LET THE DREAMING BEGIN.

1. What is your business name?
DRMTM. You pronounce it Dream Team, but if you’re fairly hip, you’ve figured out to drop the consonants. While trying to narrow down a million ideas for our name, we just started calling ourselves the Dream Team because we loved our skills combo. One day we wrote it on a folder in this shortened version, and it stuck. We looked at each other like, “Seriously? It was there all the time.” We are a small company, but it’s a big name, like our vision.

2. What does DRMTM specialize in?
We specialize in different and daring. It’s in our tagline: arts & culture brands reimagined. DRMTM builds brands that are fearless in connecting to their community. To work with your brand is to take on your reason for existence. Your brand is your cause, your culture, and your connection to patrons. If it doesn’t hold meaning for the people experiencing it, your mission and everything you do is lost. When a local arts agency or cultural institution finds itself disconnected from its mission and its people, our process determines the strategy that will revitalize their place in the hearts of the community. We open windows for cultural agencies to find the freedom to become what they were meant to be.

3. Why this combo of consultants and why now?
Listen, we get it. Many cultural arts organizations are just emerging from crisis or are still in triage from the pandemic shutdown. Having found “downtime” in 2020 and 2021 for self-reflection, some are reimagining their brand’s relevance now, revisiting mission, while navigating rough waters between the past and a sustainable future. If you’re feeling stuck about how your brand evolution ties to your future, and specifically your diversity, equity, inclusion and access work, you’re not alone. We can help. 

4. What is DRMTM really good at?
Understanding where you are and the angst that keeps you up at night. Holding up a mirror. Dreaming your dream with you. Joining your family. Making your work fun and inspiring again. We’re really good at pushing organizations to be bold, human, and captivating so you attract the believers who will love and support your work. Our style is painstakingly careful in research, message, design and activation: no BS, never jargon-y, always relatable. Our goal is to reconnect arts agencies to why they exist. Refocus their energy on who they serve and how to wow them. Reestablish themselves as catalysts for conversation and change. At the highest level, carve their space as protectors of our humanity through artistic expression. Isn’t that exciting? Arts + Culture is Powerful!!

5. What do you do better than your rivals?
Everything. That makes us sound like arrogant idiots, but we put this team together for a reason. Surale is a national arts researcher. Cheryl studied and taught art. Laura ran museums. Now we’re entrepreneurs. We are full brand architects and nonprofit executive leaders. We don’t know anyone else around in brand strategy and design who also knows research, operations, fundraising, and donor development. That’s pretty crucial, right? We also do SERIOUS FUN better than anyone. We all chose to work in arts + culture for the love, wonder, and joy it stoked in our souls. We refuse to go to work if those elements aren’t in the mix.

6. Tell us a little bit about the DRMTM approach and process.
Our process is based in research and a deep-dive into discovery. We start work by totally immersing ourselves in your world. We’re really good at listening so we can truly become part of your organization and understand its deepest needs. This knowledge lives in us and guides our entire strategy throughout the project. It’s that personal to us. Then we build your brand on a framework of cause-driven design and pour truth all over it. Our out-of-the-ordinary approach can be scary for clients, even if they think they are ready. We know it takes time, but we know how to get you there. It’s a journey and it’s not for the faint. If you really want to change the world with art, you better step up and step out. Patrons don’t respond to meek messages. They want inspiration, belonging, and meaning.

7. What’s the most unique aspect of what you do?
We’re here to revolutionize the way arts & culture organizations share their message and engage their staff and public. We’ve got to talk about what matters. You can’t connect with patrons if you don’t know what they are thinking and feeling. When did we stop listening to our community and then blame them for not showing up? Why are we afraid to be honest with our board members and funders? Aren’t we on the same team? Everything we employ in our process supports an authentic connection with your audience so you can move them toward action. We have a few secrets up our sleeves, but we’re not going to tell you what those are here. You have to call us.

8. What do you believe is really critical for the current arts & culture community?
We see the social and technological changes of the last several decades calling into question how our arts and cultural institutions should be serving us. Many agencies are in a deep identity crisis. They don’t quite know who they are supposed to be anymore, or how they should be connecting to audiences. What are our honest motivations and where do we go from here? DRMTM provides answers to these questions. As for what we can actively do ourselves, DRMTM is building two initiatives to address areas we think are crucial in the a+c field right now. The first is to offer a generous annual grant to a small agency that desires the level of our work but doesn’t have the budget to support it. We want to be part of communities who are eager to innovate and take risks, but risk is an investment most of us aren’t allowed to make. The second is to offer an annual paid internship with our team that is reserved only for ethnic minority and LGBTQ students or grads because we deeply care about pushing more youthful and diverse talent out into the profession.

9. Who inspires you?
Being Boss (Kathleen Shannon and Emily Thompson), #kbj, Brene Brown, Michelle&BarackForever, Beyonce, Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Duke Cannon, Eleanor Roosevelt.

10. How can organizations best reach you?
Offering coffee or food usually works best. Our phone numbers are above to make that happen. 🙂