The IDEA Study, Phase 1 - 2023 Chamber Music America Cohort
Welcome to the IDEA Study Phase 1, CMA Cohort!
Please bookmark this page, as it is not publicly accessible.
This page contains key information about the study for participating organizations. Here’ you’ll be able to access recordings of webinars in the archive section at the bottom of the page and other survey resources as they become available.
Cohort Membership
The following organizations have opted into this cohort:
Capital Region Classical
Chamber Music Cincinnati
Chamber Music Detroit
Chamber Music Raleigh
Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach
Chamber Music Tulsa
Ensemble Music Society
Friends of Chamber Music, Denver
Friends of Chamber Music, Portland
Music Mondays (NYC)
San Francisco Performances
Shriver Hall Concert Series
The Schubert Club
FIRST STEPS
If you haven’t already, please immediately fill out the participation form, which identifies the individuals in your organization with whom WolfBrown will liaise on all matters related to the study.
Fill out this contact form if you want us to invite additional people to the webinars.
KEY DATES
All cohort members send initial emails requesting cooperation with the survey on Tuesday, September 12 at 12 pm noon.
All organizations send reminder emails on September 15 at 12 pm noon. The survey closes at 11:59 pm on Monday, September 18.
DEPLOYMENT LOGISTICS DETAILS
Deployment Logistics Webinar
Topic: We will cover list selection criteria and email deployments. This webinar is your chance to ask questions about the details of deployment.
Date: Wednesday, August 23, 2023 at 4:00 - 4:45 pm EDT | 1:00 - 1:45 pm PDT (45 min)
Required Preparation
Read the sampling plan, below, and query your database to see what counts you have for each of the two categories/samples. Once you’ve assessed your counts, complete the sampling form to report your counts to WolfBrown. We need this information to calculate response rates.
Suggested Email Language
Recommended language for the two outbound email messages may be found here. Use your own branding and design. Of critical importance is using the correct survey hyperlink (provided by WolfBrown) for each of the two samples/lists. Feel free to adapt the language to fit your voice and to what you’ve found best engages your audience or visitors.
By August 25, WolfBrown will provide the liaisons from your organization with the survey hyperlink to be included in your outbound email message. The liaisons should first test the survey themselves.
Recommended language for an internal email message to stakeholders can be found here. Participating organizations are encouraged to notify internal stakeholders – staff, board members, and musicians – of their participation in the IDEA Study prior to the September 12 survey launch.
Email List Selection (Sampling Plan):
Given the goal of obtaining an accurate profile of your ticket buyers, you’ll want the results to be as representative as possible of your total (recent) audience. As a point of information, response rates for this survey have ranged from 1% to 10% across the two samples, with an average of 6%. The reminder message generated an additional 25% to 35% of all responses.
In light of this you’ll want to send out a minimum of 1,000 and a maximum of 10,000 randomly selected emails representing a natural mix of ticket buyers. Shoot for at least 3,000, if possible. The more, the better. In the end, you want to be looking at a respondent pool of 150, at minimum, and preferably 400 or more.
Generally, we suggest a look-back period of transaction activity from 9/1/2020 to the present date. Smaller organizations might extend the look-back period to 9/1/2019.
In any survey of this nature there is a natural bias towards more recent buyers, and more loyal patrons in general. Subscribers typically respond to surveys at twice the rate of individual ticket buyers.
Once you’ve assessed your counts, complete the sampling form to report your counts to WolfBrown. We need this information to calculate response rates.
Note: A minimum of 100 responses is necessary to view and analyze your respondents’ data in the dashboard. Organizations with less than 100 responses will be offered the option of remaining in the cohort with less than 100 responses in the dashboard (understanding that results are not stable) or a credit towards a future survey.
Participating organizations will send out email messages requesting cooperation with the survey using a stratified sampling approach described below. Each organization must advise WolfBrown as to their sampling plan (i.e., the number of email addresses within each of the two categories or “samples” to which they’ll send messages).
Sample 1: Diverse Programs [optional]
Visitors or ticket buyers who attended one or more programs specifically intended for culturally diverse audiences. These might be special events (e.g., jazz or gospel music concerts, Día de los Muertos events, Lunar New Year events) or regular exhibitions or events focusing primarily on one or more diverse cultures or diverse population segments. If you have any questions about what qualifies for this sample, please contact kacie@wolfbrown.com.
Quantity: minimum count of 500 emails; no maximum
Sample 2: General Programming
Natural mix of visitors or ticket buyers to regular programs, randomly selected, then purged of Sample 1
Quantity: minimum of 1,000 and maximum of 10,000 (shoot for at least 3,000 or 4,000, if possible)
If you are unable to achieve the 500 minimum count of records for Sample 1, consolidate Sample 1 into Sample 2. Thus, some organizations will only send messages to Sample 2.
WolfBrown will provide you with two different hyperlinks to the survey corresponding to each of the two samples.
REVIEW THE PROTOCOL
Download and review the protocol
Familiarize your team with the survey protocol (for example, the version on left is for hybrid arts centers)
We strongly encourage staff and board members of participating organizations, especially those serving on an EDI committee, to take the online survey as part of your preparatory efforts.
WolfBrown will provide the liaisons from your organization with survey links prior to the August 23 webinar on deployment logistics. The liaisons should first test the survey themselves, and then share one of the links with board and staff members who are tracking on this project, so that everyone has a chance to familiarize themselves with the survey.
Given the sensitivity of the subject matter, it is likely that staff and/or board members will receive strongly positive or strongly negative feedback about the survey from a small number of ticket buyers, and we urge you to prepare for that eventuality by getting everyone on the same page as to what the survey covers and why the resultant information will be helpful to your organization.
The protocol was designed by the WolfBrown team over the past six months, reviewed by outside experts, and tested for face validity in focus group discussions. Numerous improvements were made based on this input. The survey is lengthy, but skip logic is used to shorten the length whenever possible.
All survey respondents, after completing the survey, will be invited to opt-in to Audience Outlook Monitor’s National Panel.
DASHBOARD ACCESS
You’ll have access to your results in your dashboard as they come in on deployment day. This will be your first chance to see the number of fully completed survey responses from your own patrons and everyone else’s.
To access the dashboard tool after deployment, please create a password using your email as your username.
If your email is not set up as a login, fill out our contact form to be added as a user.
Once you’ve created a password, we recommend you bookmark our login page, so you can easily log into the dashboard directly.
Dashboard Orientation
Topic: A guided tour of the cohort dashboard, tips on filtering data, tagging open ended responses, and other technical information on the dashboard tool
Date: Wednesday, September 20, 2023 at 4:00 - 4:45 pm EDT | 1:00 - 1:30 pm PDT (45 minutes)