Redefining Profit and Costs: An Update to our I Love My Theatre Orangeville Fundraising Campaign

Nine months ago, I wrote an article about our ‘I Love My TOV’ fundraising campaign and ‘why it matters’. At that time the organization was at a fairly precarious place financially. The pandemic had depleted not just our resources but our audiences. Patrons were slow to return. Funders were decreasing the amounts they were able to give (they still are) and inflation was continually making it more and more expensive to purchase necessary supplies and materials to continue doing what we do (and still is).

Nine months later, while it’s stopped raining, we’re still not out of the woods, BUT we can see sunlight breaking through the edge of the trees – we just have to make it through the last of the bramble between us and the sunny meadow beyond.

We have record breaking numbers of first-time attendees, and what’s even more exciting, the stats of those first-time patrons becoming second-time patrons (and even subscribers) are equally as impressive. Our community is loving their Theatre Orangeville experiences and are coming back for more. We’re not quite at pre-pandemic audience levels yet, but we’re getting closer every day.

So why are we still trying to raise $350,000?

This summer we closed our second consecutive fiscal year with a six-figure deficit. As a not-for-profit, deficits are part of our existence from time to time, but they are hard to recover from. At this point in time, there is just enough revenue coming through the door to break even, but not enough to catch up. (We’ve packed our picnic lunch, but are hunkered down in the dark woods, taking turns watching for Maleficent to appear, instead of being able to make it through to the sunny meadow where we could break bread with Sleeping Beauty).

This is where those with corporate minds and not-for-profit minds often find themselves with diverging opinions. Those who are profit driven ask, “why not ‘cut the fat’? Stop running programs that have small profit margins or don’t make any money”, and while that could indeed get us to the meadow faster, the cost of doing so is not something we could live with and still hold true to our mission. When you run a not-for-profit charitable organization, the “profit” is not the cash. The profit is the impact, and the costs are the people.

As a charitable organization we are here to serve our community – to make a difference. The productions and programs with the smallest margins are also those that have the greatest impact. They are the true profit of this organization.

• Creative Partners on Stage (CPOS) provides opportunity and gives voice to neuro-diverse adults who are some of our most compassionate and motivated community members. It is a program with a financial deficit.
• The Young Companies (YC) provide 35-40 youth a year with meaningful, educational, and life-changing experiences. Youth find a place of belonging, acceptance and empowerment in these programs – values and skills that they carry with them for a lifetime. They are often net zero programs.
• The Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) productions that tour into local elementary schools are all issue-based productions that provide not just entertainment, but accessible avenues into often hard discussions around the challenges children and young people are facing in their lives every day. Students are seeing themselves on stage, finding validation and gaining tools to express themselves and support their peers. This is a program with a financial deficit.
• Our smash hit holiday productions like Cinderella … if the Shoe Fits, The Last Christmas Turkey and Little Women are large-scale productions with large-scale expenses and usually have net zero budgets. Yet, they are a holiday tradition for patrons across the county and beyond – often drawing multi-generation family bookings, experiencing sold-out houses, and have the highest number of first-time attendees out of all of our programming (who as you will remember from paragraph three, almost always become second-time attendees). We can’t afford to lose these people (the cost is too great).

To keep doing these things (these beautiful, artistic, impactful, community-building and profitable things) we need to hit our fundraising goal of $350,000. To date, the campaign has brought in $96,135.55 worth of generous donations. To get back into that meadow, we need to generate another $250,000. $250,000 gets us through the bramble, out of the woods and into the sunshine, and in a better position to weather any storms that may be unseen on the horizon.

If you can, please donate to this campaign.

How else can you help your Theatre thrive once again?

• Forward this blog post to your network and tell them what TOV means to you.
• Buy a subscription and promise yourself five spectacular and entertaining nights out this year.
• Come see a show and bring a friend.
• Tell a local business owner you know about us and they work that we do – the impact we have, and maybe they’re in a position to Sponsor, book a private corporate performance, or bring their team to Sleeping Beauty … A Fairy’s Tale for a holiday/year-end celebration.
• Spread the word. Support comes in many kinds, often from unexpected places.

Your advocacy has twice (if not thrice!) the impact you think it does. Your belief in us, and our impact, is what got us through the storm in the first place… Now we just need to get out of this darn forest – and we’re so close!

- Sharyn Ayliffe

Executive Director