AUDIENCE STRATEGY SPRINT
Bring your audience conversations into clearer focus.
A structured audience strategy sprint for cultural organisations that need greater clarity, alignment and direction around their audience strategy.
Designed for leadership teams navigating change, planning cycles, funding bids, internal disagreement or strategic uncertainty.
Focused, practical and light-touch.
“Sarah’s facilitation is masterful.”
Director - Chatsworth House Trust
“A calm, focused, fun and highly professional energy, helping us navigate complex discussions with clarity and purpose.”
CEO - The Lighthouse
Audiences sit at the intersection of mission, participation, programming, income, reputation and growth.
Different teams often hold different assumptions. Conversations go round in circles. Priorities become difficult to agree. Time and resources get spread too thinly.
Sometimes the challenge is not a lack of audience data. It is a lack of shared understanding about what it means and what should happen next.
Audience strategy affects more than audience development.
WHY THIS MATTERS
The sprint is useful when audience questions need to be brought into the open.
WHO IT IS FOR
New leadership
A new Director or CEO needs to understand where the organisation currently stands on audiences before setting direction.
Internal disagreement
Programming, marketing, participation, commercial or board teams may be working from different assumptions about audiences and priorities.
Planning or funding cycles
Audience development needs to become clearer and more central to business planning, investment cases or funding bids.
Organisational change
A shift in programme, building, operating model or audience expectation means the organisation needs to rethink its approach.
The Audience Strategy Sprint is a focused, light-touch intervention designed to surface tensions, identify alignment and create the right strategic conversations.
The aim is not necessarily agreement on every issue. The aim is greater clarity about what matters most and where focus should go next.
It helps organisations move from circular conversations to practical, well-held decisions.
Not full consultancy.
Not a deep data dive.
Not an open-ended workshop.
A SPECIFIC PROCESS
Want to talk through whether this would help your organisation?
Sarah can help you decide whether the Sprint is the right fit for the conversations you need to have.
HOW IT WORKS
A clear three-step process.
STEP 1
Opening up the conversation
A one-hour briefing call establishes context, participants and desired outcomes.
A leadership survey then helps understand how audiences are currently viewed across the organisation, identifying alignment, uncertainty, strategic tension and emerging opportunities.
STEP 2
Clarity on direction of travel
A concise, jargon-free Position & Priorities Paper summarises themes from the survey, areas of agreement and divergence, strategic tensions and audience priorities for discussion.
A facilitated half-day workshop then explores assumptions, unresolved tensions and future direction.
STEP 3
Establishing a clearer future
After the workshop, your organisation receives clear recommendations, including agreed priorities, strategic principles, immediate actions and suggested areas for future work or research.
Clarity, priorities and practical next steps.
WHAT YOU LEAVE WITH
Greater clarity around audience priorities, including areas of alignment and disagreement.
A stronger foundation for future planning, funding bids or strategy development.
Constructive leadership discussion in a calm, well-supported environment.
Immediate actions and recommendations for further work.
Sarah Chambers is an audience strategy specialist with more than 23 years’ experience working with national cultural organisations.
Her work focuses on helping organisations navigate complex audience conversations with clarity, care and practical focus.
Sarah has facilitated strategic discussions across board away days, leadership planning sessions, staff engagement, volunteer roadshows and audience-centred strategy work.
Clients often describe Sarah as a calm facilitator, critical friend and trusted advisor who can hold difficult discussions with sensitivity and purpose.
A trusted advisor for complex audience conversations.
ABOUT SARAH
PRACTICAL DETAILS
Designed to be focused and manageable.
The Sprint includes:
Leadership survey
Position & Priorities Paper
Facilitated leadership workshop
Recommended next steps
Timing and cost
The sprint can usually run across 4 to 5 weeks, depending on diaries and scheduling.
£2,400
Interested in exploring whether the sprint is right for your organisation?
START THE CONVERSATION
Email Sarah to arrange an initial conversation about your context, priorities and whether this light-touch process is the right fit.