Transforming a Fundraising Membership Programme With a Small Team

Theatre Royal Wakefield is a traditional Victorian theater, home to a vibrant and varied program of produced and touring work. Its year-round season includes shows for families and for fans of music, drama, comedy, and more.

At the 2025 UK Spektrix Hubs, Head of Development Sarah Shooter explained how her small development team rebuilt the theatre’s fundraising membership program. By making better use of audience segmentation, personalized communications, and reporting in Spektrix, they grew income and deepened loyalty, without adding headcount.

Sarah has worked in fundraising for over 30 years, and she’s passionate about connecting people with the theater and growing income. At Theatre Royal Wakefield, she’s responsible for every aspect of philanthropic income – individual giving, corporate giving, trust and foundation applications, events, and, of course, the fundraising membership program.

The theatre’s existing membership program, Member+, faced real challenges. Its place within the organization was unclear, which led to a lack of ownership and direction.

The program wasn’t serving the theater or its most loyal audience members and donors well, and it needed a thorough rethink to reach its potential for building income and loyalty. So Sarah and her team took the time to reassess the program from the ground up, and to agree what they wanted it to achieve.

The team set three clear goals for the program:

• Build loyalty and support: respond to how much audience members already valued the theater.
• Grow income: increase revenue across memberships, ticket sales, the bar, and more.
• Create a sense of community: make every donor feel valued through personal stewardship and a genuine feeling of belonging.

With their goals defined, Sarah and the team built a plan around the audience relationships they already had. They created a five-tier membership program, then used booking and donation history in Spektrix to divide thousands of potential members into more than twenty segments. Because that data was already connected in one system, they could craft personalized communications for every segment to introduce the program.

Cleaning up connected data

To segment accurately and report on impact, the team first tidied up their data. This meant:

• Cleaning up old tags, keeping only those actively in use.
• Removing old reports to focus on useful, actionable data.
• Setting up a routine to audit the system regularly.
• Making better use of autotags so records reflect live activity.

Along the way, the team spotted more opportunities to use Spektrix for fundraising. Using standard system reports alongside their own knowledge of supporters, they enriched their donor records to understand which shows people attended and which benefits they used most. With a team of just 1.5 people, efficiency was vital, and clean, connected data let them create personalized, automated communications that built a real sense of connection with minimal resource.

The team added large, highly visible signage around the building to help members see the vital work they were supporting, showcasing what goes on behind the scenes, in participation work, and in the studio. At members’ request, they created simple merchandise – badges and pens – to recognize supporters. And, working with the marketing team, they added a membership reminder to pre-event emails and ticket designs, which proved a real success.

By combining connected data with a personal touch, even the smallest development team can build a fundraising membership program that grows loyalty, income, and a lasting sense of belonging.

These improvements were possible thanks to a small, dedicated team and a connected system that linked donation history, ticket purchases, and external platforms like JustGiving in one place. Here is Sarah’s step-by-step guide:

• Log personal details and donation history against customer records.
• Pull in additional data from ticket sales and offline donations.
• Use tags to consistently identify audience segments.
• Use reports to track attendance among existing and potential members.
• Surprise and delight members: pop down to say hello, send birthday treats, or offer an ice cream, dessert, or a glass of wine.
• Look for trends, and get to know which shows your members attend.
• Personalize and automate your communications.
• Keep exploring ideas: however small your team, there’s always something more you can achieve.