About The Founder
I did not come to software the usual way.
I came to it as an opera singer, a fundraiser, and a builder of arts organizations, someone who spent years inside the very work GreenRoom is designed to support.
I trained as a singer, earning a Master’s degree in vocal performance from the Manhattan School of Music, and spent years onstage. Performance taught me something I have never let go of: information can explain, but story can move. A well-told story can change what an audience believes is possible. It can inspire someone to give, to show up, or to care. That understanding has shaped everything I have done since.
Katie Spencer, Founder
When I co-founded City Lyric Opera in New York, I received a crash course in building an arts organization from the ground up. I did a little of everything: grassroots fundraising, producing, marketing, and whatever else the day demanded. It taught me how much quiet, unglamorous coordination it takes to keep even a small company alive, and how much of that work tiny arts teams are still holding together by hand.
Later, at Knoxville Opera, I experienced the work from inside a larger, more established organization. There, I saw more clearly how strategy, storytelling, and data depend on one another. The numbers matter, but numbers alone rarely move anyone. What matters is what they reveal: the donor who has given quietly for a decade, the subscriber who lapsed and could be welcomed back, the pattern that shows where next season’s support may come from.
I became convinced that when organizations can see those stories clearly, and trust the data beneath them, they can make better decisions, build stronger relationships, and do extraordinary things.
The trouble was that I could never find the software to make that possible. I wanted a system that could show me the whole person and the full history of their relationship with an organization. I wanted fundraising, marketing, and ticketing to live together instead of being scattered across disconnected tools. I wanted clean data I could trust and a clear view of the people behind it.
That system did not exist, at least not for organizations like the ones I loved. So I kept doing the work by hand until I decided to build it myself.
GreenRoom is the result. It brings development, marketing, and ticketing into one source of truth, built around the way performing arts organizations actually operate. Subscription seasons, donor stewardship, board reporting, and fiscal calendars are designed into the system rather than bolted on afterward.
My goal was never to create more software. It was to make the work simpler. I wanted clean data and thoughtful systems that get out of the way, so arts professionals can spend less time managing their CRM and more time with people. I also wanted the stories inside their data to become easier to see, understand, and act on.
I named it GreenRoom for a reason. Before the curtain rises, there is the green room: the quiet space where the cast gathers, nerves settle, and everyone prepares to make the work possible. It is not the spotlight. It is the preparation, coordination, and connection behind it.
That is the space I want GreenRoom to hold for the people behind the arts.
I believe the strength of an organization is not determined by the size of its budget. It is determined by its clarity: how well it understands its people, its story, and what the data is asking it to do next.
GreenRoom is my attempt to give more arts organizations that clarity, so they can spend less energy holding their systems together and more energy making work that moves people.
