Indian Hill Music Inc.

Indian Hill Music, a regional non-profit music center, sees every day how music transforms lives. We are renowned and highly respected for providing:

• Vibrant Experiences – Memorable performances by our professional Orchestra of Indian Hill, our conservatory-trained faculty, and notable guest artists across diverse genres
• Stimulating and Supportive Education – Our community music school focuses on personal growth and meaningful connections for students of all ages and abilities
• Giving Music Generously – We partner with high-need school districts and community-based organizations to provide music when there is need for people in our communities

After 35 years of creating a musical community of excellence open to all, we are now fulfilling a long-held dream of bringing all aspects of our organization together under one roof - creating synergies that were never before possible and providing a concert experience second to none.

In 2014, an incredibly generous donor offered to purchase land for a new campus and provide full funding for the design and construction of a state-of-the-art facility. After much deliberation, we gratefully accepted this gift. We are now in Year Four of constructing our new 126,000 sq. ft. facility on a stunning 110 acres in Groton, MA, expected to open in 2022. With a range of acoustically superb performance, teaching, and gathering spaces, the Music Center will allow us to significantly expand our impact and become a cultural and economic engine for the region.

The integration of music education and performance is a hallmark of our organization. Our new facility will enable us to expand and innovate, such as creating themed festivals featuring workshops and master classes with guest artists, student performances, and interactive music-making for attendees, all culminating in a major headliner concert. The facility will enable us to convene community music organizations and opportunities for school bands, choruses, or orchestras to gather for educational workshops, competitions and performances. We will offer professional concerts and educational programming to students and teachers from surrounding school districts. Our partnership with Lawrence Academy will allow for the use of dorms and dining facilities for residential summer programs.
Our goals reflect how we are adapting to the current crisis while simultaneously preparing for expanded operations in our new home:

1. During the pandemic, adapt existing and create new remote learning programs
2. Engage our musicians to create new virtual performance and educational programs to engage a broader range of audiences
3. Adapt the organizational growth path we began in 2015 to current circumstances
4. Widen the tent by increasing participation across all program areas
5. Lead a successful comprehensive fundraising campaign focused on significantly increasing annual giving, raising “start-up” funds, and growing our endowment from $3.5 million to $22 million.

Like all organizations, the pandemic has significantly impacted Indian Hill Music. While these circumstances are unprecedented, we have a history of prudent financial management and adapting creatively to best serve our students, faculty, professional musicians, and community partners. This approach inspires donor confidence and they have always responded with extraordinary generosity. Now, while adhering to the goals outlined above, we are making major changes in the delivery of our services, as we slow down plans for our ambitious future.
Adapt existing and create new programs
• Offer remote private lessons, diverse group classes, and special programs.
• Offer virtual student recitals.
• Share video performances by students, faculty and orchestra musicians on our website and in social media
• Plan virtual performances, lectures and other offerings to continue to engage our constituents with creative and meaningful content
• Offer telephone or FaceTime bedside sings by members of our Threshold Singers
Adapt donor cultivation and stewardship
• Create a virtual Evening of Gratitude for major donors
• Cultivate new donors and steward current donors through small group Zoom gatherings and events
• Plan small group cultivation events, adhering to the highest safety standards
Prudent use of our resources
• Careful scrutiny of all expenses
• Invest in low-cost technology to help us pivot to virtual service delivery
Since FY15, we have been steadily executing our growth plan across every aspect of our organization in order to build traction for the future, widen the tent of patrons, increase awareness of our organization, and prepare for the much larger and more complex organization we will become by applying the following strategies:
Establish the foundation for the future Music Center at Indian Hill
• Build a culture that helps manage and promote growth
• Make infrastructure additions with focus on capacity building
• Do extensive planning across all areas of the organization
• Revise Business Plan to provide long-term outlook

Continue the growth path
• School Programming – Provide more offerings, increase enrollment
• Performance – Diversify genres, more concerts, enhance experience, increase attendance with focus on increasing participation by new concertgoers
• Outreach – Increase presence in Fitchburg, Lawrence, and other high-need communities, serve more students, expand partnerships

Widen the tent
• Increase number of new patrons, donors, community partners, prospects
• Increase in marketing, awareness, and ambassadorial activities

Lead a successful comprehensive campaign
• Significantly expand pool of prospects.
• Cultivate and solicit donors at a range of giving levels
• Provide Board training. Develop action plan for each Board member’s individual prospect.
• Steward all donors appropriately

Indian Hill has grown dramatically and deepened our community impact by adhering to these principals, adapted from for-profit business management:

Be Analytical – Analyzing quantitative and qualitative data is critical when making decisions about what is most valuable to the community served and what is sustainable over the long term. For example:

• Which programs have the most impact in terms of number of people served and service outcomes?
• What is the cost to provide each program?
• What does our constituency think about the program?
• Are there ways to achieve efficiencies to maintain a high-quality program at a lower cost?
• What are the program’s indirect human resource costs?

Prepare to Make Trade-Offs – While every program we consider will likely add some value to our community, trying to do everything can lead to the organization being spread too thin. This may lead to a decline in quality of existing programs, as well as a lack of adequate financial resources to achieve the mission. Using analyses, we consider which programs offer the highest community impact at an acceptable cost. There are many aspects to consider—impact, quality, human resources, dollars. We look at each program separately as well as at the whole organization.

Constantly Evaluate in Order to Improve – There are always ways to improve – even with extremely successful programs. Keeping this top of mind is critical to grow programs, offer the highest quality experience, and continue to adapt to a constantly changing environment.

After every program, we celebrate the wins and discuss what could have gone better. In addition to internal evaluation by management, we survey patrons for their feedback. We maintain high organizational standards and constantly look to raise the bar. Keeping accurate records of after-event analyses creates a more reliable institutional memory and provides the data for identifying trends, which lead to further changes that improve programs and services.

Value the Experience – Successful arts organizations offer exceptional experiences to their patrons – consistently. We always consider the patron experience from beginning to end. Patrons provide answers to critical questions: Were you welcomed to the event? Did you express concerns? If so, were they addressed? Was the experience high quality? Did it meet your needs and expectations? Considering the entire experience from the patron’s point of view and making adjustments helps us provide the best possible experience to our community.

Be Fiscally Responsible – We rely on charitable contributions to carry out our mission. We consistently show solid financial management and have gained the confidence of our donor base. We understand that while donors need an affinity for our mission, they are more likely to give to a well-managed organization. Donors have confidence that we employ solid financial and organizational management practices.

Indian Hill Music now serves over 1,400 students compared to 1,050 in FY15. We will continue to offer the most comprehensive music education in the region and provide students with free masterclasses, workshops, lectures, recitals, performance opportunities, and free or discounted attendance to many of our concerts. Private lessons will remain the core of our student base, while strongly emphasizing group learning opportunities, which our new space makes us uniquely positioned to offer at a robust level. Our large, acoustically treated spaces will be a major differentiation point for our school in a competitive sense.

Since closing our Littleton headquarters in mid-March due to the pandemic, our school faculty have pivoted to remote private lessons and 92% of our students continued their lessons in this new format. In addition, we are offering early childhood classes, weekly family singalongs, ukulele clubs for adults, and group piano, as well as a virtual Performathon scholarship fundraiser, Voice Soiree, and student recitals.

Currently, we present 36 professional concerts (6,313 tickets) compared with 15 (4,518 tickets) in FY15. Our new building will allow us to increase the number and kinds of concerts substantially. The main performance spaces will be the 1,000-seat concert hall (with access to lawn seating for an additional 1,300), 300-seat hall, a large multi-purpose room, 75- seat recital room. We will feature artists in many genres: classical, Pops, jazz, folk, bluegrass, world, country, rock, and more. We will present prominent artists due to the larger capacity of our halls and, with advanced technology and a larger stage, we can greatly expand repertoire. How the pandemic will impact these plans in the long term is unknown. In the short term, we are revamping summer and fall programs and planning virtual performance events as we expect live concerts will not take place for many months.

In outreach, we plan to continue our free Bach’s Lunch Concerts for senior citizens. While seniors are currently unable to leave their facilities, we are exploring offering video performances by our most popular performers to the facilities to show their residents. Likewise, until our Threshold Singers (hospice bedside singers) are permitted to resume live sings, we will be offering FaceTime sings and recordings of our repertoire to provide the comforting presence of our music to these vulnerable populations. As funding and school schedules and protocols (due to pandemic changes) allow, we hope to expand our work in the Fitchburg, Lawrence, Clinton and Ayer Shirley school districts.