We have recently taken to having a dinner theater at our Dress Rehearsal. Actually, it just moves our opening night up one night but we get a great response - we call if a "sneak preview". For our last play, we charged $25 a head and sold wine for $3.00 a glass. All it cost us was $60 for the royalties - 100% of the income went to the fundraiser (although we had 50 people who would have seen the show and paid for a ticket later). The cast gets a great audience who have paid to have fun and had a few glasses of wine to loosen then up and the audience gets a great social evening and gets to see the show before opening night. We get 50 people spreading the word on the show.

Our most successful way to come up with money is to have a specific project (our last project was a new light control board and dimmer pack) and write personal letters to those who support our theater. We sent hand written letters to about 24 people who we knew would like to help fund a specific project. We enclosed a typed description of the project. Our target was $3,500 and in two weeks we had raised $3,570.

We recently wanted to rebuild the structure over the stage. We went to a few (different) donors and again came up with the money. Donors want to give to support your efforts but, like a muscle, they need to be exercised regularly.

We also do a Dinner Mystery Theater as a fundraiser for smaller amounts.

We have found that the greatest number of donations come from people who want to support the theater in a general sense. While the numbers are higher, the dollars are not close to what we can raise with a specific purpose - we have talked about (but never tried) to get people to "underwrite" a performance or to "sponsor" intermission refreshments or the program for a show. We think there will be many who will donate for this.

Hope this helps.

Thank you so much! Those are great ideas and I will present them at our board meeting tonight! A couple are similar to what we have done in the past or are thinking about doing, so that reinforces it for us. Thanks!

Shannon, I recently started a business called Theatrical Greetings (www.theatricalgreetings.com). I have been on the Board of Directors for several arts organizations and the American Marketing Association. I started TG to give community theaters the opportunity to raise funds by selling performing arts related greeting cards, wrapping paper, and some other novelties to members, patrons and the community. If you are interested in more info, please let me know. I'd be happy to help your organization raise funds.

We're doing something a bit different. I am a travel agent and also on the Board of Directors of a local community theater. We are doing a fund-raising cruise. Carnival is letting us use one of the lounges to perform a one-act play during the cruise. We have several actors that want to go on the cruise and be part of the play. Carnival has a fund-raising program that will match the mark-up you put on the cruise. In our case, we've marked it up $40 per person. We've sold about 20 cabins and at this point stand to clear over $5,000. Our patrons get a fun, affordable cruise with a bonus theatrical production (in addition to the ship's big production shows) and the theater benefits. If you want more information on this program, Email me at jrichards@cruiseone.com. You might still be able to view the flyer for this cruise at the bottom of www.cruiseone.com/jrichards.