Rebecca Ratzkin

Rebecca Ratzkin joined WolfBrown’s San Francisco office in 2008, bringing her unique outlook on arts and culture as it relates to economic and community development. Her interests and skills focus on bridging theory with practical and achievable solutions, and identifying opportunities in the midst of the deepest challenges. With a background in arts administration and urban planning, Rebecca has applied her skills and experience in research design, data collection administration, training and facilitation, and project management to a variety of research and planning projects. Her clients have ranged from small, culturally-specific and community-based arts groups to large institutions and consortiums, to foundations and government agencies. 

Recently, she has delved into projects that investigate the impact of the arts experience on an individual, customer segmentation (analysis of audience behavior based on attitudes and preferences), and patterns and appetite for arts engagement. Some illustrative projects include working with Theatre Bay Area on a national intrinsic impact pilot study (Counting New Beans), investigating San Francisco Ballet audiences’ preferences and appetite for digital engagement, examining Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum visitors’ values, motivations and satisfaction, and developing a new customer model for jazz audiences with a national consortium of jazz presenters. She has also managed general population studies of arts participation in Philadelphia, Cincinnati and Ontario, and is a co-author of Making Sense of Audience Engagement. Currently, Rebecca is directing a research capacity building initiative for Bay Area performing arts groups for the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Her goal in this work is to empower arts groups with the skills and confidence to conduct, analyze, and apply audience research results.

Rebecca graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Oberlin College with a degree in art history. She has a master’s degree in urban planning from the UCLA School of Public Affairs, where she studied economic clusters of arts organizations in the Miracle Mile neighborhood of Los Angeles. She also plays the clarinet, experiments in various art media, and serves on the board of the Iyengar Yoga Association of Northern California.