Washington Performing Arts creates personas for every production to build genuine empathy with diverse audiences. Their practical approach shows how to treat stakeholders as people, not transactions.
Every mission-driven communicator faces this tension: your organization serves diverse stakeholder groups, but you have limited time and budget to reach them all. How do you create meaningful connections without diluting your message or exhausting your team?
For Washington Performing Arts, this challenge is a daily reality. The nonprofit organization presents around 50 performances annually to audiences fragmented by musical taste, geography, and economic means — all while operating without their own venue. Their systematic approach to this challenge reveals the value of building audience empathy into our work.
This article continues a series of comms analyses examining how mission-driven organizations tackle communications challenges. This piece draws from an interview with Lauren Beyea, Washington Performing Arts’ Director of Marketing, Communications and Creative Media, which explored, among other topics, how her team uses audience personas as a practical tool for targeted outreach.
“Everybody in, nobody out”
Washington Performing Arts launched in 1966 when founder Patrick Hayes converted his for-profit performing arts organization into a nonprofit, with the vision of turning Washington, DC into an arts capital. He started small, offering a chamber music series with piano performances and informal “coffee conversations” at events, which gave them a sense of what people are looking for with arts experiences.
His core philosophy, “everybody in, nobody out,” emphasized that multiple voices make any organization stronger. He wanted all people to have access to the arts.
Now reaching their 60th anniversary, that principle of radical inclusiveness remains central. Washington Performing Arts presents everything from international orchestras and renowned artists like Yo-Yo Ma to local artist development and extensive free education programs in DC public schools. Without their own venue, they operate throughout the greater Washington region. Their tagline captures it well: “The city is our stage.”
But upholding Hayes’ philosophy of “everybody in, nobody out” while serving highly diverse audiences across different venues presents a persistent communications challenge. How do you reach Indian classical music lovers, jazz enthusiasts, classical symphony devotees, and everything in between — while making events accessible to people from all walks of life and economic means?
The visibility challenge
Washington Performing Arts’ small communications team faces another challenge that many mission-driven organizations will recognize: securing brand recognition and loyalty.
Operating across 20+ venues means constant negotiation — some are pure rentals, others co-presentations with shared marketing, while some involve full partnerships. Each arrangement affects ticketing control, what materials they can distribute, and how much audiences even recognize they’re attending a Washington Performing Arts event.
“So many of our patrons often don’t know that we are the presenter,” Lauren explains. Many think they’re going to a Kennedy Center or Strathmore Music Center event, not a Washington Performing Arts production. This identity confusion makes building organizational loyalty difficult.
Add to this the range of artists they work with: some arrive with full publicity machines, others are emerging local talents who need everything built from scratch. It’s a complex communications environment that demands strategic focus.
People as people, not transactions
Washington Performing Arts’ communications solution centers on a deceptively simple principle: “Thinking about people as people and not just a person who bought a ticket.”
For Lauren’s team, this philosophy translates into a concrete practice: they create audience personas for every concert. They don’t use generic profiles that are reused across seasons, but specific personas tailored to each event’s unique characteristics.
“We’re really thinking about their holistic journey,” Lauren explains. “What’s their occupation, where do they live? What about this particular event will appeal to them? That could be anything from the style of music, the artist performing, the free parking at Strathmore, any sort of thing — date night idea, or a great opportunity to introduce children to live music.”
Their personas blend real people and hypothetical profiles. Sometimes they’re based on past buying behaviors. Sometimes they’re people from the team’s own networks who would genuinely be interested. The key is keeping actual humans in mind rather than abstract demographics.
Lauren emphasizes that “Everything we do is intentional to make sure that we’re thinking about these people who are coming to our concerts as actual people with lives outside of us and how this is enhancing their life.”
Personas in practice
Washington Performing Arts’ persona process avoids rigid templates in favor of emotional intelligence. When USAID was dismantled, the team’s personas included people who lost their jobs, so were looking for free activities and community stress relief. When Washington Performing Arts decided to pause presenting at The Kennedy Center last year, their personas reflected people wondering where to find them in the community.
After developing initial personas, Lauren meets with her digital strategy leads to identify gaps: “Who else is missing from this mix potentially for this concert or event, and where else should we be thinking about doing some additional outreach?”
This iterative refinement ensures they’re not overlooking potential audience segments while maintaining focus on the most relevant groups for each event.
These personas inform everything: video production choices, social media content, email segmentation, partnership strategies with restaurants and community organizations, even venue selection. For instance, they know Northern Virginia residents rarely travel to Strathmore in Montgomery County unless it’s a major artist, so they adjust their targeting accordingly.
Lessons for mission-driven communicators
The Washington Performing Arts approach offers several takeaways for organizations serving diverse stakeholders:
Personas work for nonprofits, not just startups. While for-profit companies face market pressure to understand buyers, nonprofits often assume personas are too resource-intensive. Washington Performing Arts demonstrates that even small teams can build this discipline into their workflow.
Make it systematic, not occasional. Creating personas once during a website redesign won’t transform your communications. Personas should be revisited, reconsidered, and recreated as needed over time. Washington Performing Arts’ every-concert approach, while labor-intensive, ensures audience empathy becomes embedded in their culture rather than a one-time exercise.
Adapt to context, not templates. The most effective personas respond to current realities — economic conditions, location changes, community needs. The people we seek to reach experience regular change in their lives. Our communications should empathize with the present needs of our audience members.
Remember the fundamental question: As Lauren’s approach illustrates, effective mission-driven communications ultimately comes down to one question: Can your audience see themselves in your story?
For organizations wrestling with diverse stakeholder groups and limited resources, Washington Performing Arts proves that systematic audience empathy isn’t a luxury — it’s a practical tool for effective communications.
Learn more about Washington Performing Arts’ programming and 60th anniversary celebrations at washingtonperformingarts.org.
Interested in how audience personas can strengthen your communications? Get in touch.