Encore! Campaign surpasses its goals
As the Encore! campaign winds down, we are happy to announce that we have not only met, but surpassed, all three of its goals!
While the research and planning for the Encore! campaign began in 2022, the campaign was publicly launched in the fall of 2023. The campaign was designed to raise $10 million for our region’s new performing arts centre by relying on the generosity and engagement of the people who live in our region – the families and individuals who we serve and therefore care most about what we’re doing.
In addition to raising money for the construction of the centre (to be named the Ron & Erma Hawkes Centre for the Arts), we felt it was important to expand our community access programs for disadvantaged and marginalized members of our community, for our youth, and for the local artists whose work could be expanded and elevated by working in our new facility. With that in mind, the Encore! campaign was designed such that 80% (the bulk of the proceeds) would go towards capital costs, and 20% of the proceeds would support an expansion of our community access programs.
Thanks to the generous support of donors from our community, we were able to meet (and exceed!) our three major goals:
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GOAL #1 – FUNDS RAISED
Firstly, we set a goal of raising $10 million. At the time, the campaign leadership thought this may be a stretch (perhaps even a gamble); would we even be able to raise that much money for an arts centre?
One of the first things we did was to secure the support of the Playhouse family. The very first donor was the then-President of the board, Craig Leonard. His donation was followed by the rest of the board members, and we quickly achieved a 100% participation rate.
Secondly, we went to the staff and through a creative in-house campaign, we garnered 100% support from the employees – every staff member – manager, ticketing agent, bar tender, merchandise seller, janitor, and technician has contributed to the campaign.
And thirdly, we went to the volunteers – who already give so much to our organization. The volunteers were presented with a challenge gift. An anonymous donor who cares deeply about our volunteer program provided a dollar-for-dollar matching gift of up to $25,000. And in the end, 32 volunteers raised $54,210 and in acknowledgement of this amazing effort, we named a lounge in the centre the “Volunteer Lounge”.
We then opened the Encore! campaign to the public, and are proud to announce that to date, we have surpassed our goal having received $10,814,232 in gifts and pledges.
GOAL #2 – NUMBER OF DONORS
Within the campaign team, our second goal was somewhat controversial (in fact, we have never publicly stated it).
We wanted to engage and garner support from many donors and ensure everyone in the community felt they could participate - whether they gave $50, $5000, $50,000, or even $500,000!
So, we set an ambitious goal of having 1000 donors make campaign gifts.
We truly believe that it is the people in this community who are building this centre. People who live in the places we serve – here in Fredericton, the greater capital region, and extending upriver to Carleton County.
At the time of this writing, we are happy to announce that we have reached 1002 donors to the campaign (and counting). And in fact, 94% of these donors are from New Brunswick!
Goal #3 – CAMPAIGN TIMING
Our third and final goal was to achieve $10 million in pledges from 1000 donors in 3 years.
The Encore! campaign publicly started in the fall of 2023 with the beginning of our “Take a Seat” campaign. Since then, a significant number of individuals, businesses, and foundations have come forward to either contribute or organize their own fundraising efforts.
In January of this year, the campaign hit a milestone with the announcement of our largest gift to the campaign – a $3.5 million gift from Ron & Erma Hawkes. This gift is the largest gift given to a single project by a Fredericton-based donor.
With the overwhelming support and generosity of our community, we were able to meet the goals of the Encore! campaign in only 2 and a half years!
As the campaign wraps up, we are incredibly grateful to our donors, community members championing our cause, and to our audience members who continue to support our work.