Skip to main content

Ravinia Strikes a Chord for its Nonprofit Mission with Mailchimp

How the festival uses segments and groups to increase awareness of their nonprofit mission and increase donor conversions.

A group of concert-goers sit on the lawn in front of Ravinia’s outdoor stage. The stage is lit up and surrounded by trees.
Published: August 8, 2025 – Entertainment/nonprofit – Illinois, USA
Ravinia is the longest-running outdoor music festival in North America—but what matters most is the mission behind the music.

For over 120 years, Ravinia Festival has been a powerhouse in live music, hosting world-famous musicians ranging from Yo-Yo Ma to Lady Gaga. But huge headliners aren’t what inspires Ravinia. For Ravinia, it’s the charity work that counts. The festival’s mission is to make music accessible through its nonprofit music education programs.

“The mission focus is the most important thing here,” says Drew Jaffe, Integrated Marketing Manager. “Everything that Ravinia does, from fundraising to selling tickets, supports our music education programs."

While Ravinia’s outdoor venue and Summer Concert Series are renowned, its impact on music education isn’t as well-known. To spread the good word, Ravinia uses email marketing to connect with its subscriber base of over 600,000, converting concertgoers into supporters and amplifying the impact of its nonprofit work.

“Mailchimp is our most direct connection to our audience, making it a crucial part of our marketing strategy."

- Drew Jaffe, Integrated Marketing Manager, Ravinia

Growing an audience for a good cause

When your nonprofit shares a newsletter with headliners like John Legend and Bob Dylan, it’s easy to get overshadowed. Ravinia’s main challenge is educating and growing its audience of donors and concertgoers to fund the mission. 

That's where Mailchimp comes in, helping Ravinia communicate the mission to its subscriber base with the goal of converting donors. 

“For our purposes, Mailchimp is the best tool for the job." says Drew. "For what we're doing here at Ravinia, there's no better platform for reaching the right audience with relevant content."

The festival’s email marketing strategy is equal parts smart targeting and consistent storytelling backed by features like popup forms, marketing automation flows, and integrations.

How Ravinia steals the show with popup forms

The festival is running a multiyear Setting the Stages campaign to help renovate its 36-acre campus. The $75 million initiative will touch all of Ravinia’s venues and set the stage for its iconic 125th anniversary in 2029.

To build buzz and turn visitors into subscribers, Ravinia launched a 6-week giveaway using Mailchimp’s popup forms*. The prize was an irresistable Lawn Party, including 10 general admission Lawn tickets to a concert of choice, with a catered setup.

“I'm a big fan [of Mailchimp’s popup forms],” says Drew. “They’re very easy to set up, and the data they provide is helpful.” 

And in just 6 weeks, Ravinia managed to generate nearly 9,000 new leads—surpassing standard popup benchmarks. By offering an experience-based giveaway, Ravinia went beyond the usual opt-in. The popups didn’t just boost subscriber numbers, they laid the groundwork for personalized marketing automation flows* that introduced new fans to its donorship programs. 

The giveaway helped Ravinia to: 

  • Grow its subscriber list
  • Hype up the 2025 concert season
  • Create shareable excitement with a reward
  • Spread the word about its nonprofit music programming 
  • Gather 8,912 total new leads captured through popup forms to support donor efforts and festival renovations
Mailchimp’s popup form builder interface is shown, divided into two sections. On the left, a form preview displays on both mobile and desktop screens, promoting a limited-time 10% discount. On the right, customization options include typography and color palettes for form design.

Example of Mailchimp's popup form builder interface. This is a generic representation and not specific to any client.

The popup form strategy 

The 6-week homepage entrance popup was automatically triggered after a predetermined duration once site visitors landed on the homepage. The fullscreen popup paired bold visuals with cohesive typography and a clean layout. It stayed true to Ravinia’s brand while creating a seamless, high-impact moment that motivated visitors to engage. 

The homepage entrance popup saw: 

  • 84,746 views
  • 6,053 email signups
  • 7.14% conversion rate

The giveaway campaign was a key driver in year-over-year subscriber growth, which saw an 11.4% increase from the previous year. Thoughtful placement and a strong value proposition helped Ravinia surpass industry average popup metrics, the homepage button’s conversion rate was 1.5 times higher than industry benchmarks*. 

“[Mailchimp popup forms are] really easy to control,” says Drew. “Sometimes we wanted them to show up on certain pages and not other pages, we had no problems on that front."

Seamless syncing lets Ravinia automate its audience management at scale

New subscribers can opt-in to Ravinia’s list through campaigns or when they buy concert tickets. Ravinia uses Tray.ai to connect AudienceView with Mailchimp, which automatically imports rich customer data, like who’s interested in what genre, and who’s a potential donor.

“There’s nothing more important to our list management on a daily basis than that upload that happens every night,” says Drew. “It’s pulling everything we need to know about our customers, then pushing that data into Mailchimp every evening.”

The nightly sync powers dynamic segmentation, making sure Ravinia’s audience stays organized through Mailchimp’s groups and tags.

“One of the things that makes Mailchimp the strongest platform is the amount you're able to customize how you handle your audiences,” says Drew. “Mailchimp’s ability to easily segment audiences and keep those segmented audiences up to date is one of the things that keeps our list so strong.”

Converting concertgoers into donors with marketing automation flows

Ravinia uses Mailchimp’s marketing automation flows to educate its audience about the impact of its nonprofit programs and the benefits donors receive.

“We have an automation set up that pulls concert attendees who are not donors, and sends them a series of emails with information about our nonprofit work and the benefits of becoming a donor,” says Drew. “This all happens in Mailchimp and supports our mission.”

Drew’s marketing strategy guides people through Ravinia’s philanthropic work, from Reach Teach Play®, the Steans Institute, to the Breaking Barriers festival. It also outlines other benefits—like season passes—that come with being a donor. The thought process is simple but effective: The more people understand the mission, the more likely they are to give back.

Looking ahead, Ravinia plans to deepen this approach by reaching new audiences, growing awareness of the benefits of donorship, and showing how people can support the mission outside of shows. The future forecast is one of a strong, segmented community within Mailchimp. 

“Mailchimp has been and will continue to be key on all of those fronts,” says Drew.

Ready to capture leads and grow your audience?

*Thanks for reading our customer stories. We hope they give you the insights and inspiration needed to take your marketing to the next level.

That being said, we have to tell you that:

  1. The views, information, or opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the individuals involved and do not represent those of Intuit Mailchimp or any of its cornerstone brands or employees.
  2. Features and functionality vary by plan.
  3. Popup forms (beta) are available to Mailchimp marketing plan users (on web browsers only) at no additional cost at this time.
  4. Customer Journey Builder (CJB) was rebranded to Marketing Automation Flows (MAF) effective as of June 10, 2025. Any references to “Automation Flows” refers to the same features previously available under CJB. Rest assured that the functionality and features you have come to know and rely on in CJB remain the same in MAF, which continues to be available on paid plans. Features and functionality vary by plan type. For details, view Mailchimp’s various plans and pricing
  5. Popup forms industry conversion rate benchmarks: https://wisepops.com/

Related Topics

Share This Article