I, Rachel Dukeman, founded R&R Creative in 2007 during an economic downturn in an effort to broaden arts and cultural audiences through effective market research, audience engagement, and marketing services on a contract-by-contract basis. The pressure to maintain programmatic quality during the Recession forced nonprofits to hone their entrepreneurial skills and ability to manage projects according to priority, viability and strategic direction in a high velocity climate. More succinctly, they were forced to do more with less, being held accountable for the “success” of each program. In response, R&R Creative further developed tools to make planning easy to implement and metrics to track progress towards set goals.

The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance’s 2014 Portfolio noted a distinct set of organizations that not only recovered from the recession faster than the sector as a whole… they grew. These “Growth” organizations: spend more on marketing and fundraising, rely more on paid attendance and hire independent contractors. Proving to R&R Creative that our approach to helping the cultural nonprofit sector was a step in the right direction.

It is the current goal of R&R Creative to impact on the arts and culture sector in the best way possible: by improving policy and management strategy.

  • Dukeman, Rachel. “Three Recession Results That Can Benefit NonProfits.” Philadelphia Social Innovations Journal. May 2012. Link.
  • Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance. “2014 Portfolio.” 2014. Link.