Building Stronger Audience Relationships Through One Nonprofit Fundraising Strategy

Musical Theatre West is a producing theatre organization based in Long Beach, California. Founded in 1952, it brings Broadway-quality productions to Southern California through performance, education, and outreach, with four mainstage shows each year and 18 education programs.

At the 2025 US Spektrix Hubs, Taylor Presnall, Development Coordinator, and Yadira Del Rincon, Donor Relations & Special Events Coordinator, shared how fundraising tools in Spektrix helped them strengthen donor engagement, improve event management, and work more effectively across teams. Their experience shows how a connected system can help nonprofit arts organizations bring together fundraising, marketing, ticketing, and education to build stronger audience relationships and support long-term success.

Musical Theatre West moved ticketing and marketing to Spektrix in 2021, then began using fundraising tools in 2023. That next step gave the team a clearer view of donor activity and showed the value of working from one connected system.

Taylor wanted to make sure the team had accurate information for every donor. After asking the Spektrix team for advice on the best way to record patron information, he was introduced to the Activities Dashboard. There, every member of the development team could track donations, ticket history, and other interactions in one place, building a clearer picture of each donor relationship over time.

The team could easily access:

• Transaction data, including ticket sales, gifts, and participation in classes or camps.
• Accounting details, including records of every check and pay stub.
• Grant tracking across relationships with individual donors, trusts, and foundations.
• Personal details, including donor photos for quick recognition.
• Financial details, making it possible to split a check across five campaign areas while keeping one connected giving history.

The team can go further still, with the ability to add records of every letter, phone call, and conversation to the donor record, and assign and prioritize tasks across the team. By using the dashboard to log every donor contact and decision, the team gained a clear view of giving history and team actions, strengthening accountability and donor trust.

“Now our donors can give easily, purchase their subscriptions online, buy tickets, and identify accessible shows without any confusion. It allows our patrons to more easily engage with us and attend performances, while also enabling us to track their participation through a variety of built-in reports and customizable tracking options.”
– Yadira Del Rincon, Donor Relations & Special Events Coordinator

Musical Theatre West’s fundraising progress did not come from the development team alone. Collaboration with ticketing and marketing teams helped create a more seamless experience for patrons and donors alike.

The ticketing team helped introduce digital tickets for Apple Wallet and Google Wallet, making it easier for patrons to access tickets. A new API-driven website reduced clicks, simplified purchases, and highlighted accessibility options such as ASL performances.

To support the theatre’s work in the community, simple promo codes and ticket discounts helped improve and track engagement. That detailed data, at each step in the patron journey, created a stronger foundation for more personalized communication and closer, longer-term relationships.

Patron communication, from promotional messaging to pre- and post-event emails, is often seen as the responsibility of the marketing team. But just like the online journey, the team at Musical Theatre West treated every touchpoint as part of a broader nonprofit fundraising strategy.

Drag-and-drop audience segmentation tools made it simple to identify first-time visitors, track engagement by ZIP code, and build a stronger understanding of the theatre’s patrons. Once the team understood what people were interested in and how often they were attending, marketing, development, and education teams could design more relevant messaging for each segment.

If you’d like to achieve similar results in your own organization, this Spektrix webinar on growing fundraising revenue can help you turn audience data into more effective donor engagement.

The team also embraced targeted pre- and post-event emails, delivered through Spektrix and Dotdigital. When a major summer show coincided with parking lot construction, they used clear, automated messaging before each visit to set expectations, then followed up with post-event surveys to better understand the patron experience.

In the past year, Musical Theatre West began managing one of its most complex initiatives, the Travel Club, through Spektrix.

The Club takes 65 patrons to New York City each May. With support from Sara, a fundraising specialist on the Spektrix team, Yadira was able to book, manage, and coordinate the whole trip from one system.

By centralizing ticketing and donor management, the team can run events their way while keeping all donor and transaction data within Spektrix – ensuring consistency across records and removing manual imports.

Education is central to Musical Theatre West’s community mission, and it is now part of the same connected data picture. Using the same system for community-centric fundraising and education allows the team to build long-term relationships: someone who takes a dance class today might become a donor tomorrow.

Musical Theatre West’s story shows how a single nonprofit fundraising strategy – connecting ticketing, marketing, development, and education – can build deeper relationships across the whole organization.

By working collaboratively, making full use of the Spektrix system, and turning to the Spektrix team for guidance, they have created a more connected experience for every patron, from first-time visitors to major donors.