What Nonprofits & CFs can learn from Taylor Swift's audience strategy

When Taylor Swift announced the Eras Tour, our digital director Jo was determined to get tickets. And by determined, I mean the entire BowerComm office somehow became emotionally invested in the Ticketmaster lottery process. There were updates, strategy discussions, moments of despair, renewed hope and probably more workplace conversation than should reasonably happen over concert tickets.

And somehow, Jo ended up getting tickets to back-to-back nights in Kansas City. (The same weekend Travis Kelce first came on the scene.)

So yes, we were fully locked in.

Since then, the Eras Tour has become part of our office culture. It’s usually playing on the office living room TV on Friday afternoons while we wrap up work.

This week, I finally watched the 6-part documentary about the tour. What struck me was that Taylor did not design the Eras Tour as a tribute to herself. She designed it as a gift to her fans.

This included the way the concert moved through each era as a distinct world, with its own sound, color, mood, costumes and memories attached to it. The surprise songs changed every night so fans could speculate for months ahead of time. The tiny visual callbacks only longtime fans would fully appreciate. The “22” hat. The old Taylor versions trapped in glass boxes during “Look What You Made Me Do.” The friendship bracelets. Even the pacing of the concert itself.

The entire experience was built around what the audience would recognize, anticipate, talk about and emotionally connect to.

And honestly, I think that is where many organizations struggle in their communications.

Most organizations communicate from the inside out with a constant stream of “we, we, we.” Here’s our initiative. Here’s the update. Here’s the thing we need people to know.

But when you frame it as, “How do I engage an audience on their terms?” rather than “What’s the recap of our event?” you produce a completely different piece of communication.

People are busy. Distracted. Skimming emails between ballgames. Deciding in seconds whether something feels relevant enough to pay attention to. They are not emotionally attached to your internal structure, your strategic priorities or the wording of your latest announcement.

The organizations that connect best understand this. They think carefully about what the audience will experience before they think about what they want to say.

Years ago, when we helped our local Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Center rebrand to BrightHouse, we knew we did not want the name reveal to feel like a typical nonprofit launch event. So instead of centering on the organization, we centered on the audience experience.

The executive director had recently read about a gallery exhibit of outfits that victims of assault had been wearing at the time of the incident.

So for the brand launch, we extended this idea into a “What Were You Wearing?” runway event at our local art center. Survivor stories were read while models walked the runway in ordinary clothing: sweatpants, cheerleading uniforms, work clothes and children’s clothes.

My daughter walked the runway representing the story of a 6-year-old victim.

I still remember the silence and tears in the room when she walked out.

People were not thinking about logos or taglines that night. They were thinking about the stories. About assumptions. About people they knew. About the reality behind the organization’s work.

That experience changed how people understood the organization long before they ever processed the new name.

Experiences like that do not happen by accident. They happen when organizations stop thinking only about what they want to announce and start thinking about what another human being will actually feel.

That shift sounds simple, but it is the difference between remembering the message forever or forgetting it five minutes later.

That’s part of what we’ll be talking about during our June 11 webinar for grantmakers: Rethinking Communications Capacity Building for Nonprofits.

Because the organizations people remember are rarely the ones communicating the most.

They are usually the ones designing experiences people can actually feel part of.

Lori