“It’s good to see that the spirit of

independent thought and publishing

is still alive and well in the UK. In an
arena that is increasingly driven by
huge advances, marketing and fresh
faces, many have been predicting
that fall of…small presses”
Courttia Newland,
Writer and Contributor of forward for thirst 6

Audiences Yorkshire
Mission Models Money exemplar case study
The Mission Models Money exemplar case studies

The largest strand of MMM’s third phase has been a relationship with seven diverse arts and
cultural organisations, all of whom have been exemplars of radical change and new working
practice. Each in very different ways have seized the opportunity to respond to change and
complexity in their contemporary operating environment by refocusing and/or refreshing their
missions, exploring how they might develop their business model and reconsidering how they
might strengthen their financial capacity. These case studies explore each exemplar’s journey
during their year-long involvement with MMM from Spring 2006 to Spring 2007.

Audiences Yorkshire and the other exemplar projects are involved in activities that will continue
to develop well past their involvement with MMM. In working with the exemplars, MMM did not
set out to monitor and evaluate the projects in a restrictive fashion. Instead, a support structure
and evaluation methodology was developed that framed them as colleagues on the front-line,
laboratories for learning and for testing new ideas. With these principles in mind, each exemplar
enjoyed a range of interactions with MMM which included on an individual level – interviews,
bespoke support, and access to the wider MMM programme and on a collective level –
participation in the exemplar learning community developed through a series of checkpoint
meetings and advocacy events.

MMM has used its seven principal issues to form the basis of its enquiries across all its activities
in each of its seven programme strands (see www.missionmodelsmoney.org.uk for full details).
The two which are most addressed by this case study are:

• Developing new markets, building engagement and participation

• Developing strategic alliances

A thirst yet to be satisfied

In this exemplar case study, MMM follows the story of Audiences Yorkshire as it looks to develop
and grow thirst, its marketing and audience development campaign which looks to connect
readers with independently published literature. In a market where it is difficult for independent
publishers to get equal access to the large high street booksellers and in turn, readers, thirst
endeavoured to create a new route to market for this quality work that did not rely upon shelf
space in a bookstore. Instead thirst set out to create a direct relationship with readers interested
in independent literature, and introduce them to new publishers and authors working in the
literature sector.

Audiences Yorkshire: MMM exemplar case study 2

The structure of this case study

This MMM exemplar case study uses two frameworks to tell Audiences Yorkshire’s story: the
classic mythical story structure of the hero’s journey and the three M’s.

The hero’s journey

The hero’s journey is a phrase based upon ideas from the comparative mythologist Joseph
Campbell. It is a metaphor for transformation. Taking the models outlined in Campbell’s Hero
with a Thousand Faces (1946) as the archetype, the basic cycle of transformation is represented
as:

The call to action The trials Wise advisors The prizes The return

From the initial call to action that embarks us on the journey of the project to the return to our
communities at the completion of the MMM process, this is a familiar yet effective narrative
structure that provides a powerful container for the exemplar’s stories. It should however
always be remembered that these are rarely linear journeys but are instead cycles of experience
and of learning

MMM: the iron triangle

As explained in Linking Mission and Money: an introduction

Mission to non-profit capitalization, (Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF)
2001), all not for profit, and especially those going through
any major change project require a balance between
mission/programmes, models/organisational capacity and
money/financial capacity.

The NFF terms this interdependent relationship “the iron

triangle” where any change in one of those three elements
inevitably has an impact on the other two.
Models Money
Recognising how essential this holistic approach is to the
sustainability of not for profit arts & cultural organisations
in today’s ever changing environment, the MMM took the
inspiration for its name from this triangle.

The terms mission, models and money will be used throughout this case study to illustrate how
attention to each and the interdependence of all three will enable holistic development of
organisational and financial sustainability.

Mission: the non-negotiable core purpose of your organisation

Models: your legal structure, business model and organisational capacity

Money: your financial capacity – your assets: cash, working capital, reserves, debtors,
fixed assets and your liabilities: short and long term debt

Audiences Yorkshire: MMM exemplar case study 3

What you should know about Audiences Yorkshire and thirst before reading on…

• Audiences Yorkshire is the strategic regional agency responsible for supporting the
cultural sector in developing audiences for arts and cultural activity in the Yorkshire and
Humber region.

• Audiences Yorkshire’s mission is to work collaboratively with the cultural sector to grow
and nurture audiences.

• While predominantly a membership organisation, Audiences Yorkshire works with a

variety of organisations from across the wider cultural sector.

• Audiences Yorkshire’s Chief Executive is Alison Edbury and the Marketing and
Campaigns Manager responsible for thirst is Anna Dunne.

• thirst, the independent thinkers’ book club, was launched in 2003 and has had six
previous editions.

• thirst is one of three campaigns currently being managed by Audiences Yorkshire.

• 17 independent publishers from across the North have been featured in the six editions to
date.

www.audiencesyorkshire.org.uk

www.missionmodelsmoney.org.uk

Audiences Yorkshire: MMM exemplar case study 4

 A Taste of Liquorice, published by Dogeater and profiled in thirst 6

The call to action

.
The call to action The trials Wise advisors The prizes The return

What is it that makes us want to embark on our journeys of change and of transformation? Are
we forced to by circumstance, invited by those around us or do we just have a feeling that
evolution and innovation is the only road possible to take?

CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION GO HAND IN HAND, BUT WE NEED TO BE INNOVATIVE

ORGANISATIONALLY AS WELL AS ARTISTICALLY. THE CHALLENGES WE FACE AS
ORGANISATIONS CONTINUALLY CHANGE, SO OUR RESPONSE NEEDS TO CHANGE AS
WELL. BY MOVING FROM BEING AUDIENCE-BASED TO AUDIENCE FOCUSED, CULTURAL
ORGANISATIONS GIVE THEMSELVES THE BEST CHANCE OF FUTURE SUCCESS

Alison Edbury, CEO, Audiences Yorkshire

thirst, the independent thinkers’ book club, was established in 2003 as a campaign to support
the independent publishing sector in Yorkshire. Today’s commercial publishing sector is evolving
to the point where large booksellers like Waterstones and Borders are as dominant as Tesco and
Sainsbury’s are in food retail. Therefore the small, independent producers of literature
throughout the country are experiencing greater difficulty in getting a significant profile for their
work, which can often be more diverse and original than work that commercially published.

Audiences Yorkshire: MMM exemplar case study 5

Launched as a direct mail marketing campaign championing independently published work in
Yorkshire, for the sixth edition of thirst, the remit spread to the whole of the North of England
with the specific theme of supporting Black and Asian authors.

While Audiences Yorkshire as an organisation works across all areas of the arts and cultural
sector, their involvement with MMM presented them with the opportunity to continue to support
the independent literature sector by re-evaluating the model of thirst and use their expertise to
grow it to a national scope. They recognised that the scale at which previous issues of thirst had
been operating, limited its potential and identified that if thirst could expand to encompass
literature ‘products’ from a national field it would enable increased access to a bigger market for
independent publishers. Ultimately, this national direction could enhance sales volumes, allow
more sophisticated segmentation and communication to the target market and in turn lead to
greater independence and commercial sustainability for thirst, and its suppliers.

The trials

The call to action The trials Wise advisors The prizes The return

In this project, Audiences Yorkshire faced major challenges with its key stakeholders. As with all
elements of this case study, each of these challenges are not presented merely as a one-way
story. Instead they should be read as a dialogue, or even as an interview.

Have you encountered similar situations in your work and what was your response? What can
you learn from Audiences Yorkshire’s experience so that you are better equipped both as an
individual and as part of whatever network or organisation you find yourself in? How would you
overcome such challenges? What are your trials?

Succession planning for sponsors. Shortly after the delivery of the last edition of thirst, the
champion for thirst from within Arts Council England (ACE), Yorkshire, left to become a fellow on
the Clore Leadership Programme. At the time, this was considered inconvenient but an issue
that could be readily mitigated through the development of new relationships within Arts Council
England, Yorkshire. However, what transpired was that without this key driver, it led to
uncertainty about the direction of this project within ACE and whether it was an initiative they
wanted to support at a regional or national level.

Defining the project. When projects are re-evaluated as to their success and there is an
opportunity to update and grow the business model, there is the corresponding challenge to
ensure that the boundaries of the project are clearly identified. In this development of thirst, the
ability to redesign the project allowed for the opening up of many variables. Upon engaging with
the senior stakeholders, the intention to allow them input into these key decisions was beneficial
in the sense it allowed for good expertise from outside of Audiences Yorkshire’s core
competencies into the process. The disadvantage however was that the lack of decision-making
led to significant delays in progress.

Audiences Yorkshire: MMM exemplar case study 6

Assuming control in a complex stakeholder environment. With the benefits of drawing
together key stakeholders to feed into the development of the project also came a variety of
challenges. Some of the questions that need to be addressed when entering into such a complex
stakeholder environment include:

- Who owns your projects, you or your major funders?

- Are the terms of engagement clear?
- Are roles and responsibilities clearly defined from the start?
- Is there a shared responsibility to see the project succeed, whatever the cost?

With a clarity and agreement on these elements some of the ‘unknown’ challenges that arise on
any project can perhaps be mitigated and new solutions considered before the challenges create
a block to the success of the project.

Structures within the sector. As with any sector there are structures and procedures that
need to be taken into account. However, strong consideration needs to be given to these
existing structures and the impact they can have on areas of the project, such as funding or
timescales. What contingency/alternative approach do you have if these begin to impede the
vision of success?
Wise advisors

.
The call to action The trials Wise advisors The prizes The return

In the course of the journey of innovation, there are often many people that guide us through
our times of trouble and on our way. Sometimes they are not people but incidents, episodes
that teach us and inform our practice.

The commitment curve. Part of the benefit Accenture were able to add to the exemplar
process was through sharing simple tools and techniques which could be readily applied. One
such case of this was the information concerning stakeholder management and in particular the
use of the commitment curve to help organisations employ greater reflection to what level of
commitment each stakeholder group is currently at and where you wish them to end up. This
proved to be not only useful for thirst but the thinking has also been applied across the
organisation. More information can be found in the MMM Stakeholder Engagement toolkit.

Arts & Business skills share. With the confirmation of being an exemplar on MMM3 came the
opportunity to access the Skills Bank programme developed by Arts and Business. This
programme carefully matches middle to senior business managers to employees from arts
organisations in order to work together on specific time-limited projects, sharing their
professional skills in order to achieve clearly defined objectives.

Audiences Yorkshire secured the support of Jacqui Bateson, Product Development and
Information Manager, from Skipton Building Society to work with Oliver Mantell, the
Development Co-ordinator working on the thirst Project Team. Jacqui provided focused support
on market planning and analysis relating to the thirst business case looking at how Audiences
Yorkshire could achieve financial sustainability of thirst, as well continue to meet the needs of
independent publishers and consumers. This programme of work not only fed into the
development of the thirst model but also impacted on the individual’s personal development and
cascaded learning across other development projects.

Audiences Yorkshire: MMM exemplar case study 7

Internal advisors. Throughout the project there was a number of key staff from Audiences
Yorkshire involved in its development. This included project direction and advice from the CEO,
Alison Edbury as well as financial support on pricing models and budgets from the Finance
Manager, Will Menzies. This cross-departmental working gave the Project Manager support in
driving the project forward and showed high levels of commitment to the successful development
of this project from within the organisation.

Representation from the independent publishing sector. As part of the development of the
model of thirst Audiences Yorkshire invited Ian Daley from Route Publishing, based in Yorkshire,
to feed into the discussion and represent the needs of the publishing sector in this early phase of
scoping. Ian’s publishing house had been previously featured in thirst and therefore he brought
an understanding of the product, as well as an objective viewpoint about the changing needs of
the sector and the consumer.

The prizes

The call to action The trials Wise advisors The prizes The return

While all these exemplar journeys will not be completed during their involvement with MMM,
there are many prizes which have been collected so far.

Development of the thirst model will continue outside the time confines of MMM3, however a
number of successes, some unseen at the beginning of this process, have been achieved:

Questioning business as usual. The investment from MMM gave Audiences Yorkshire the
chance to reflect on and challenge the existing model of thirst. For some time there had been
discussion about how they could enhance the model to further support the sector and connect
more directly with the audience i.e. readers. By stepping back from delivery to analyse the
project in more depth this opened up a number of variables. Some of these variables remain to
be solved but the process has provided ‘space’ to explore a variety of options and extensively
question the existing thirst business model and how we finance, project manage and plan for the
future direction of our products and services.

Making thirst a national conversation. By having the opportunity to involve the regional ACE
at an early stage in this questioning of the existing model and project it enabled Audiences
Yorkshire to support the regional office in moving the discussion about thirst to a national level
within their organisation.

Involvement of the independent literature sector. Through in-depth conversations with

sector experts throughout the process it deepened and increased understanding within the thirst
project team of the current issues facing the sector in engaging readers.

Greater coalition regarding the future of independent literature. By re-examining thirst

and the issues facing the independent literature sector it has brought together a greater coalition
between a core group that gives it the potential to become a catalytic force in championing the
needs of the independent literature sector.

Audiences Yorkshire: MMM exemplar case study 8

Understanding the importance of a clarity of vision/direction in a complex stakeholder
environment. The process of involving and consulting with a variety of stakeholders was
essential to the development of thirst and gave an important insight but what became apparent
was the importance of defining roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder at the outset to
ensure the success of this project.

Horizon thinking. For Audiences Yorkshire the first horizon of re-modelling and re-launching
thirst continues. However, the ‘prize’ that was unseen at the beginning of this process is about
how Audiences Yorkshire moved to a second horizon thinking that was interlinked but
independent from thirst. This second horizon for Audiences Yorkshire is about organisational
development.

Through the shared learnings from the Exemplar projects as well as the input from advisors
working on MMM, such as Graham Leicester from International Futures Forum, Audiences
Yorkshire has folded in MMM3 principals and models of working to the organisation that in turn
has had a wider impact on staff development and models of delivery. This has enabled
Audiences Yorkshire to re-evaluate what has been successful about being part of MMM3 and
recognise its longer-term impact on the organisation.

The return

.
The call to action The trials Wise advisors The prizes The return

Now that Audiences Yorkshire have arrived at end of their time with MMM, what have been the
benefits, effects and inspirations of their involvement?

The MMM process. As mentioned above the benefits and effects from being involved in MMM
for Audiences Yorkshire extend beyond the impact on the development of thirst.

Transference of learning. The process has enabled a variety of effects to be seen throughout
the organisation. It has provided thinking that can be used across all projects, not just thirst.
The transference of the models and practices provided as part of MMM can be utilised in other
projects, products and services throughout the organisation.

The ‘critical friend’. The ability to engage with MMM project leaders as ‘critical friends’ and
objective observers to the project has been invaluable in gaining support and advice on
challenges and issues arising.

The opportunity for Audiences Yorkshire’s CEO Alison Edbury to engage with the process of
’psychological shadowing’ gave the CEO a personal insight to her management of the
organisation from impartial but deeply intuitive outside observers. This was carried out by the
International Futures Forum .

Taking the issues to the next level. Audiences Yorkshire also engaged in supporting MMM in
drawing together some final events to explore more deeply the principals of MMM3. Audiences
Yorkshire focused on the issue relating to ‘people’ and connected it with the MMM provocation
paper written by Graham Leicester, Rising to the Occasion: cultural leadership in powerful times,
and a paper written by Robert Hewison from Demos entitled Not Just a Side-show: leadership
and cultural value.

Audiences Yorkshire: MMM exemplar case study 9

This event organised by Audiences Yorkshire brought together cultural leaders from across the
arts and cultural sector to debate the issues facing cultural leaders of today and identified a real
appetite for cultural leaders to further explore these issues in more detail. This event has
enabled Audiences Yorkshire to explore the importance of Cultural Leadership to a sustainable
and creative cultural sector as well as produce a body of discussions from the day that can feed
into the wider Cultural Leadership agenda.

So the as the journey of being an MMM Exemplar comes to an end it is clear that the impact on
Audiences Yorkshire, and in turn its wider arts and cultural community, will not end here. And as
they embark on their next major project, Thrive! – watch this space to see how they continue to
evolve as an organisation.

Audiences Yorkshire: MMM exemplar case study 10

Mission, Models and Money

Now that we have come to the end of Audiences Yorkshire’s story with MMM, what has been the
effect of the thirst project to date on the interdependent areas of mission, models and money?

MMM’s involvement with thirst allowed Audiences

Yorkshire to pursue the delivery of its mission by
working collaboratively to grow and nurturing
audiences, in this case, within the often neglected
independent literature sector. While the
development of the project did not proceed as
quickly as expected, the organisation has benefited
from a wealth of learning and are now in a position
to develop a stronger relation with the sector.

Mission

Models Money

The investment of MMM has given This opportunity to look in-depth at a

Audiences Yorkshire a real opportunity to
fundamentally assess one area of
product delivery. This has led to the
creation of a sustainable business model
for thirst's next 4 years of development
that aspires to a nationwide roll-out. The
business model has been submitted to
Arts Council England for consideration as
a national project.
product has given Audiences Yorkshire
the knowledge and expertise to
confidently apply commercially-minded
principles to the rest of the organisation's
products and services and was a major
contributing factor to their successful
application for Thrive! investment from
the Arts Council around organisational
development.

The award from the Arts Council

England's Thrive! programme will build on
the MMM funding by allowing Audiences
Yorkshire to develop their services to
support sustainability to complement
their core services and products.

Further resources related this story

Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell (1946)

Linking Mission and Money, Nonprofit Finance Fund (2001)
Rising to the Occasion, Graham Leicester, MMM, 2007
Not just a Sideshow, Robert Hewison, Demos, 2006
Stakeholder Engagement pack, MMM, 2006

Audiences Yorkshire: MMM exemplar case study 11