Strategic Plan 2018-2021

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Vision: The classical music landscape of California and the region is vibrant, healthy, diverse, and connected to the communities it serves.

Mission: The Association of California Symphony Orchestras provides essential leadership and resources to classical music advocates and organizations, encouraging and supporting their artistic, organizational, and fiscal development.

Goals and Objectives

Goal 1: Increase current and prospective members’ awareness and understanding of the value proposition of ACSO’s membership, programs and services, and advocacy for the classical music field.
  • Assess and modify as appropriate membership structure and benefits to best serve the needs of its members
  • Assess current and new programs and services, as well as how resources are utilized and deployed
  • Ensure that ACSO’s programs and services are differentiated from those of other arts service organizations
  • Create an advocacy agenda that influences legislation or policies that affect ACSO’s members and the greater classical music field in California
  • Build recognition of ACSO as an influential arts organization working to be a premiere convener and advocate of classical music in the west through clearer messaging and branding to increase membership and guarantee higher member retention and acquisition
  • Design and implement a communications strategy for ACSO’s membership and programs and ensure that ACSO’s board and staff members know and can speak about all programs and services
Goal 2: Enhance opportunities for member networking, collaboration, and professional development.
  • Prioritize ACSO’s role as a convener of its members for purposes of networking and education by developing opportunities to convene members within discrete geographic regions and create programs for trustee and professional affinity groups to interact online and/or in person
  • Assess and implement tools for online community building
  • Ensure the annual conference remains a vital resource for learning and networking
  • Engage in partnerships with other service providers to offer additional, non-duplicative networking and professional development opportunities for our members
Goal 3: Advance the stability and capacity of the association and model best practices to ensure effective governance and management.
  • Develop fundraising strategies to increase contributions, and expand the board’s participation in fundraising efforts
  • Develop strategies to increase earned income, including assessing and modifying as appropriate membership dues structures to maximize earned revenue
  • Enhance the board’s ability to advise ACSO’s membership about issues related to governance
  • Maintain a long-term investment policy while establishing strategically and programmatically aggressive annual budgets
  • Expand the staff capacity to better serve the membership and to effectively run the day-to-day operations of the association
  • Assess ACSO board’s performance and structure to move from a working board to a governance board, including committees, officer and director terms, the recruitment process, board member roles and responsibilities, and diversity of the board’s composition, to align with best practices, and identify areas for improvement
  • Affirm ACSO’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion

This plan was adopted by the ACSO Board of Directors on April 16, 2018.