An Interview With Tim Whalen, Director of External Affairs, American Conservatory Theater

FS: How do you reach out to supporters and potential supports in ways other than purely fundraising? Are you engaged with social media and social networking?
TW: Our marketing and public relations programs make extensive use of social media and social-networking tactics, which have become a major way we engage our patrons in our season programming. We have begun to incorporate fundraising messaging in some of these communications and this past year tested an opt-in option for patrons to receive insights and information about the creation of The Tosca Project, and eventually solicited this group for contributions just before the world premiere. While the fundraising results were modest, we were able to fine-tune this strategy for the future and believe it has the potential to generate deeper interest in our work and contributions from a group that is nonresponsive to mail or phone.