Pre-Conference Programming for the
2008 National Performing Arts Convention

NAS developed a unique executive education program to begin the 2008 National Performing Arts Convention. Three full-day sessions were created, inspired by the NPAC theme "Taking Action Together" and led by top university faculty. Each session focused on a key challenge to achieving mission in our richly connected communities:

• Selecting the most effective partners
• Negotiating successfully for your immediate and long-term goals
• Creating sustained relationships with local and national corporations

This program helped performing arts leaders tackle the challenges that come with guiding larger, more complex organizations. The sessions brought together participants from all the performing arts disciplines, and created the type of classroom interaction you experience in an executive-level session at Harvard Business School or Stanford University Graduate School of Business. The sessions were driven by world-renowned teachers, used rigorous management frameworks, and used experiential approaches that allowed participants to explore, discuss, and apply new concepts.

Session 1 — Opening the Right Doors

Today, the most creative initiatives are being achieved through partnerships — informal, formal, short-term, long-term, personal, and professional. These partnerships deliver more information, resources, and expertise than any one person or organization can possibly have alone. But how do you identify the partnerships that are most likely to succeed? In which partnerships should you invest your limited time and resources? What are the secrets to creating those relationships efficiently? In this session participants learned frameworks for analyzing their "networks" and targeting the right partners at the right time. Selecting the right partners helps leaders:

• Develop more valuable partnerships with less time and effort
• Learn more quickly about changes and trends that will affect the organization
• Select better targets for fundraising and for the board
• Predict and prepare for challenges in approaching each potential partner

Session 2 — The Art (and Science) of Negotiation

Negotiation is an art – and a science. Leaders use it every day in one form or another as a business tool to advance their organizations. But even the most experienced leaders get surprised by the complex psychology and group behaviors that drive negotiations. Arts and cultural leaders have challenges in negotiation around labor agreements, with outside contractors and partners, and in some cases with boards of trustees. This highly interactive session on negotiation strategies and techniques enhanced participants' ability to:

• Create negotiated solutions that support healthy long-term relationships
• Achieve goals even when the other side holds the more powerful cards
• Negotiate successful coalitions across multiple organizations and interests
• Go beyond "dividing the riches" to work together to "grow the pie"

Session 3 — Cause Marketing: New Strategies for Corporate Partnerships

Corporate sponsorships and philanthropy provide financial support, but these traditional forms of corporate support are harder to find in today's world of strategic corporate philanthropy. Nonprofit organizations are going beyond traditional approaches to develop strategic "cause marketing" relationships with corporations. This new approach helps deliver on more significant mission goals and corporate objectives by combining all of the resources available in a nonprofit and corporate partnership. In this session, performing arts organizations explored frameworks to:

• Win more attention and financial support from corporations in their community
• Create an optimal fundraising strategy that includes cause marketing partnerships
• Identify in advance the most promising – and not so promising – cause marketing partners
• Design an effective cause marketing program with a corporation