Great Ideas Come From Anywhere #2
Take advantage of nearby crowds to offer hospitality and attract members
This is a story about two New York City museums across the street from each other: the New York Historical Society (NYHS) is a nice, quiet museum in a simple, classical, stone building and the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a multi-block, multi-building behemoth with a subway station, wide lawns, a planetarium, dinosaurs, giant whales, bugs, and crowds every day of the week. In other words, big excitement.
During the week before Thanksgiving, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day balloons are inflated on the grounds of the AMNH. The parade producers run a multi-day festival around the event, with hundreds of thousands of people passing through.
The NYHS needed to grow attendance and revenue. The opportunity: leverage the crowds and attention of the AMNH within their small budget and attract some of the tens of thousands of people attending the bigger museum, gawking at the balloons, and relaxing on the lawns.
The solution: adding a HeartFull community strategy to a long-planned renovation. NYHS moved their gift shop and cafe right in sight of those other guy’s crowds. They also added a colorful ramp (for strollers, not just the disabled), colorful posters, and statues of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas for families to touch and pose with.
What the NYHS did was turn their boring side entrance into a “weenee,” which was Walt Disney’s word for ”the architectural visual icon that causes people to gravitate naturally toward a location.” The main entrance to the museum was around the corner out of sight. The new entrance — with cafe and shop — is right in the middle of where everyone attending the balloon festival and visiting the big museum can see.
My story is not over. There is a church about two blocks further away from the museums that is struggling to grow. They have crowds passing them by, but those crowds are focused on their museum (and balloon) destinations. How does the church interrupt, engage, and enroll some of the tens of thousands of people who pass by?
My advice is for them to think of how they can serve those crowds. Since the balloon festival is in cold weather, maybe they can serve hot cocoa and let the people inside to warm up. Maybe they can become a “weenee” with bold signage or free balloons. Maybe they can set up a selfie station with a beautiful balloon montage backdrop (and their QR code printed in the corner).
I know that people (especially volunteers) can get overwhelmed by the size of crowds. But the only way to grow membership is to offer HeartFull experiences — simple one-to-one connections and hospitality. You can put up video billboards and brochure racks, but nothing is more effective than a real, live, human face with a cup of hot cocoa. (If you don’t believe me, go to a major city bus terminal and see if anyone goes near the brochure racks.)
With a HeartFull context to everything you do, you will attract the volunteers, visitors, and membership growth that you want.
ONE MORE WEENEE
Manhattan’s Park Avenue Christian Church turned themselves into a “weenee” with some low-cost banners and a new open-door policy. Their goal was to show people that something new and exciting was happening there; bright modern graphics supported that effort.
The church’s 200-year old building had long faded into the background of busy Park Avenue in Manhattan. One block from a major shopping thoroughfare, the church’s gorgeous sanctuary was locked up every day but Sunday, and only open a few hours then.
Using a HeartFull strategy, the church added bright red banners to the building (as pictured) and new glass doors to the sanctuary. They painted the old wooden doors (which would open in front of the glass) bright red. Then they got volunteers to welcome visitors to the sanctuary every day of the week.
The result? A tripling of the congregation within 5 years, abundant cash contributions by visitors, and an excited, motivated group of hospitality volunteers.
