Partner Match

Premise

Helping advocacy organizations and live events create stronger, more meaningful partnerships

Across the country, advocacy organizations and performing arts communities are often working toward related goals from different directions.

Advocacy groups are building relationships, educating communities, and helping people take action. Artists, producers, venues, and presenters are creating live experiences that bring people together, open up conversation, and make room for ideas to land in a deeper way.

Partner Match helps these worlds connect more easily and work together more effectively.

We bring together advocacy organizations and live events — local and touring, across theatre, comedy, improv, music, storytelling, and more — and help shape partnerships that are thoughtful, practical, and valuable to both sides.

Because in many communities, the alignment is already there. It is just underutilized.

Why this matters

Live events create a different kind of public space.

They gather people in person. They create shared attention. They make it easier to introduce ideas, deepen connection, and reach people who may not enter through more traditional civic or organizational channels.¹²

Advocacy organizations have knowledge, relationships, and community infrastructure. Arts groups have audiences, creative practice, and the ability to make experiences that people want to show up for and remember.

When those strengths come together well, the awareness and dialogue of a performance can be progressed toward capacity building and action.

Organizations can expand how they connect with people. Arts groups can build stronger support around work that already carries social, civic, or community meaning. Communities benefit from partnerships that strengthen both cultural life and public life at the same time.¹²³

Partner Match was built to find and foster these opportunities.

What Partner Match is designed to do

Partner Match helps take the guesswork out of these collaborations.

We learn what each side is looking for, what kinds of support or partnership make sense, and where there is meaningful alignment. Then we help make introductions and support the collaboration so it has a better chance of succeeding.

That can look different depending on the match: a co-presented event, an aligned community partnership around an existing performance, support for a touring event in a local market, a venue-based collaboration, or a longer-term relationship between cultural and advocacy partners.

The goal is not to force a formula onto different kinds of work.

The goal is to help people build partnerships that feel natural, respectful, and useful — and that create value on both sides.

For advocacy organizations

Partner Match offers a way to connect with artists, producers, presenters, and venues whose work already resonates with the kinds of communities and concerns you care about.

That can mean reaching people in spaces that feel more open, welcoming, and human. It can mean building relationships with cultural leaders in your community. It can mean supporting events that already exist, rather than trying to recreate that energy from scratch.

For organizations, the benefit is not only visibility. It is stronger community presence, more authentic partnership, and better ways to engage people through cultural life. ¹²³

For artists, producers, presenters, and venues

Partner Match offers a way to connect with organizations that can add meaningful support, context, and community connection to the work you are already doing.

For some, that may mean finding issue-aligned partners for existing programming. For others, it may mean new audiences, stronger local relationships, added promotional support, or collaboration that helps deepen the impact of an event without changing what makes it artistically effective.

For arts groups and live event teams, the benefit is not just association. It is the opportunity to build relationships that respect the work as professional work, strengthen the event, and support a broader ecosystem around it.⁴

What makes a strong partnership

The best partnerships are reciprocal.

They recognize that each side brings something different and important. They are built with clarity, respect, and shared benefit. They support what already exists and help it grow stronger. ³⁵

Partner Match is built around that principle.

We are here to help advocacy organizations show up well in cultural spaces, help artists and event teams find align with impact, and help both sides build partnerships that are better structured from the start.

How it works

1. Each side applies Organizations and arts applicants apply separately and share what they do, what they are looking for, and what kinds of partnerships fit their work.

2. We look for alignment We review for geography, values, audience, issue connection, event type, and partnership goals.

3. We make the introduction We facilitate a first connection with context and structure, so the conversation starts in a productive place.

4. We help shape the partnership We support both sides in building a collaboration that makes sense for them, whether that is a single event or a broader relationship.

5. We stay available as needed Especially when a partnership is new, a little support can go a long way.

Who should apply

Arts and culture applicants: Performers, comedians, musicians, theatre companies, improv and sketch groups, storytelling projects, producers, promoters, presenters, venues, and touring teams.

Organization applicants: Advocacy organizations, grassroots groups, labor organizations, civic engagement nonprofits, community groups, coalitions, and movement organizations.

If you are looking for ways to build stronger connections between cultural life and community impact, Partner Match is for you.

Apply

If you are part of an advocacy organization looking to build thoughtful partnerships with artists, venues, producers, or live events, apply.

If you are part of an arts group, event team, or venue looking for aligned organizational partners, apply.

Partner Match helps turn existing overlap into stronger collaboration, stronger events, and stronger community connection.