Are You Building Your Budgets on Hope, or Real Relationships?

S2E08 • Tue, February 17, 2026   • Duration: 32 mins

Are You Building Your Budgets on Hope, or Real Relationships?

Most arts organizations can tell you their revenue targets. Fewer can name the segments, behaviors and people that will actually deliver them.

When financial pressure rises, leaders default to revenue buckets: tickets, subscriptions, donations. But as this episode makes clear, those buckets don’t buy tickets. People do.

This conversation reframes budgeting through a People lens. Revenue is not a line item. It’s the outcome of relationships, shaped by segments including recency, frequency, and behavior over time. When you shift from revenue-based planning to relationship-based planning, you gain clarity: where growth is possible, where risk is hiding, and what must change to hit your goals.

We explore why annual planning often falls short, how multi-year pipeline thinking changes investment decisions, and what it really means to hold teams accountable for relationship metrics, not just financial outcomes.

This episode challenges leaders to move beyond hopeful projections and toward people-driven strategy, so financial plans become proactive, measurable, and sustainable.

Key Takeaways to Put Into Action:

• Revenue goals are made of relationships: If you can't name the segments and behaviors driving your target, you're probably guessing.
  
  
• You inherit your pipeline, you don't invent it: Short-term targets are shaped by years of past behavior. Budgeting must reflect that reality.
  
  
• Segmentation is a leadership tool, not just a marketing tactic: New, active, lapsed, multi-buyers - each requires different investment decisions.
  
  
• Multi-year planning reduces risk: Annual planning without pipeline metrics creates financial blind spots.
  
  
• Accountability must connect to 'people metrics': Clear ownership of relationship-driven KPIs makes growth achievable, and shared across teams.

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