Yesterday at CNM’s monthly CEO Network meeting, the Nashville Shakespeare Festival  presented a sampling of their Shakespeare in Business Workshops. Thanks to the great folks from the Shakespeare festival, participants learned how role playing can stimulate insight and how facilitated reflection can promote growth. 

Nonprofit CEOs learning that “all the world’s a stage.”

From today’s Tennessean:

It’s the same depressing situation nearly every community nonprofit in town has faced in this economy, but with a twist worthy of the Bard himself: In spite of everything, the Nashville Shakespeare Festival, which held its final performance of the season in Centennial Park on Sunday, is ending it in the black.

“Everything we lost was made up for, $5 at a time, by the people of Nashville who said, ‘Hey, I’m broke, too, but here you go,’ ” said Nancy VanReece, the festival’s executive director.

Donations at each performance shot up 50 percent over the five-week course of the festival. Volunteers waited at the entrances to the open-air theater with buckets, hopeful smiles and a request for a voluntary donation of $5 a head.

Ten major corporate sponsors had been forced to back out of the festival this year as the economy soured, leaving organizers with a $40,000 hole in their budget. In a normal year, the festival would collect about $20,000 in voluntary donations. By the end of Sunday night’s performance, the volunteers had collected more than $40,000.

WSMV reports tonight on how a reduction in funding due to the economy could potentially impact this free summer festival. The report features an interview with Executive Director of the Nashville Shakespeare Festival, Nancy Van Reece.

You may have heard about Twitter, a new way for friends and family to communicate online by asking the question “What are you doing?.” If you are interested in new media, you may have also wondered, how do I use it effectively to market my organization? The Nashville Shakespeare Festival has answered that question. Here is the scoop from Sam Davidson at CoolPeopleCare:

As Nancy (VanReece, Executive Director of the Nashville Shakespeare Festival) takes the stage 30 minutes prior to show time (there is music an hour before the performance, so the place gets full early) and makes her announcements about where you can get popcorn, where the bathrooms are, and how you can sign up to win two free Southwest tickets, she also mentions that the Fest is on Twitter and you can follow along. She goes on to share that if you do follow them and can answer the trivia question she tweets at intermission, you can win free stuff.

Since I followed NashvilleShakes, but not on my phone, I quickly changed that. And sure enough, ten minutes before intermission, I was alerted that the attendance for the evening was 485, and if I was the first to tell the house manager, I’d get a free shirt.

So, I made my way to do so, thinking I was the only person to get the info when I ran into Nancy and had a quick chat about how they’re using Twitter and what their success has been. They’ve been getting a few new followers a night, right when she makes her pre-show announcements, and people have been very interested in the other information she shares via Twitter.

For example, each performance includes a cameo for the role of the Herald (it was John Seigenthaler when I was there). She tweets that info out about an hour or so before show time, since that can be a draw for certain folks. She does the attendance trivia question each night, which is how I learned that Saturday’s performance had twice the attendees that my night did. And, she’s getting a response when she tweets the trivia info out.

Which is why I didn’t win the shirt. Someone beat me to it.

Here’s what I learned from Nancy and what I recommend for nonprofits looking to use Twitter effectively:

Have something to say. No one will listen (and therefore, no one will respond) if you’re not communicating a worthwhile message.

Be patient. Nancy’s ‘only’ adding a handful of folks a night. But, as more people (like me), share this story with others, that will continue to grow. Then, when it’s time to announce next year’s show, or to solicit volunteers, Nancy has hundreds (hopefully) of people she can tell.

Commit to it. Nancy will keep using Twitter every night of the performance, no matter the attendance or the amount of people signing up. Even if only one person vies for the free shirt, she’ll keep pushing the opportunity out there. For the Nashville Shakespeare Festival, it’s not a fad; it’s part of a communications strategy.