Hello everyone and welcome to the shiny new Public Media Tessitura Community!
Although I have met many of you, my name is Leah Schier - I am the Director of Business Intelligence at KERA and have volunteered to chair this new community. I started at my first Tessitura licensee in 2009 and have been crazy enough to bring KERA through implementation and go live in the spring of 2019. KERA is so pleased to see public media stations join the Tessitura Network and hope to see more soon.
As we plan for future meetings, we would love to hear from you about the types of gatherings you prefer. For example, would you prefer casual discussions, formal presentations, panel style Q & A discussions, etc. Please reply and tell us what goals/expectations you have with this group, which topics you would like to discuss in the future, and please feel free to introduce yourself.
Please save the date for our next informal gathering on Friday, January 8th and invite your co-workers to join the community.
On behalf of my co-chairs Tamara and Andrea, thank you for joining us in this digital space - we are looking forward to getting to know you all better in the coming months!
Leah
I am so excited to be a part of this new addition to the Tessitura Community!
My name is Jordan Edwards, and I am one of the Data Integrity Specialists at KERA. I have been a Tessitura user since 2016, and have been a system admin and/or power user for the majority of that time frame. Historically I have lived in the land of performing arts box office management, but have enjoyed my time in public media thus far! I am based out of California, and have been a member of the Bay Area Community Group's Planning Committee for about a year now. When I'm not working, I am at home (who isn't these days?) playing games or reading with my cats, Vince and Lulu. Pub trivia is my jam, and I will always be down to play.
As for what I'd like to see from this community, I tend to prefer panel style Q&A discussions, but do enjoy formal presentations and casual discussions as long as they have some sort of leadership and structure. I would love to see this community come together to learn about what different orgs are doing (good, bad, or ugly), as well as to get to know our peers within those organizations. User groups that I have been a member of in the past have met 3-4 times a year, and that seemed like a good amount, however, there were physical limitations and requirements involved there.
I have presented on, or would be willing to talk about the following topics:
- Data Hygiene (2019 BAYTUG panelist)
- Consortiums for Box Office (2019 conference presentation)
- Tessitura Analytics
- Plan Set Up
- Understanding the Constituent Record
- Extractions and Lists
- Creative ways to report on that
- Attributes / Interests / Constituencies
- TNEW
- Custom Forms
I also share in the joy of having a public media community on the network. Having worked in both a science museum and now public media, I find unique use cases on a continual basis and am eager to learn from other public media stations on how you're using Tessitura to better your processes (and fundraising, which is my area of focus!)
My name is Katie Powell, and I am the Manager of Member Communications at KERA. We are a triple license station: PBS, NPR, AAA radio. I manage the direct mail program and manage two people who execute digital fundraising efforts and acknowledgements, matching gifts and vehicle donation correspondence. My Tessitura expertise ranges from the contribution side of Tessitura to lists and extractions, and I've recently dipped my toes into Analytics. I am based in Dallas, TX and "B.C." (before COVID) was an active participant in the Dallas-Fort Worth Tessitura Community (nee "TUG35"). I'm married to my sweetheart Michael of 30 years, we have a 17yo son Judah who is a senior in HS in quite possibly the weirdest year ever, and we have 3 dogs: Dixie, Beau and Belle -- the latter two being accidental acquisitions (failed foster). I'm an ardent bibliophile who has more books than years left to read them, pandemic artisan sourdough and Italian cake baker, pub trivia enthusiast, prohibition-era cocktail imbiber, Crew & Wrestling teams parent, knitter of mostly unfinished projects and volunteer at various organizations around town that specialize in food insecurity or children's services.
My preference is panel style Q&A discussions, but I also like topic-driven presentations. I also love Open Space. One of the reasons I'm most excited about having a public media forum is because I think we have a few truly unique issues that differ from arts organizations and it has been a little bit challenging finding a Tessitura tribe that deals with some of the specific challenges we face in the realm of sustainers, external call center, and the fact that we give our product away for free and then invite people to provide their support. I'd also love to share analytics other public media stations might be using to track your direct mail campaign performance and membership moves management.
Hi! I'm brand new to public media and Tessitura. I joined PBS North Carolina on January 25th as the new Director of Integrated Fundraising. My background is in promoting traditional and digital fundraising strategies and best practices and coordinating with different departments to achieve effective multi-channel and dynamic campaigns and donor communications. I am a data nerd and enjoy working in CRMs but I am brand new to the nuances of Tessitura and public media.
I look forward to working with this group to best use our new software and make it work hard for us.
Thanks!
It's so nice to make your acquaintance here in this forum, Becca! I work at KERA in Dallas (a triple license station: PBS, NPR and AAA-format music). I was born in Fayetteville and lived in NC (with a brief stint on Hilton Head Island, SC) until I moved to TX in 1992. My formative years were through PBS NC. As a 1st gen Sesame Street kid, I hold NC public television dear to my heart. My mom is still a member there and sends me station communications from time-to-time. I'm happy that y'all are in the Tessitura network, too, and look forward to all of us learning from each other.