When a traveling art exhibit brings art to people who have never been to an art museum, and when a theater involves volunteers and artists in creating hundreds of parade floats, people become engaged in their communities in ways few could have predicted. It's this passion for civic pride and the arts that fuels our featured groups this week—Artrain USA, a traveling art exhibit based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota...

Artrain USA, an art museum housed in vintage rail cars, travels to twenty-five communities across the United States every year. Its arrival is so exciting for some people that they never forget it. "Many people who visit the week-long exhibit have never seen an original piece of artwork," said Debra Polich, Artrain USA president and CEO.

Before the train arrives, Artrain USA engages the community in twelve to eighteen months of preparation. The relationships that are built between the people and organizations in the town that Artrain USA brings together can continue to impact the community for decades.

The people that worked on Artrain USA's first visit to Waterford, Michigan, a small blue-collar town, went on to start the Waterford Cultural Council, which continues to provide outstanding art programs in the community's schools. Their success in presenting Artrain USA led the Detroit Institute of Art to select the Waterford Cultural Council to host its traveling Picasso exhibit. The community held huge Picasso festivals, and the students even created cubism Jell-o.

"Through [Benevon], Artrain USA has learned how to tell their story to everyone who boards the train and also how to engage donors who have long known about the train but didn't know about the impact it has on communities," said Polich.

"[Benevon] has given us a way and taught us the discipline to reach individual donors in spite of the challenges we have moving from one city to another every week," said Polich. "We've also committed to the Five-Year Sustainable Funding Program^™ because we feel it's important to commit to something long-term. Oftentimes, organizations will use an idea and then go on to the next thing. But we feel that long-term discipline is necessary for the staff and board."

Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre explores and celebrates the human experience and the wonders of the world's natural and cultural richness through puppets. They hold a yearly May Day parade and invite anyone from the community to participate, usually attracting 50,000 onlookers and 2,500 participants. Among the many floats they created last year was a Trojan horse made of bubble wrap painted in gold. The group also produces a season of plays and teaches puppetry and pageantry to people throughout Minnesota.

For two years, In the Heart of the Beast tried self-implementing the Benevon Model. Kathee Foran, the executive director, said they really didn't follow the rules.

They had a dinner (instead of a breakfast or lunch), three-year pledges (rather than five), a starting pledge of $500 (rather than $1,000), and they didn't have the Table Captains invite the Ask Event^™ guests. They raised $40,000 from eighty people in their first year, and they raised $20,000 in the second year.

Then they received a grant that allowed them to go to a Benevon Workshop. Foran said she was stunned when the instructor told participants during the workshop that groups can sometimes achieve seemingly solid results in the first year even while breaking the rules, but that those groups who get "creative" with the model are likely to raise only half of the first year's results in subsequent years.

"Collectively, our mouths were on the floor," said Foran. That described their own results exactly! Foran's team decided to get serious about following the model and the recommendations of their coach closely.

In the year after the workshop, Foran's team held a hugely successful third Ask Event, raising $150,000 in gifts and pledges.

"One of the things that's really helped me as an administrator is that [Benevon] provided me with a system of events, so I can really work with the donor base," said Foran. "As we move people up through the giving ladder, I have a means now to pay attention to folks who may want to get involved in a bigger way."

In this podcast, Terry Axelrod, Benevon founder and CEO, talks about how to turn community recognition into personal relationships with donors.

Top Left Banner Photo: May Day parade participant's mask made in one of the free parade-building public workshops that In the Heart of the Beast sponsors during the month of April. Center Banner Graphic: Graphic by Sandy Spieler, Artistic Director of In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre.