Bell Shakespeare takes high-tech approach to sponsorship

The Bell Shakespeare Company is celebrated for its innovative and accessible interpretations of the Bard. Its commitment to carrying Shakespeare's work beyond the realm of traditional theatre means many months of the year are spent on the road.

Managing the company's vital income strategy is a challenging task. A small Bell Shakespeare team researches and negotiates major corporate investments, manages fundraising events and nurtures patron programs. "Funding is a constant challenge for everyone in the arts," explains Jill Berry, General Manager of The Bell Shakespeare Company. "Every year we need to raise more than $2 million from the private sector. Strategic corporate partnerships are our major income stream, so strong relationships with businesses like Fujitsu are critical to our future. In addition, we encourage private donations to support our dynamic and growing education programs that reach over 65,000 young Australians each year at a cost of $1.2 million."

Thanks to a purpose-built intranet solution designed and delivered by Fujitsu, the bulk of Bell Shakespeare's sponsorship management activities are handled online.

In the past, this massive customer relationship management task was handled through paper notes, mental memos and plenty of frantic scrambling. This approach was inefficient, laborious to manage and unable to cope with the needs of a national organisation where key staff spend much of the year travelling.

Named 'Prospero' after the wise and magical character from The Tempest, the intranet provides online access to all the core management tasks necessary to run a complex theatrical organisation. This Web-based platform has reduced administrative overheads and enabled Bell Shakespeare to adopt a more informed approach to fund-raising.

"Prospero is an invaluable tool: it is critical to fund-raising and it underpins most of the day-to-day activities involved in running Bell Shakespeare," Ms Berry said. "The Web browser interface makes it easy to use and the fact that it's Internet-based means our fund-raising team can use the intranet on the road wherever in Australia they might be."

Smart tools, smarter fund-raising

Whether they are working in the office or interstate, Bell Shakespeare staff can access Prospero to work on guest lists, update an RSVP status or add notes on corporations or individuals who offer financial support. For example, if a potential donor attends a show or offers an item for charity auction, the development team can record this interest in the customer relationship management system.

"Prospero is very powerful, because it is not just a read-only environment - staff can actually change information and update it in real time," said Ms Berry . "Previously we kept all these records in hard copy. It was very time-consuming and involved an inordinate amount of double-handling. Worst of all, information was never up-to-date, especially when one or more members of the development team was out on the road."

Staff working at the theatre company's Sydney head office access Prospero from their Apple iMac desktop systems, while half a dozen staff who travel frequently use Apple iBook laptops. Three Fujitsu consultants worked with the Bell Shakespeare administration team to design and build an enterprise-grade intranet solution. Prospero runs on a powerful Mac OS X server internally, while the company's public Web site is hosted at Fujitsu's high-capacity Internet Data Centre.

Fujitsu built Prospero as part of its longstanding sponsorship of Bell Shakespeare. Already a National Tour Partner since 1999, Fujitsu became a Major Sponsor and Technology Partner of the Bell Shakespeare Company last year under a three-year agreement.

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More information

Fujitsu supports Bell Shakespeare Company