What Disney's "Keys to the Kingdom" Tour Taught Me About Nonprofit Operations

Sometimes it's our time away from the office that can illuminate important lessons about the world of work. I recently experienced that for myself when a fun travel excursion got me thinking about the significance of all the behind-the-scenes work done by nonprofit operations professionals everyday.

Wandering underground in a series of tunnels and color-coded passageways isn't always at the top of someone's list when it is sunny and 70 degrees outside. But it’s not every day that one gets a chance to go ‘behind the scenes’ at Disney World.  Spending five hours walking and gawking instead of riding Space Mountain, taking a photo with Mickey and Minnie, and dining in Cinderella’s castle might feel like a bad trade, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.  

After presenting at a conference in Orlando, I snuck away and joined the “Keys to the Kingdom” tour where 20 of us got a more detailed glimpse of the Magic Kingdom.  Some of it was ‘on stage’ as it’s called in the areas where guests normally roam the park, some ‘backstage’ beyond the perimeter of the park, and some underground through the ‘utlilidor,’ which is where much of the magic (sorry, had to write it!) happens.

I marveled at the attention to detail “on stage.” The names inscribed in the windows of the storefronts on Main Street pay homage to the individuals who helped realize the dream of the theme parks.  The use of forced perspective – each floor of the buildings along the main strip gets progressively shorter, to create the illusion of height – makes Cinderella’s Castle appear even bigger than it is.  And though built on top of swamps, the visitors aren’t swatting away mosquitos or getting eaten alive.  It’s not pesticides that make the bugs stay clear – it’s a garlic scented spray (which they hate) and the intentional park design that ensures there’s no standing water (which they love). 

“Backstage” is where you’ll see cast members, as Disney staff members are known, out of costume and the warehouses where floats, like Maleficent, are stored and prepped for the daily parades and evening fireworks shows. Add repair shops, transport vehicles, and roadways to supplies and food and you’ve got a classic peek behind the curtain.

The most interesting part was going through an unmarked door and down a flight of stairs in a souvenir shop in Fantasyland.  This underground area is the utilidor, a contraction of utility corridor, which is an elaborate and extensive network of tunnels and passageways below the footprint of the actual theme park.  This subterranean city of offices, eating areas, lounges, storage lockers and costuming areas lets cast members relax, move about quickly, and do their work unbothered by us.  And it prevents a cowboy who works in Frontierland from being out of place walking through Tomorrowland. 

More interesting was seeing the rooms that control and manage all the ‘audio-animatronics’ of the rides – in essence the computer and electrical systems, and the pneumatic tubes that automatically suck away – at 60 miles per hour – all the trash that is collected at street level in the park above and sends it to be compacted.  Have you ever seen a dirty street at Disney World?  

It’s the unseen – and often forgotten – parts of the place that help ensure it functions and runs smoothly.  At Disney, it’s the utilidor; at our own organizations it’s the operations side of the house:  human resources, technology, accounting, administration.  So much of the focus is on the provision and delivery of services and programmatic activity, but it wouldn’t be possible without the people and expertise that is resident in those functions.  An easy example, think of the instantaneous transition from in-person to virtual when the pandemic lockdown began. Operations teams jumped into action.  Thinking about all the changes they managed could make one’s head spin: providing Zoom subscriptions, moving to electronic payment systems, equipping folks with tools to work remotely, collecting mail, adjusting contracts, managing cybersecurity, revamping databases and other systems, dealing with health insurance coverage for folks who relocated, developing COVID protocols...and the list goes on.  How familiar are we with what is involved in running our organizations?  When was the last time we went ‘behind the scenes’? 

That adventure at Disney made me appreciate all that goes into creating the magical experience for its visitors.  And it made me think – and appreciate – all that goes into making our work happen here.