#OpenForGood Profile: Nantucket Comedy Festival

The pandemic had a devastating effect on the performing arts. However, the Nantucket Comedy Festival managed to make lemons out of lemonade inby embracing the virtual world in 2020. After being forced to cancel their summer event in 2020, the team turned to the impact of video in order to bring a smile to their donors’ faces while still relaying the importance of donations to support all their other programs, including the Stand Up and Learn program which engages students in creative writing, communication, critical thinking, and team & confidence building through standup comedy techniques.

Like many successful nonprofits, their strategy included multimedia storytelling. Executive Director Kevin Flynn made use of Network for Good’s Video Acknowledgement feature to send individual thank-you messages to donors as well as include videos in his donor communications over email. Transparency and accessibility clearly made all the difference as the Festival managed to both take their Stand Up and Learn program digital and increase both their number of donors and the average gift size during a time when many arts organizations permanently closed their doors.

Going forward into reopening, Nantucket Comedy Festival welcomed back a live audience to their sold-out events this summer. Video will remain an integral part of their strategy as they continue to share both new and archival material, meet virtually as an executive team, and host programs online so that they can bring comedy and its benefits to as many viewers as possible.

You can watch Kevin’s thank-you video and read more about how Nantucket Comedy Festival is #OpenForGood in our Lookbook.