Stern Grove Festival Plays On with ‘Best of the Fest’ Virtual Event

Nestled on a 33-acre recreational site of eucalyptus, redwood, and pine trees in the Sunset District of San Francisco is the venue for the 83-year-old Stern Grove Festival, the Bay Area’s original free outdoor music event.

Initially scheduled to take place on Sundays during the summer, the festival was canceled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and moratorium on large gatherings.

Fortunately, Stern Grove leadership is keeping the music festival alive through Best of the Fest, a virtual video series from their archives.

Best of the Fest airs every Sunday on KPIX-TV/Channel 5 with an extended version posted on the Stern Grove website, Facebook page and YouTube channel.

In between last week’s performances, Best of the Fest host Liam Mayclem issued a heartfelt call to action with Stern Grove’s first text to give mobile fundraiser. Facilitated by Engage by Cell’s mobile platform, viewers can donate by texting the word BESTFEST to the shortcode 56512. The donor then receives a text back with a link to the Stern Grove online donation page.

‍As with many arts organizations, we’ve had to pivot this year and experiment with new methods of fundraising. Without being able to hold live concerts, we lost several of our fundraising opportunities. 

Even though we were very pleased to provide archival episodes each week that reached hundreds of thousands of viewers, we were surprised that we didn’t see any donations coming in.

"When I found Engage by Cell, I knew this was just what we needed to connect with viewers and enable an easier call to action. Within minutes of posting the keyword and short code, donations started streaming in. Engage by Cell filled the gap for us in the giving process. We’re excited to see how we can collaborate when we move into a live season again!"
Ilana Vasconcelos, Stern Grove’s Director of Development 

Stern Grove serves the Bay Area by bringing some of the world’s greatest artists like Kool and the Gang, the O’Jays, Aaron Neville, Sheila E., and more for free. Each year, the festival must raise nearly $3 million to produce concerts and related outreach and education programs.