The Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia is the oldest theatre in America. It runs a theatre school, an educational outreach touring company that reaches 40,000 schoolchildren a year, and puts on 18 shows each season, 5 of them large musicals. It has a dramatic cultural impact in the city. “We have a different motivation than a for-profit theatre,” says Rebekah Sassi, the theatre’s Director of Development. “While for-profit theatres produce wonderful shows and do have artistic considerations, if a show isn’t profitable, they won’t put it on. We [as a non-profit theatre] have a different motivation; we are an anchor for artists to live and work in the community.”

However, those valuable programs do cost a lot of money—one million dollars each year, in fact. As the Director of Development, Rebekah Sassi’s main duties consist of fundraising. She and her staff of four raise donations from individuals, foundations, corporations, and the government. Rebekah also works with and advises the theatre’s 50-member board of trustees, helping them to network and request donations from their friends and associates. Her main focus is on building and maintaining relationships in the community, whether with local people, philanthropic institutions or corporations. “It’s very cyclical,” she says. “Before the season starts I make sure that I recognize all the people who gave last year, with a letter or gift or free tickets.” Then it’s more phone calls, letters, and occasional grant writing or special fundraiser, and then it’s all to do again.

Rebekah loves her work because she loves the theatre. “While I am a fundraiser, I am also a professional theatre person. I always knew I wanted to be involved in the creation of theatre.” She enjoys just being involved in the theatre and helping others enjoy it and her obvious enthusiasm infects the people she talks to. That enthusiasm helps her out somewhat when she has to deal with the less glamorous side of her job—writing end-of-year reports, grant applications, and soliciting money. “It’s the hardest thing to do, to just put yourself on the line and ask for money,” Rebekah explains.

When Rebekah first graduated from school, she had no real idea of what she wanted to do as a profession. She first worked as a bank teller. “I was miserable,” she laughed, “so I took some time and thought about it, and realized that I wanted to be in theatre.” She then took a couple of years off and concentrated on internships that increased her experience in the field, and managed to parlay that experience into an entry-level position in a theatre in New Jersey. Most of it was answering telephones and working in the box office, but she discovered a talent for planning special events. Over the next few years she worked her way up in the organization by emphasizing that skill. She formed a mentoring relationship with the managing director, a relationship which she highly recommends. “Find a mentor who wants to work with you. She [the managing director] helped me and trusted me, and we both certainly benefited from that relationship.” After a few years, she was offered the senior-level job at Walnut Street Theatre.

Rebekah’s job requires that she be able to speak and write well in a professional style. Her communications must be concise yet creative—her contacts must inspire the enthusiasm to turn potential donors into certain donors. She must present herself well, but she must also represent the organization faithfully and enthusiastically. “There’s a learning curve to this job for people who don’t come from a theatre background,” Rebekah observes. “If you say to them, ‘Well, the curtain’s not gone up yet’ or ‘We’re dark this week,’ they might not know what you’re talking about. You can teach fundraising skills, grantwriting or planning a special event and so on, but if you’re going to truly represent this kind of an organization, you’ve got to have a love of the theatre. I was five or ten years younger than the other people considered for my job, and the reason I got it was because I just love theatre, everything about it.”