Andrew, the line that stuck with me is "carries its full costs and risks." In marketing, the cost that quietly gets pushed off the books is usually staff time, plus the list nobody has the hours to maintain. The question I'd put to any arts marketing team is the same one you're asking of the whole venture: what's the smallest operation that can responsibly carry the season? I wrote about the board's side of that question in "What a board should ask before it approves the marketing budget" https://scottdunagan.substack.com/p/what-a-board-should-ask-before-it-approves-the-marketing-budget . Curious whether you see the Minimum Viable Arts Venture working one level down, for a single function inside an organization, not just the venture as a whole.
Thanks Scott. And absolutely! I imagine that a Minimum Viable Arts Venture would hold this discipline at every level of the enterprise. "What is the smallest coherent [marketing plan, board complement, development process, HR policy, etc.] that can responsibly carry an artistic purpose in context."
That's the question I'd want every marketing plan to answer. Too many grow by addition: a channel gets tried once and never leaves the budget. The smallest coherent plan starts with who needs to show up and what gets them there, and it funds that first. Everything else has to earn its place.
Andrew, the line that stuck with me is "carries its full costs and risks." In marketing, the cost that quietly gets pushed off the books is usually staff time, plus the list nobody has the hours to maintain. The question I'd put to any arts marketing team is the same one you're asking of the whole venture: what's the smallest operation that can responsibly carry the season? I wrote about the board's side of that question in "What a board should ask before it approves the marketing budget" https://scottdunagan.substack.com/p/what-a-board-should-ask-before-it-approves-the-marketing-budget . Curious whether you see the Minimum Viable Arts Venture working one level down, for a single function inside an organization, not just the venture as a whole.
Thanks Scott. And absolutely! I imagine that a Minimum Viable Arts Venture would hold this discipline at every level of the enterprise. "What is the smallest coherent [marketing plan, board complement, development process, HR policy, etc.] that can responsibly carry an artistic purpose in context."
That's the question I'd want every marketing plan to answer. Too many grow by addition: a channel gets tried once and never leaves the budget. The smallest coherent plan starts with who needs to show up and what gets them there, and it funds that first. Everything else has to earn its place.