seconds, but trying to find which string quartet is playing down the street tonight on chance culture calendars, bury concerts on monster truck rallies and pop up shops. That is so true. It is so true. Like, if you are going to try and find it, it would be so hard, and then you say, this really got me. Event apps prioritize who pays to play, and Ticketmaster built to extract, not connect. Meanwhile, real concerts are happening just around the corner. So that's where you step in. It was such a good way of saying, like, not only in layman's what you do, but in saying to where I was nodding along, where it's like, if I wanted to find really, really great Mexican street corn, I could find it very quickly, because we have we have apps, we have websites, we have algorithms for that. And it's like, not the case here. And it's like the ticket master is the bank the big bad year. And it's just, it just makes it just it takes all the anyway. I really want to applaud you for the way that that you said that so that, because one of the things we do in sprint is we're bringing in new people, right? We're working your network. Your friends are friends. So friends of friends are landing on lmps fundraiser not knowing what you do. Boom, you've said it so well,
Megan Ihnen 8:45
yes, and I think that that that I have to give you like so, so much, so many kudos for providing also a custom GPT in sprint method, because I definitely workshopped that a lot. I feel very comfortable, you know, writing that kind of story forward idea. But I really, really wanted to work through my ideas. And I find that, you know, a lot of there's a there's a lot of feelings about AI, and so I'm not going to tread too deeply into that, but I like to use that as a strategic thought partner. Yes, absolutely, going through all of that stuff. And so that was, that was so helpful and and because I did, I had board members that asked me, like, why are we referencing Ticketmaster? Like, what? What is we're not even, we don't do tickets necessarily that way. And I was like, yes, but Ticketmaster is a very clear example for lots of people that like go to music that you're like, Oh yeah, that feels the ills that come about when it's like, profit over people and and that that's the opposite of what we do, what we do.
Christina Edwards 9:51
So that's right. I could even see a board member going, why are we talking about Thai food? Like, why are we talking about because I'm nodding along as the prospect, as. The reader going, Yes, I get it. And so I'm so I'm so glad that you found the GPT helpful, and, like, I'm glad that you positioned it this way. So let's dig into what prompted you to join sprint. Like, kind of where were you with fundraising, and what kind of change were you looking for?
Megan Ihnen 10:17
Yes, Christina, I'm so pleasure. I was so burned out on fundraising last year, and I, you know, I was putting myself through kind of these. These are like, when we do our campaigns, we kind of typically follow these formats. I'm not too precious about any one of those things, so I kind of change stuff here and there. But I just felt like I felt so overwhelmed by it. I felt like it was just going into the void every you know, I'd have a board member that said, we have to do direct mail, and then, like, zero donations from a direct mail campaign and like. And I was like, great, but that just cost me a lot of money to do it and like and to not time, yeah, and like, all of that, and and so it. So when I saw sprint method come through, I was like, this is exactly the kind of accountability that I need. I do work pretty independently, and my schedule is kind of full. So I was like, I do need something that I can just that I can also do kind of self paced in a lot of ways, and that really spoke to me, knowing that we'd have our, you know, we'd have calls every so often, but if I couldn't make those because of a schedule thing, then that that wasn't gone. You know, it wasn't just like, oh well, you missed it. Like, and so having the course, being able to just like, work myself through these steps, like we talked about the custom GPT, having our calls, these kinds of things, gave me a framework, and then I could also, like I said, go back to my board members and say, Hey, we're trying some new things. And I took this on. This is my goal this year. You know, I I'm personally investing in this because I wanted to increase my my fundraising skills, so it's something that, you know, fit into the budget that I could get towards this myself, because I want to be better at this. And I I, I've tried, you know, I've interviewed lots of colleagues who are development directors. I've asked people. I've done some, like, individual coaching, and it never helped me kind of get through to those next steps. And so this really was the framework that helped me be like, Okay, I can apply this to a campaign, and then it gives me, like a if I get demoralized with like a step that maybe I try something, and it doesn't, doesn't necessarily have the impact at that moment that I'm looking for. I can try the next thing. I can keep trying the next thing, and like, and I just really have a throw everything at it mentality in a lot of ways, which partially why, just texting everybody and like, Yeah, and so that was so the, honestly, the format, the way that you think about it, the encouragement that you provide through that, and being able to do that kind of in a self guided way, yeah, well, really, really pulled me towards this. I was like, Okay, this is, this is exactly what I'm looking for. And I, and I was like, if I, if I just follow the steps, and you, you have a lot of like, really encouraging language in there that's like, you know, most people, I think, are exceeding their fundraising goals, like, by doing this, like, it felt like just enough of the like, social proof and the testimonial side of this to be like, Okay, people are having success with this, and the the investment that I'm making is probably going to come back if I just put in the in the time and follow these, these ideas.
Christina Edwards 13:47
So you reminded me that one of the things I wanted to flag on this conversation was that, because of your schedule, because you do wear multiple hats, like you weren't on every call, you were able to do this asynchronously. And I think sometimes people are like, well, if I can't come to a call, I can't succeed. No, you 108% of your goal you exceeded. And so that's and you described a lot of the person I built this for. I created this for the person who's like, sometimes I'm over here in a different business, or sometimes it's nights and weekends, or sometimes I just want to, like, bust out this whole campaign in a sprint. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I also need something else, and I also don't have 25 hours a week to do this, and I also don't have a development person and a marketing person. And so you hit a lot of of who I built it for. And so thank you for highlighting, yeah,
Megan Ihnen 14:41
well, and I so I absolutely recommend it for anyone who's listening that is like, in my in that same role, you were like, a team of one in so many ways, and you're like, and so I cannot recommend it enough for somebody who's kind of doing that, you know, fractional Ed role that you know, you wear all the hats. This is. This is something that just really, like, lays it out, and you can just follow along and be like, Okay, keep going. Just like, next what's the next thing? So I love it, appreciate it.
Christina Edwards 15:10
So let's walk through your sprint that you did this most recent one. So let's talk about it. So what was your goal? You know what? And I know you said it felt like a stretch. It was more than you had raised before in a campaign. So walk us through that.
Megan Ihnen 15:23
Yeah. So, so individual giving is the area where I am probably the the weakest in my own individual skills when it comes to development and fundraising. And I'm in so while I've been, you know, finding success with like grant funding for live music project. That also means that post pandemic, our individual giving numbers were like, just really, like, like, slowly, like coming down and down and down. And I was like, this is this is not, this is not reflective of, like, our services and all of this kind of stuff and so. So last year in the same campaign, I ran about a, I think it was about a four week campaign, and we do our biggest one between Giving Tuesday and the end of the calendar year. That's kind of our biggest, biggest campaign of the year. And so last year, I only raised something like $2,500 which is also still plenty. Like is a lot, in some cases, depending on you know, all numbers are relative to your organization, but, but for us that was like, and for me, that felt like, Oh, I am so demoralized here. And so I set a big goal for myself of 10, 10,000 for this campaign. And I remember getting ready to, like, push, you know, publish on, on, give butter, and being like, I should change this number. I should pull it back, like this number is making me slightly ill. I was like, I have no idea how I'm gonna do this. And I was like, okay, but you know it's okay, just go for it.
Christina Edwards 16:49
Christina says, if you feel a little Barfy, you're that is the that's your expansion, right? Yes. It's like, we're gonna feel a little Barfy,
Megan Ihnen 16:59
yeah, and, and so I and then also doing it in two weeks this year, and closing timelines, collapsing the timeline that was helpful. I I did do a little bit of like preceding in for information and things like that. So I guess if you wrap that in, I was probably working. I was working on this campaign for a month, but I was it was public for two weeks, and so and so, our $10,000 goal, this was our first time using give butter, which we added on top of our development stack, which includes little green light. And so I had asked you about that too, because I was like, Wait, is this a different do I have to, like, migrate over to this. I'm really concerned about that. And so that was actually really easy to implement, and gave me a lot of tools that I think folks are looking for when they trust, like a fundraising platform. So that that was great. I thought that it was super easy to use. We've done peer to peer type things in the past, other platforms that offer that as an option and that, and it was, you know, kind of mixed results. And so I but I was like, You know what? That seems to be effective in this, so I'm gonna go for it. We have a slate of new board members where I was like, Hey, welcome. And like, get ready. We're all fundraising together now, that's right, and this was actually my first matching gift campaign. So I I reached out to a few donors and said, I'd like to have a conversation with you. And Christina, you're gonna love this one because I reached out via email and said, hey, could I talk to you about this? And, and, and one of them responded and said, Megan, we don't have to meet, but I'd be happy to give you a matching gift, if that's what you want to talk about. And I was like, I was like, Okay. And so I wrote back and I said, and I said, Okay, I kind of looked at past giving and I said, would, would this number be, you know? Would this be doable for you Sure? And she wrote back, and she said, she said, that's much too low. She's like, we should do this this number instead, right? And so I was like, okay, so I got really lucky in this one and it, and I feel like, you know, and I didn't hear from the other people about, the other people that I had asked about having that conversation, and that's okay, but I'll keep coming back to them, and we've had several conversations, and, you know, they gave during the campaign and stuff like that. So, so those are those same examples of, like, it's you, I got to send it to multiple people, and I know that, but I it's in the doing of, okay, you're you're not. Somebody's gonna ghost you, or somebody's going to, like,
Christina Edwards 19:43
people aren't going to respond. And that's fine. That is all part of it. It's like, the yeses also come with the like, crickets, right? And you said I got really lucky, and I'm like, No, you got really brave, and you got a higher number as your matching donations. Than you even asked for. And the other thing that I think is really smart is not everybody, but some people will tell you their preferred communication style without you overtly saying it, and that's what this person did. And I'm that way too. I used to have an account rep who who worked for a magazine, and she would always want to lunch, and I'm like, just send me your latest media kit. And that's what this donor was doing, right? Is just like, I like you. I want to support you. How can you know what I mean? So I love that you. You sort of said, Okay, this is what she needs. I'm gonna put it into an email. So, really smart. And so we secured this
Megan Ihnen 20:37
Go ahead. And she really specifically said, I, before I do this, I want to make sure that all of your board members are involved and, like, I want to make sure that they are, like, committed to fundraising, like, to meeting this match, right? So, yep, so I kind of turned around and took that to the board, and I said, like, so smart guys, I'm going to say yes to this no matter what, but we're doing this. And I was like, but can I tell you? So I did get to tell her, you know, we, we don't do a give get on our board or anything like that, but, but we do ask that our board member that we do 100% board giving, so they do make a meaningful gift to them in the year, right? And so I said, I said, we don't do give gets, but I do want to take advantage of this. Please join. All of my board members joined as peer to peer fundraisers. We had other people, like, I had an intern join as a peer to peer fundraiser this year. Like, I so sweet and like and, and they, they all like, had tools. I gave them, you know, white files. I gave them all sorts of things. I really tried to stay on top of my communications with them, to kind of say, like, here's where we are, here's what's happening. Here are some resources if you want to help or share this and and so we were able to make that but it that the work of this campaign really came down to Shia, our founder, who is also a board member and our and our chief product officer, and myself being like, you know, we're just gonna go full tilt on this, and so and so. Shia raised, raised practically, I think, raised over like, the match amount, right by herself, and like, and then a lot. And then, as I was mentioning, really the we did all of the same communications that I would typically do during a campaign of of emails. I have a really, you know, I have a clear theme and and graphics like that to go with it. And then social media posts and all of that, individual emails to donors, really segmenting out things, reaching out to them, asking them for like, specific gifts, all of all of those. But then the thing that that really transformed my campaign is that I just texted literally every single person in my phone book and asked them to make a gift and like and and though that work ended up being the thing that like, just shot like all the way up to the goal.
Christina Edwards 23:02
I think we over complicate it sometimes with, like, I have to do all this stuff, I have to have this event, I have to have this gala, I have to have this raffle. They have to get something. You have to get swag. And it's like, I worked my network, I texted people, yeah, and that is sometimes the hardest, most courageous thing you could do, especially when you press publish on your fundraising page and you got the feeling of like, Oh, crap. Are we gonna hit this 10k goal, and now I'm gonna work my network, my circle of friends, family, co workers, colleagues, alumni, whoever's in your world. And what if they see me fail? What if they have thoughts? What if so? How did you deal with the mindset part of that, because that took a lot of brave action. And not only that, it took repetitive, brave action over a short period of time, so you knew that there was an end in sight. How did you kind of walk or talk yourself through that well?
Megan Ihnen 23:57
And I think I was you, and I had a conversation recently about some of my feelings around tapping my personal network. And I do, I do fundamentally believe that my my network believes in what I'm doing, and they want to see the success of of what I'm doing, and pretty much my personal network is going to be somehow related to the arts, right? And so, so they they can see the value of what we're doing. So I was like, Okay, so I'm not worried about that. I don't feel like, I'm like, you know, tricking anybody into supporting this. I don't feel any of those kinds of things. But it is really just like the communication of just showing up and asking people and and doing that also with a super busy schedule, you know, it's like multiple jobs and multiple things going on. And I was like, Okay, this is the action that I can take that's going to be a personal like one to one. And I think part. I was also feeling like, Oh, I'm just inundated with emails, but if somebody is reaching out specifically to me, then I'm going to consider it. And I think I was like, okay, that's the strategy that I'm going to use, is just ask personally for people to consider it. And and I had different I made my own swipe file of different like texts that I would send people, yep, that were based off of, okay, do they live in a focus city of ours? Do they? Are they a practitioner? Do they do this kind of work, people that are just friends of mine, that that are like I had, it's like this. The header for that section is like people who like Megan, and then also just, I had a whole section of like, texts that I would send if I I felt like I know their financial situation, and I want to make sure that I'm not asking them for what would seem like a large, a large financial ask. But I was like, there's, you know, I had asks that were like, a lot of that ended with, Hey, thank the one of my pretty consistent like ending phrases was like, thank you so much for letting my letting me bend your ear about this. It's really important to me, and I really appreciate your encouragement, right? And so the I it just allowed for me to feel really comfortable, that's that's how I would talk to my friends and allowed me to use my voice and, like, reach out to them and say, Your encouragement is really, really important to me. And so if that looks like a share, or that looks like here's a coffee or whatever I was like, all of that does really, really matter to me in this case. And so, so thanks. Thanks so much. And then sometimes people might hear that as, like, softening your language or being indirect. I definitely made direct asks in those things about like, yep, would you please consider a gift of $5 or something like that? Um, towards this. And then we deployed the the match to the campaign about halfway through. And so, nice. I started with, you know, I used the match information a lot in what we were doing and and so that just helped give me a lot of like, I don't know, the mindset of like, I can use this to show other folks that, like, I'm social proof.
Christina Edwards 27:21
Yeah, all of the above. It also is like a natural momentum booster in that way, and it gives you another talking point for the follow up process, yeah? So as you're following up on, you know, another email or text or whatever the outreach piece is, you're like, hey, we just dropped this donor match. Yeah, right. It gives you another point to talk about. And I can, I can hear people like, in my ear going, Oh, this sounds like a lot of work. I don't have time for that. I can't call everybody. But what I can see in practice is a simple doc that you've now bucketed out in person type, so you have, you know, people want to see Megan win friends, right? We have, we have focus areas like the cities, right? And so this doesn't take a lot of time. It does take the willingness, it does take the bravery, and it takes the repetition and then the iteration. And so that's what I see in you. The other thing I see is, once you started the campaign, you didn't let off, sometimes people lose steam. Yeah, you're shaking your head. So talk to us about that, regardless of what the like, actual number said, You didn't let off like, It ain't over till it's over energy. So talk about that.
Megan Ihnen 28:30
And you're right. We, we did not hit our goal until the last day of the campaign. And so, and I, I've been, you know, in fundraising activity long enough I've, you know, I've, I've done all sorts of campaigns, my own, other people's organizations, stuff like that, to know that you get that kind of like that, you know, that early little push, and then it's probably going to dip down. You got that little bell curve, and, like, the bell curve in the middle. And that's kind of why I was like, Okay, that is where I am, like, putting the match out, because it's gonna give me the new thing. And you've mentioned that in sprint a lot like that, that that's a good spot for it, because never lose momentum. Yeah, I was just like, okay, so if I just keep going every single day during this and and picking and my my guiding principle was like, as direct communication as I can get, right? So that's kind of why I prioritize the texts. Why fewer? You know, fewer social media things than before. Because not a big converter for us. And so, so So it's there so people can see it and, like, they should go and share it if they wanted to, but, but that's not, that's not where it's gonna come from for us. And so I was like, Okay, I gotta, I gotta figure out what I can do that's getting me directly to the person and just asking them in a polite and and like, you know, compassionate way, and just saying. Saying, you know that this is, this is what I'm working on, and can you help? And so, so all the way till the end, and then I, I did really work on some more, like, edge forward storytelling, really specific names of people, and towards, especially towards the end of the campaign, where I was going to for, like, you know, previous donors and, you know, current donors live on Cy bonds, all of that kind of stuff towards the end, and really giving them new storytelling about, why am I using this money? Like, what does this do? What like? And, you know, what benefits are they going to experience and all of that kind of stuff. So, so that, that bell curve moment, that middle of the the time, was like, Okay, I have, I'm gonna, like, announce the match here. I'm gonna keep going with all of my strategies. And then as I was like, you know, getting towards the end, and I'm like, okay, it's okay, Megan, it's okay if we don't hit this goal, but we're like, we're doing so well, and just do whatever you can. It'll stay, stay strong until the end, and then whatever happens, happens you're already more successful than last year. So we're gonna, like, we're gonna keep that level, and then just what we can get to, right? So that's, that's for me, how I
Christina Edwards 31:22
love that self talk. That's very kind self talk, which is really, really essential, though. So you ended up raising, I'm looking at the number $10,825 which is over 108% of your goal, and it didn't come in until the very last which is super normal and also really, really hard for a two week campaign, right? Because you're in what I call the messy middle for a stretch of time, right? And I think the part we forget, which you just hit on, which is, let's say you had raised $8,400 that would have been such a win year over year. And so that's why I love sprint so much, because we're seeing organizations, even if you hit 92% of your goal, are you kidding me, it's still 3x what you used to do, and you're doing it in a way that's scalable. Now you have a system for so with, with that said, what's what's next? Now you have sort of a campaign engine, what's next for, like music project, what? What's next as you look into your organization and leading it and growing it this year,
Megan Ihnen 32:26
well, and that's, I think those are that opens up some of my questions about, as I'm moving forward, I really want to take some of this momentum and go, okay, but is, is this? My strategy? Is this, like the thing that I'm doing? I believe in this. And you and I were having a conversation about reaching out to personal network. And then we our next campaign will happen around May, that's there's give big in in Seattle, in Washington, like a very important time for a lot of folks. And so that we'll do our next sprint campaign around that time period. Yeah, and I, I've got, okay, some things that I'm learning, we've talked about, I, I'm having some donor meetings, and then they'll do an ask about a matching gift. And so we'll see if that, if that happens, hopefully, fingers crossed and and then. But what are the things that I'm taking away? Yes, about activating my personal network, but is that the right strategy for May? I think so. But then what am I doing between here and there that we talked about that's like cultivating those folks so they don't really feel like, oh, Megan just shows up when she wants me to donate.
Christina Edwards 33:41
That's right, she only calls when she needs something, right? Because with over 100 I have to look at the number over 100 donors, a couple of things happen to in these sprints which are really, really cool. You start to see, first of all, you get new donors through it. So there's that kind of audience to bring in and welcome and make sure you're not just calling when you need something, right? And then you start to see people that will surprise you. They gave a gift amount that totally surprised you. So you may have the beginning of a future mid or major donor, donor matches. Those are, those are opportunities for you to nurture between now and May. And then, ultimately, it is like the next sprint. You can start to compound on this segment, so the set, the ripple gets bigger. So you're not always just like friends family, right? The ripple gets bigger. And I think too, bringing the next fundraiser in and having that be more focused in Seattle, Seattle will also give you a bigger opportunity for donors, too. So it's, it's, it's such a smart way to think about
Megan Ihnen 34:36
it well. And Christina, I was bringing this up about one of the things that I'm feeling a little challenged by at the moment is that is that live music project is a fundamentally free it is a public good and like, that's why we chose a nonprofit status, like when we first started this organization, versus making our tech tools for for profit like and. And that means that we're supporting, you know, we're supporting these music communities in a very advocacy kind of way. So, like our our programs, calendar and and we get this all the time from funders and things like that. The calendar is the least sexy, fun fundraising story for a lot of people like funders do not like want to talk about calendar. So we come up with all the ways that we talk about those kinds of things. But the part that I'm thinking a lot about is that we have all of these users of the calendar, like we're we are outpace 200,000 users a year, which is like a ton of traffic numbers, yeah, but, but the but the traffic does not turn into satsrivers. And that's the part that I'm like, okay, it doesn't mean that everybody has to. That's not the point. But I do need to keep thinking about in like, finding ways.
Christina Edwards 35:53
I think that is another one of our strategies we'll work on together is, I think there's such an opportunity, because when somebody is surprised and delighted that they were able to go to, like, the string quartet down the street, and they were like, Oh my gosh, yes. And they want to give bridging that for them. It's almost like Wikipedia just popped into my head. But like, sometimes you'll see the header right on there. And like, how many of us just use Wikipedia? We just use it. We just take it, you know, and we love it. We don't want it to go away. It's very useful to us. And so bridging the gap for users is actually going to be a different type of campaign than the one you just ran. Now, there's going to be overlap, because we're going to see your donors be users, of course, especially if they're, you know, they're so interested in arts and music, but it is a different campaign, and that's excites me. I'm like, Ooh, is it? Is it? Is it a recurring giving campaign? Is it some sort of, just like we started to talk about it? So I think that that is going to be a cool opportunity, and you and it's right there in front of you because of your high traffic, but it is like, Okay, what's the conversion plan there?
Megan Ihnen 37:00
Yeah, yeah. And so that's really kind of like that, that thing that feels like just gray, open, open space, yeah. And I do, I love that you said recurring giving, because that, that honestly was my has been my own. My most successful other fundraising campaign was, we call it the 10k concert club, like, it's like, the it's about, so the 10k concert club started because it was the first time that we had reached 10,000 concerts. Like, on the calendar, historically, right now, we're almost doing 10,000 a year. So like we do, like,
Christina Edwards 37:34
I feel like recurring giving could be so cool for you too, because there's an identity to like live music. Like, again, like, I saw that in me, where I'm just like, like, if you love live music, you love live music, right? And so there's an identity to be like, Oh no, I support them on a recurring but like, I'm one of them. I'm with them, yeah? So I feel like that's an opportunity for you, for sure. So that'll be a really fun sprint, because we can run sprints for sure, for recurrent giving, love that.
Megan Ihnen 38:00
So I think that's probably where, that's the thing that's like calling me the most for this next, this next thing, and just making sure that I'm not, I'm not losing momentum, like we were talking about in the mid, like it's not in the middle. It's easy for for me, as, like I said, fractional ED roles that that because I'm spinning a lot of plates, it means that you can't do every single touch point that you want to, but you really have to be thoughtful and be like, okay, we can do this. Like, okay, we're going to
Christina Edwards 38:37
do a juicy automated welcome series. So it's like, what can we automate? What do we actually need to do some one to one for but with it in mind that, like, Yeah, this is fractional, this is part time, and in in a way that it's not like eating your bandwidth, but you're getting those donors retained for sure.
Megan Ihnen 38:52
And so those are the things that I think about. And yeah, just so, so grateful for this particular course. And like this forces because of the fact that it helps me stay accountable to those Yes, and so, yeah, yeah, amazing.
Christina Edwards 39:10
And that's, that's what's so cool about when we're in your end, my coaching, my we I know we did some pop up trainings and things like that. I'm talking about year end, when we're in q1 we're talking about this. We're talking about stewardship, we're talking about nurture, we're talking about retention. So it's like, even for the ED who's like, what am I supposed to be doing? I'm like, come over here. I want to orient you just to what we should be doing this time of year. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. This has been I could talk to you all day, listening to music and singing. I we ask every guest on the podcast to share a thought they like to think on purpose. So this could be a mantra, an affirmation, a quote that resonated with you. Would you share yours with our audience?
Megan Ihnen 39:55
Oh, this is so exciting. Okay, the one that popped into my head is a phrase that I borrowed from. Another mentor that is, put your hand on your heart and say, It's my time and I'm ready for the next step. And so it's good, yeah, and so I think that that's in a period of growth in being really vulnerable about like you said, just trying to be brave and do do things I've never done before in this area. I'm still learning. I'm still growing. And so I just put my hand on my heart and say, It's my time, and I'm ready for the next step.
Christina Edwards 40:30
I just pictured you or me, or anyone who's like, because I was watching your YouTube nervous walking about to walk out on stage. I'm like, that would be a good one. You're like, just one, next step one. Next step one. Next Exactly. Where can everyone connect with you? Connect with live music project, and we'll link to it as well. Absolutely.
Megan Ihnen 40:49
Well, I hope, I hope, that if anyone listening is interested in classical music at all, come on over to live music project.org, that's where you'll find the calendar. That's where you could get signed up for spontaneous free tickets when we relaunch that, that new platform, I'm so excited, and so obviously, also the socials. If you want to connect with me directly, I think you can, you can find me on the socials at mezzo Enon. So that's m, e, z, z, O, i, h, n, e, n, and that's a way, you know, I'm really active about all of those things. And so I love, I do really love connecting with people that are in nonprofits, in the arts, that are interested in all of these things. I do really walk my talk around community building. And so I hope that anyone who hears this will reach out and say, Hello.
Christina Edwards 41:38
So amazing. And and LNP is in any city. I know we talked about Seattle, but you can type it in for any city
Megan Ihnen 41:46
absolutely so. So as we're growing, we have our current focus cities are Portland, Oregon, Seattle, New York City, the Baltimore, DC corridor and Atlanta. And then we also feature, we feature performances from all over the United States and internationally. So it's, it's always free to use. If you are a performer, please put Like, submit your concerts. You don't have to go through any sort of, like, extra steps, or, like, you know, pay, pay any fees or anything like that. We just want to help connect listeners to what you're doing.
Christina Edwards 42:18
And I know we're about to wrap up, but I'm going to share this anyway. So we were in Greece this summer, and we were in this beautiful town called Nafplio, and it's, it's, it was just gorgeous town. And I'm walking with my kids, and it's like almost dusk, and it's just gorgeous. And we see this, this performance, start to set up, and it's a band, and there's a chorus, like a maybe Middle and High School. Chorus set up. We just sat there, and we stayed and listened to the whole thing. And it's one of my most favorite memories of this, like, month long trip. It was so magical. And it's like, those are the memories that you those experiences. But when you add sound, you add voice, you add music to it, it just like imprints in you. And my son brings it up all the time. He's like, remember when that chorus there was, it was a school from Cincinnati, and we saw them. And I'm like, yes. So I'm like, Okay, next time we travel, we're gonna, we're gonna use LMP and see if there's anything,
Megan Ihnen 43:12
yeah, yes, oh, just let live music decorate your life. It's so, so much better that way.
Christina Edwards 43:18
Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm so excited to see what this year brings
Megan Ihnen 43:23
for you. Thank you so much. Christina, this is honestly I'm just so grateful for you. Thank you very much. Bye.