Lotus documents festival with playbook
Documentation supports mission
Problem
A nonprofit dedicated to bringing world music and arts to southern Indiana needed to document processes for planning and executing its annual festival.
Solution
Organize all tasks and related documents for the festival with a spreadsheet that could feed into the organization’s project management tool and be easily updated each year. Create overview documents for marketing and volunteer coordination and a template for documenting the roles and responsibilities of volunteer committees.
Backstory
The Lotus Education and Arts Foundation has been producing an annual world music festival and other programs in Bloomington, IN, for more than 30 years. Staff, interns, and volunteer committees are the backbone of the festival; they plan, prepare, and lead the execution of the four-day event. During the festival, volunteers support such activities as setup and teardown, artist hospitality and transportation, ticket sales, traffic and crowd control, and merchandise.
Lotus had a master spreadsheet listing most of the tasks related to the festival, example files used for previous festivals, and notes capturing knowledge from exiting staff. The executive director recognized the need for a master timeline for festival tasks and a better way to capture information to support volunteers and new staff. Lotus also lacked a comprehensive annual marketing plan.
What we did
Write Design Group created a roadmap for the festival. WDG started by reviewing and cataloging existing assets. WDG then reviewed the master spreadsheet with the executive director, adding notes and identifying gaps. WDG also interviewed the marketing specialist to learn more about the processes and tasks involved in promoting the festival.
We created:
Master timeline of 167 tasks, which exports dates, assignments, notes, and links to related documents to a project management tool
Marketing plan
Volunteer documentation
Streets Committee documentation
Template for other committees to document their responsibilities
Conclusion
The new documentation supports the organization’s mission by improving efficiency and consistency and facilitating the capture and transfer of knowledge year to year. The comprehensive marketing plan should help with promotions and volunteer recruitment.