Very Long Engagement

With some big backing, a local group is looking to give the city a shot of culture.

by Natalie Hope McDonald

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Published: May 6, 2008

Six years after launching PhillyFunGuide.com and FunSavers, the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance is embarking on its biggest marketing campaign to date, thanks in part to a $5 million investment from Pew Charitable Trusts. Engage 2020, starting this summer, is designed to research and implement programs to upgrade arts participation in the region.

"We put together a learning network where arts organizations share ideas locally and nationally," says John McInerney, vice president of marketing and communications at the Alliance. "Basically we asked arts leaders what they would do if money was no obstacle."

What McInerney and his peers discovered was a greater need for research, marketing and collaboration. The combination of efforts will introduce a sophisticated "Cultural Engagement Index" designed to benchmark where Philadelphia currently stands in terms of arts participation, as well as assess how these trends shift over time. It will basically show organizations how they can better appeal to consumers' evolving interests in fine and performing arts in Philadelphia and beyond.

Based on findings, the Alliance will implement grants and introduce new ideas to better publicize the arts during the next four years, including launching online resources like PhillyFunGuide.com 2.0, where users will be able to filter information, provide feedback and interact with others.

The Alliance will also launch FunSavers 2.0 — an e-mail blast that, in its current incarnation, already reaches 67,000 people every Thursday — with expanded content, more online discounts and comment sharing. "It's generated $2 million in revenue to 250 arts organizations from the sale of seats that would have gone empty," McInerney says.

New technology and social networking, McInerney expects, will help expand participation.

"The ultimate goal is to double cultural participation by 2020," says McInerney, hence the name, Engage 2020. "We're imagining what Philadelphia could look like if we did everything right. It's a license to be able to think big."

(n_mcdonald@citypaper.net)

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