Archive for March, 2010

Building an Endowment (Part 2)

Posted in Uncategorized with tags on March 29, 2010 by Gary

My last post outlined a basic strategy for building endowments. If you are trying to take the very first step in building an endowment for your cultural heritage institution, developing your “case for giving” should be it. Your “case for giving” is the statement you can take to all your current and potential donors to ask them about their participation in building an endowment. The Association of Fundraising Professionals has an excellent guide to help you develop your case for giving.

It is important to get a handful of big gifts for your endowment before you take your campaign to the outside world. The reason for delaying general promotion of your effort is to give your endowment a chance to be a success. If you already have half of your target goal in your endowment, other donors are going to be much more likely to contribute. It is likely that the first half of your endowment will come from one or two major donors; donors who are already committed to your cause and who also have extensive resources.

The next 25% will probably come from gifts that are still fairly significant in size. The last 25% will consist of small gifts ($500 or less). This is a standard pattern of development for endowments, according to the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

Endowments have an essential place in cultural heritage institutions because they’re among the best vehicles for your donors to leave a legacy. Many major donors are interested in legacy giving. Be sure to give them ample chance to do so with your institution.

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Endowment Building

Posted in Uncategorized with tags on March 17, 2010 by Gary

Building an endowment is one way to ensure a cultural institution’s success. But it takes time. And a lot of effort. Your entire organization will have to get on board if an endowment of any significant size is to be developed.

You’ll need to make some preparations before you go out and ask major donors for endowment money. Start with these:

  • Strengthen your institution’s case for giving. Announce to donors the measures the institution has put in place (say, over the last three years) to save costs and increase productivity and relevance to the communities you serve.
  • Set ambitious new goals for the director and/or major gifts officer to spend more face-to-face time with their donors and prospects. Enlist willing board members and key staff to join in the effort and provide additional support for the director/major gifts officer. Ensure that all major donors are contacted personally every three or four months and brought fully up-to-date on what’s happening in your institution.
  • Make the greatest possible use of online communications such as the website, blog, electronic newsletters, Facebook, and Twitter to recruit new supporters at low cost. Reinforce messages to members and the public through other channels (such as events), and convert online activists to library donors.
  • Step up donor cultivation activities and events.
  • Find low-cost ways to learn more about the most loyal and generous donors, and integrate new information into personalized appeals to them.

These are the ingredients to building a strong organizational foundation for your endowment. I’ll write more about each of these components later.

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Cultural Heritage and Aesthetics

Posted in Uncategorized with tags on March 12, 2010 by Gary

I’ve found myself wondering why I care about cultural heritage. It’s not because I care about stuff that’s old enough to be considered history.  In fact, I tire easily of sentimental discussions about drive-in theatres, old photographs, the barber shop that used to give lollipops to kids, and so on.

It’s not that I don’t care about these things, but it’s that I don’t care about discussions that don’t explain why I should care about them. In other words, I care about why the old barber shop should matter to future generations, not just to the ones who experienced the barber and his lollipops themselves.

I know nothing about the philosophy of aesthetics, but I’ve suspected that why I care about cultural heritage has something to do with the study of aesthetics. But based on the research I’ve conducted in the last three days, I believe that aesthetics is the study of what makes life interesting. To me, cultural heritage is something that makes life interesting.

So far, I haven’t been able to find anyone on Twitter who identifies themselves both as an aesthetician and as an expert in cultural heritage. But I’ve found wonderful examples of people who identify themselves as one or the other: Melissa Mannon, Andrew Taylor, Nina Simon, and Nigel Warburton. Nigel had an interesting post on his blog about how museum curators affect our sense of aesthetics.

I’m hoping I find more on the intersection of cultural heritage and philosophical aesthetics. If you’re aware of any resources, please let me know!

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Appeal Letters

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , on March 10, 2010 by Gary

One of the most common ways cultural institutions raise money is by writing an appeal letter. This is usually done once per year by the institution’s development officer and mailed to past donors.

Appeal letters are still one of the most effective ways to raise money. Good appeal letters have five important elements:

1. A defined project. This is your reason for writing the letter. Even if your letter’s purpose is primarily to support general operating expenses, be sure to call attention to a special concern, project, or event.

2. A personal story. Personal stories that illustrate how your institution makes a difference is a great way to draw people into reading your letter.

3. The financial challenge your institution is facing. Be clear about the costs associated with your project (see #1) and how donations can make a difference.

4. A reminder of your institution’s overall mission and how your appeal fits into it. When you ask for a contribution at the end of the letter, it will be in the spirit of asking the donor to reaffirm his or her support of the institution’s underlying mission.

5. A request for a donation. Always be direct in telling people what they can do to make your project (see #1) happen. If it’s money, ask for it. If it’s for volunteer help, ask for it. Depending on your technological capabilities, you may want to refer to the donor’s most recent contribution and ask him/her to increase it by a certain amount.

Appeal letters should be straightforward, simple, and one page in length.

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The Participatory Museum

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , on March 3, 2010 by Gary

Nina Simon, speaker, consultant, exhibit designer, and author of the marvelous blog Museum2.0, has published her book The Participatory Museum! I’ve not read it yet, but it looks to be a fantastic resource on initiating and sustaining conversations with museum audiences. Audience participation is and will be a critical aspect in the future of our cultural institutions and her book will undoubtedly fill a major hole in museum literature. Congratulations, Nina!

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Press Release: Report on Preservation and Conservation of World Cultural Heritage

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , on March 2, 2010 by Gary

The Institute of Museum and Library Services co-sponsored a seminar last fall in Salzburg, Austria on the state of the world’s cultural heritage. Over thirty countries were represented and a report called “Connecting to the World’s Collections: Making the Case for Conservation and Preservation of Our Cultural Heritage” has just been released.

What I like about the report is the high level of collaboration between countries and institutions to preserve and promote the value of cultural heritage. I detected a much less elitist attitude and much more inclusiveness in this report that what I’ve seen in other treatises. It will be interesting to see how many of these ideas and attitudes trickle down to institutions and professionals who were not at the conference. Nevertheless, it gives me great hope!

If you don’t want to read the whole report, you can read the summary here. Full information on the seminar is available here. And here’s a nice bibliography of resources that were used and referred to during the making of the report.

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Why Cultural Institutions Are Under Pressure: A Theory

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , on March 1, 2010 by Gary

It’s hard to tell what the future holds. At present, things look bleak. Whole library systems are being shut down, as well as long-standing museums. Douglas County Public Library Director, Jamie LaRue, wrote an excellent post on this topic a while back. One could easily argue that Americans don’t value their public institutions.

If it is indeed true that we no longer value our libraries and museums, I’ve wondered why this is. I read a book some time ago called Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect, and much of the book’s emphasis is on one particular lacking in our educational system. Specifically, why we don’t incorporate actual experiences with nature into compulsory curricula (tramping out into the wilderness, learning how to camp responsibly, maybe getting tired, cold, and scared, drawing what you see, recording sounds, etc.).

I think the same could be said about the arts. Namely, that our educational system does not give us the means to develop the artists within us. Instead, we focus our energies on standardized testing, making sure all of us (and our kids) all live up to some prescribed standard. Who makes that standard? Why should there even be a standard? I’m not an expert in education, so please forgive (and correct, if necessary) any biases and fallacies you see in my thinking. What I can tell you is that if I was growing up in school today, I would be BORED TO DEATH.

Libraries and museums are among the last havens of the arts. These are the places you can go to let your imagination run wild. As cultural heritage professionals, we have a responsibility to grant access to the resources that allow “wildness” to, well…run wild. It is that “wildness” that makes us individuals and gives us the means to realize our capacity as human beings.

So, while our institutions are getting pummeled by apathy, lack of funding, and whatnot, what can we do? Again, we should build relationships with the individual donors who support our institutions. As cities and other organizations cut traditional funding, we’re just learning how to do our own fundraising. And if the science of fundraising holds true for cultural institutions, fully 85% of fundraising dollars will come from individual donors. Grants, foundations, and other funding organizations fall a distant second. You can get an easy start today by reading my posts here and here.

Good luck.

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