 Okay, hello everyone. We're going to go ahead and get started. Welcome to the is CAP a good fit for my institution webinar My name is Tiffany Amick, and I'm the CAP program coordinator here at the foundation of the American Institute for Conservation Also known as FAIC I'm joined today by our CAP program assistant Liz Hanberg-Curt We're going to be moving back and forth today. Liz and I go here from both of us, and hopefully you won't get tired of our voices If at any time in the future you want to talk specifically about your institution and the CAP program Please feel free to contact either one of us by email or by phone Our information is listed here, but it'll also pop up again at the end of the webinar and you can also find it on the website So just a couple of technical notes before we get started on your screen You'll see several boxes the one labeled chat on the left-hand side of your screen I noticed many of you have found which is great You can continue to use that box to say hello ask questions Share information throughout the webinar if you do post a question You'll receive a response from one of us, but it may not be right away Sometimes when we're in the middle of discussion It's a little bit easier for us to just kind of tag that question and then come back to it at the end So you'll also see a web links box down at the bottom Which contains a few links to the program website and also to The online application portal which is not open yet But we wanted to make sure you have that link and we'll talk about that in a minute The other box at the bottom has cap files And importantly there is a cap sample application. We'll talk about that later as well But it should give you a good Overview of some of the questions that you will find on the cap application Today's webinar is being recorded So if you're not able to attend the entire session or you want to view information again or share it with a colleague we'll post the session on our website and If you would like us to send you a link to that website just send us an email We'll try to get that uploaded to the website within the next couple of days And then we had one pull up earlier But just to get a little bit more information about who's joining us today I'm gonna add a couple more polls for you here The first one Ask what type of museum you work for So you can select the the type that best describes your museum And then I'll share you with you the answers in just a minute It looks like I'm already doing that so you can see how others are answering great It looks like a lot of history museums Art museums historic homes Natural history museums and other to always makes me curious Alright, thank you And then we're gonna do one more Just asking where you're from so let us know what region of the country you're from If you're from the US, which I suspect many of you are So it looks like we have some pretty good even distribution here Come around the country, which is great, and we welcome all of you Okay, thank you So today we want to spend some time talking about the CAP program and hopefully giving you a better understanding of whether This may be a good program that can help your institution either this year or in the future We're gonna start by talking about the program in general talk about the CAP process And how CAP can help your institution Then we're gonna talk about eligibility how to know if you are eligible to participate We'll talk about funding which is always exciting and Then just briefly talk about whether this may be the right time for you to apply and Then at the end I'll talk through some just more concrete tips about applying for CAP And then at the end we'll have time for Q&A and again Please feel free to ask questions as we go along using that Chat box on the left-hand side of the screen. We may not answer your question right away, but we will get to it All right, I'm gonna turn it over to Liz to start talking about a General summary of the CAP program Thank you So again, my name is Elizabeth and today I want to start by describing a bit about the CAP program and the CAP process CAP is a program that's administered by the Foundation for the American Institute for Conservation or FAIC and It is through a cooperative agreement with the Institute of Museum and Library Services or IMLS It's designed to help small and mid-sized museums by providing funding support for a general conservation assessment CAP is often the first step for a small Museum who wants to improve the condition of their collections and develop long-range preservation plans CAP can also serve as a wonderful fundraising tool for future collection projects And it can provide a really valuable tool for engaging your board leadership and other community partners So what is a general conservation assessment? Consist of the general conservation assessment is a review of all the institutions Collections their buildings and building systems as well as policies and procedures relating to collections care This is not an item-by-item review of the collections But rather more of a general sort of bird's-eye view an overview if you will the goal is to really help the museum determine their greatest collection care needs and The recommendations can really help an institution design decide where they want to invest limited resources and time So how does the CAP process work? Well, the most important thing is that this is really a team process Most museums will have two assessors one the first assessor is usually has a collections background usually a Conservator and the second assessor has a building background They might be an architect or an engineer or a historic preservationist and the two assessors will work collaboratively to create a prioritized list of recommendations for improved collections care but the museum will also want to invite a number of staff and board members and volunteers to participate in various stages of the CAP process and We really encourage this the more people that you have involved early on in the process and Throughout the more it's going to help both the assessors get a more complete understanding of your institution And it's also going to be more likely that there is a lot of support and momentum for the implementation of the report and The assessment will culminate with a final product that is a comprehensive report written by your assessors and With a list of prioritized recommendations for collections care The CAP process takes about a year and is compromised of or comprised Excuse me of eight steps. I would like to describe briefly what each of those steps are going to entail The first step is the application process Those will be open from November 1st to February 1st and the museums will be notified in March of their acceptance Once accepted the institutions will select their two assessors We provide a list of approved assessors that they may both review and then decide who they want to interview and they'll go through the interview process and Once the assessors are selected the museum will then provide them with some background information This is in the form of a site questionnaire We'll provide the museum with questions that ask specific things about the organization and their staffing Their collections such as what types of collections or how many they have and different in each type They're buildings and building systems such as how many buildings they have the size the age what they're used for and Then also their policies and procedures such as mission statements collections management and emergency policies But don't worry if you don't have all of these things It is part of the CAP process that you determine what those sorts of needs are going to be and Ultimately the site questionnaire helps the assessors get to know your museum So as you near the site visit the museum will then hold a pre site visit phone call with the assessors The goal of the call is to introduce members of the project team to one another and then allow the assessors to ask Questions and get to know the institution and their goals and their concerns It will also be a time for you to organize the schedule for the site visit and Just do some of the preparatory work before that site visit And we feel like this Conference call is really important because it helps the assessors really make the most of their time when they do have their site visit And then the next step is the two-day site visit during the site visit Assessors will tour the collections the buildings exhibition spaces They'll be looking at things like lighting in your building storage materials. You're using layout Organization environmental controls security past management They'll talk to staff They'll want to understand their roles as they're related to collections care They might also look at things like HVAC systems collections policies and a variety of other things that will affect the preservation and care of the collections and They'll also want to meet with staff members board members and maybe some other community partners to get a real comprehensive sense of your museum and your collections and Then this will culminate in a written report which contains prioritized recommendations from both of the kind of Both between your conversations you've had with the museum and then also from the site visit They will pull all of that together into a prioritized list of recommendations for your museum and Then the staff should really begin implementing their report recommendations And what we really hope with the cap report is that it will serve as a real Living working document to help guide your museum in both the short and long term And then approximately 12 months after the initial site visit the institution will have the opportunity to consult with the Assessors once again to report on progress To request further advice Dress any challenges that may have arisen and really to discuss their work over the last year so that kind of gives you a nice general overview of the whole cap process and The kind of course of events throughout the year that you'll have to go through So next I wanted to give you a bit of an idea of some of the recommendations that you might find in a final cap report Every cap report will contain an executive summary that serves as a prioritized list of recommendations And though you may already be aware of some of these issues The assessment can really help your institution decide where to invest both limited resources and staff time and What you see here on this list is not a complete list of recommendations and nor are they all necessarily from one single report But we just wanted to give you a sense of what types of things might be included in a report So the first thing I want to point out Is how they are organized and categorized we think that having a prioritized list of recommendations is really important So that you don't feel overwhelmed with just this huge list of recommendations You're not even sure where to start it just really helps kind of create a sense of organization for the institution and The example here has recommendations organized by critical high Medium and low priority But other reports might use immediate short and long term as their designations or one year three years or five years There really are a lot of variations in how the assessors might organize their findings Which they base both on their own preferences and the needs of your institution So here what you see as recognized is maybe a couple critical needs One of which is the need to create a written collections management policy Now that one is a really important one because it can help guide your institution going forward And it really helps when you're making your collections decisions So it's really important. Oh Excuse me. The other critical thing that you see here is One of the examples was water infiltration into collections storage The report will offer not just Identifying some of these critical needs, but also offering ideas and suggestions for how to mitigate some of these problems So in previous reports, we've seen things from, you know, needing a new roof or simply adding better gutters or Changing the landscaping slightly so the water might drain away from the building better and you can mitigate those issues of water coming into the collections and As you can see as you move down the list Fixing gaps around the windows installing UV filters Rotating your your objects on exhibit to help prevent with light damage It really is a large mix of things some of which may require additional funding and fund raising And others that may be things that you can easily do on your own at your institution So how can cap help your museum? There's many benefits to being part of the cap program and as busy professionals We understand how challenging it can be to take a step back from the long list of day to day Needs and projects that you have at your institution to really help create some long-range planning and that Is where cap can really be a wonderful way to help you start that process In addition, if you're interested in seeking grant funding or private support for conservation or preservation activities A cap report can really provide a great professional argument for the need for such work Bringing in an outside consultant to identify a need can really help in adding that sort of much-needed weight to a grant application Or even create some community momentum for fundraising on your own So having an outside perspective can also be really valuable in drawing attention to your board or other leadership and community partners To your collection care needs and help really engage them and again create that sense of momentum for addressing some of these concerns So i've talked a lot about what cap does the process of it and its benefits But i wanted to review quickly what cap is not so we unfortunately do not provide grant funding for collections care Or for implementing your cap findings Cap also does not provide individual conservation treatments or object by object level surveys Cap is really meant to be a broader look at the collections the building systems and the policies and procedures The program really emphasizes preventative conservation And what you as an institution can do to create the best environment for the items in your care So with that i'm going to hand it back to tiffany and she's going to be discussing eligibility and our upcoming program cycle And some great tips for applying All right. Thank you. Liz So what type of museums are eligible for cap? basically any museum that Calls itself a museum is eligible. So your Art museum your air history museums your natural history museums Anything that has the word museum in it is eligible, but also Places that hold collections whether they're living or non-living such as aquariums or arborita botanical gardens zoos planetariums Basically the the rule is if you have collections and you make them available to the public You probably are eligible One note here Unfortunately libraries and archives are not eligible for cap The reason being that the funding for the cap program comes through iMLS through the museum services division of iMLS and So there are other opportunities for libraries to apply for similar Types of programs, but the cap program is primarily Intended for museums now if you are In a museum that has an archive. Don't worry. You're eligible if your Museum is called an archive, but you have a bunch of museum objects. Just give us a call and we'll talk through your individual circumstances But you may or may not be eligible the other the other Criteria that museums have to follow are listed here They need to be a unit of non-federal or tribal government or a non-profit organization They need to be located in the united states, but that includes all u.s territories and districts The museum needs to be organized on a permanent basis for educational or aesthetic purposes It needs to own tangible objects and make them available to the public One note here There you've probably seen other Opportunities that require you to be open to the public for a minimum number of days Cap does not have that requirement We say that you need to show a regular commitment to public access So if I come to your museum or if I call you And say hey, I want to check out your collections You need to be able to tell me okay. You can do that by Fill in the blank or I need to be able to go to your website and see that you're open Every wednesday afternoon or whatever it may be So there's no minimum amount of time that you need to be open to the public But you need to show regular public access You also have to employ at least one full-time person or the full-time equivalent So that means if you have two part-time staff members, that's fine If you're an all-volunteer organization, that's also fine But we want to see that your volunteers are committing at least 40 hours a week to the museum the reason for that is that After undergoing a cap assessment, you'll leave with some comprehensive Recommendations and we want to make sure you have the staff power to be able to implement those recommendations You also need to be of the proper size so that your collections and facilities can be reviewed by your assessors on a two-day site visit So we say that cap is a program for smaller midsize museums And this is how we define Smaller midsize can your assessors review all of your collections and facilities in two days This I understand is can be a little bit difficult to figure out Um, we encourage you if you're Concerned about the size of your institution to give us a call again We'll talk through the details of your collection and your site But they do need to your assessors do need to see all of the areas that hold storage of your collections and Exhibition of collections so that may include off-site storage That may include If you have permanent exhibition space that's not in your primary Building your assessors would need to see that as well So it really is an institution by institution decision Who's not eligible for cap? Agencies the federal government And again, that's because the funding for the program comes through iMLS, which is a federal agency Institutions that primarily serve as a library or archive we talked about that Historic structures that don't have collections So if you are just a historic building and there are no collection items beyond to the building Then you would not be eligible for a cap assessment Also, if you don't own your own collections So if the objects in your collections are on loan Or if you are responsible as a nonprofit organization, for example for caring for a set of collections But those may be still in private hands. Unfortunately, you would not be eligible It's absolutely fine if maybe one or two collections or you have Items in your collection that are on loan. That's not a problem. But the majority of your collections you need to You need to own And then also institutions with collections that take more than two days to assess are not eligible, which we talked about earlier So now the fun part money how much funding does cap provide? So we talk about cap providing allocations for assessors And those allocations are based on the size of your annual budget So for example, if your institution's annual budget is $150,000 You would receive and you're accepted into the program. I should say you will receive $3,900 per assessor So that's $3,900 to hire a collections assessor and $3,900 to hire a building assessor For the cap assessment Now that's a little bit difficult for us to talk about because Each individual assessor is able to set their own assessment fees They are all professionals outside of the cap rules. They do similar general conservation assessments on their own So they all have their own set fees structures And so as Liz talked about earlier Each institution is responsible for interviewing and hiring assessors that are going to work well with their institution During that interview phase. We ask you to talk directly to The potential assessor about what their fee structure looks like I have a sample Assessment cost written here. It's completely made up So please don't use it as a as a To assume that this is going to be what you'll see, but Your professor your assessor may come to you and say my professional fee is $3,900, but I'm going to need Additional funding to help me travel to your site Because it's a two-day assessment. I'm going to need to stay at a hotel near you I'm going to have to take a train or fly or whatever and those costs will add up to $500 So my total fee is $4,400 FAIC would pay that assessor the $3,900 allocation But your museum would be responsible for covering the remaining amount which in this case would be $500 I took a quick look at the cost of assessments for the museums participating in the 2017 cap program and we have a range of Folks paying anywhere from zero dollars to $4,000 for their cap assessment in total On average, I would say that The average museum is paying around $700 total for both assessors out of pocket And the rest is covered by the cap assessment or yeah by the cap assessment. So We do encourage you to budget some funding for cap Internally, we've had some really wonderful creative institutions Plan for cap and fundraise for cap Some of them fundraised among their board or even among their members There are also creative ways to save money By we had one museum that had a board member who managed a B&B and so That board member was able to donate Her B&B rooms to the assessors for the evening that they were in town so that that saved money for the museum We're open to all sorts of things Really, it's a conversation in terms of the fee structure is a conversation between museums that participate And the assessors that they choose And again, you get to have that conversation Before you enter into a contract with any assessors. So You're absolutely able to use that as a deciding factor in your selection Okay, so the next program cycle As Liz mentioned earlier applications open November 1st. That's coming up And applications will close February 1st of 2018. So that's a pretty long application window Apply early This doesn't mean that you have to Get up early on November 1st and start plugging in your Application answers and trying to hit submit before the end of November 1st But we do give priority consideration to Applicants who apply early. I'm going to talk about that a little bit more But first I want to just Help you think about whether this may be the right time to apply Um, so as Liz said the applications will close February 1st Um, we will notify museums of their acceptance beginning on March 1st And all of the assessment activities that means the final report Um has to be completed and everything that comes before that has to be completed before The end of 2018 So um Think about all the activities and all the things that you have on your plate right now And um, please make sure before you apply that you're able to commit to the cap process before The end of 2018 Okay, so i'm going to move on to some top tips for applying to cap Um, I mentioned earlier that in the box at the bottom of the page you can You can navigate to our online application portal by clicking on that online application line and then clicking the browse to button Um You once you get there you will see um what what you see right here on this slide Which is a purple button in the center of the page. It says begin or continue an application um When you're when you um Build a an account through our application portal Um, you'll be asked to i'm going to switch to the next slide here You'll be asked to enter a whole bunch of information as a new account on the right hand side of the screen So you have two options login or create a new account You'll have to create a new account by logging in here and filling out a bunch of contact information um When you do that, please uh write down your login id and password and um And and keep that in a safe place um because you're able to log out and come back as many times as you need to But in order to do that and flip back to the following screen you'll need to um hit that button again on the cap application portal and re enter Your login id and password If you do forget your password don't panic. Um, you'll have to contact us and we'll be able to reset it for you The lost password information works only sometimes. Um, so really the easiest way is to just contact us My next tip is to make sure you're eligible This these questions that you see on your screen should all look familiar They're questions that are listed on our application And they correspond to that eligibility criteria that I talked about about a few minutes ago Does your organization exist on a permanent basis for educational or aesthetic purposes? Do you own tangible objects? Etc You need to be able to Select yes for all of these answers. Um, however Don't select yes if you're not telling the truth Um, if you have questions about them about any of the eligibility criteria now before november 1st Is a great time to ask us those questions Um, but make sure that you can say yes to all of these before you go through The entire application process My next tip is to rally your team By this I mean Engage your colleagues. Um engage your board On the application we do require you to Have a board president or a board leader sign A statement saying that they are aware that you're applying to the cap program and they support the process And the reason for that is we want to make sure that they are on board And that that your entire team is on board for this process We feel like engaging your entire staff and and everyone from the beginning is so helpful In ensuring that the report recommendations will be implemented in the future Um, I also say rally your team when you're actually filling out the application There are questions on the application that you may need to go to other colleagues for so questions about budget you may not know Questions about the exact makeup of your your Collection what kind of collection materials you have you may need to ask others for Um, we provide the sample application in this files document at the bottom of the screen So that you have an idea of the kinds of questions that we'll be asking on the application And you can start dividing those those questions up among your staff. So take advantage of that ask for help Again, the more people you can get involved the better My next tip would be to choose your project contact wisely Um early in the application we ask you to identify our project contact So that should be a member of your staff or board who is going to be the contact with us Um, please pick somebody who is in town Who's engaged who's going to answer the phone and email? if you know that Someone goes to Antarctica for Three months out of the year and we're not going to be able to reach them. Don't put them as a project contact My third tip or my I guess we're going backwards. So this is tip number four, but in reverse order Is to answer questions to the best of your ability. We tell you that right at the beginning of the application Um, there are questions We do our best to make sure that the questions are relevant to you no matter what kind of museum you you work for Um, if you're just not sure about how to interpret a question Don't hesitate to give us a call Or shoot us an email. We'd love to answer questions But uh, just do your best to answer the questions and and don't stress about Writing there are three open-ended questions in the application. Don't stress about You know writing a three page Answer to each of those questions in general a couple of paragraphs is is great um and Do the best you can And oops, sorry the formatting is a little weird on this but Um, my next tip is to just be honest. Um, that should be obvious But also not all questions address eligibility requirements. Um, I I pulled up an example here Does your organization own all of the land and buildings it occupies? Yes or no Um, I had a museum contact me last year and say, uh, I was going to apply to cap But I saw this question and we don't or we don't own the land that our museum is on So I figured we weren't eligible. Um, that's not true We ask a lot of of questions in the application. Um, that we're just trying to understand Um, your organization and your collections through these questions It doesn't mean that you are or aren't eligible. Um, we're really just information gathering So don't panic if you you think you have the wrong answer. There are no wrong answers If you have a question again call us, um, but just be honest in the application And then my final one is returning to my first tip, which is to apply early again We expect to have funding to fund about 75 museums throughout the country this year We never know exactly until we start drawing down funds. Um, because the allocation is very based on the size of the museums that are accepted, but Um, 75 is our target. Um, and it's possible that we would run out of funds before we hit the February 1st deadline. So please do apply early. Um, my my warning on that is don't be sloppy. Um If we have a question or some answer is unclear if you've missed sections of the application We will pull your application out of the queue and come back to you with additional Questions and that's why your project contact and their responsiveness is so important. Um, so be careful With your application and be thoughtful with it, but um, don't put it off through the end of January Okay, I promised you I would leave Our contact information up and I will do that through our question and answer period But I do want to just bring Liz back. Um, Liz is going to help me sort through the questions I'm happy to see a bunch of questions coming in as we went along And we'll we'll spend a little time on q&a and feel free to continue to answer questions or ask questions in the chat box All right So it looks like one of the first questions is or we've gotten several questions relating to the two-day site visit So how can you determine if your institution can be assessed within two days? Yeah, this is so tricky. It's a good question. Um, I would say Um, think about your collections think about how many buildings you have Um, think about the amount of time that you will need to spend with your assessors Meeting with them and usually about half of the site visit is spent in meetings or interviews um and and We use that to think about um, whether your site is too big Um, the other thing I would recommend is on the cap web page you Um, you can see a list of 2017 cap program participants It may be helpful for you to go to that page and look at who's participating now Um, obviously all of those museums have been accepted. So we've decided that they're not too big Um, so if you're familiar with those, uh, those museums and you can compare yourself to them, it may help Um, really the best thing you can do is to give us a call. We'll ask you questions about Your collection size your building size How much space you have dedicated to collection storage and Exhibition we'll probably ask about staff size and budget and all sorts of fun questions But we can help narrow that down on a one-on-one basis because it really is kind of nebulous Um, so we're happy to to work with you one-on-one on that Sorry, I can't give you a more concrete answer And just for a little background We think it wouldn't it wouldn't be fair to say that only museums from a certain budget size Would would qualify because different types of museums differ so much So think about what a small historical society would look like or a large historical society versus a large zoo Because these different types of museums are eligible It's really hard for us to um define large in a way that That represents all the different types of museums that are eligible for the program All right, so the next question we have is if we are currently in an expansion Would you consider this a good time to do a cap? Oh, good question. I it depends on what kind of expansion you're doing And how far along you are if your collections are Maybe off-site or being stored elsewhere during an expansion. Um, maybe this is not the best time Um, if you're an active construction type site, it may not be the best time because it's going to be hard for your assessors especially your building assessor to get a thorough understanding of Of your your building and your building envelope and how things are an active Active practice If it's kind of a smaller expansion or maybe you haven't started yet This would be a great time. Um, it would I think it would be an interesting time to involve some outside perspective in planning an expansion And again, if uh, if there are specific instances that we can help you with Please feel free to give us a call and we'll talk through your individual expansion means The next question is I work at a university museum And we have art throughout our campus. Would the assessors need to see every building that we have art in? Um, it's a good question. We do a lot of university assessments. Um, a lot of times they like to see as much as possible. Yes um It's you know, sometimes things are in sometimes collections end up in uh, the The president's house or um places that are not really public spaces That's okay. They may not need to see all of those places They would want an understanding of where the art is located And I would imagine that a lot of our questions would relate to um, how you track where those collections go how long People have it or how long art is out on exhibition and what steps you're taking to protect those pieces that are outside of your control, but I um Are outside of your immediate control But yeah, it it kind of it they want to see as much as they can but um, don't feel limited by that So this is similar to one of the other questions, but can the cap help you prepare for a museum relocation? Yes, I think in in some cases it can. Um, I think you should be Cognizant of the limitations of the cap assessment because assessors are only on site for For two days. They may be able to help with Highlighting Some of the things that you should be concerned about Some of the most vulnerable aspects of your collections. They may say Hey, I know your plan is to Have your storage on this side of the building But we really recommend that you switch that up and switch it to the other side Um, so it it may be a good time. Yes Let's see. Um, the next question is is cap a reimburse reimbursement grant or assessors So, um, it's not a traditional. So it's not a grant Because none of the funds flow directly to the institution. So, um, rather than us providing you with a check Um, what we would do is you would engage in the contract with the assessor So again, and I'm just going to flip back to my, um, my slide here that talks about that. There we go Um, what what we would do is after your assessment is complete Your assessor would submit an invoice to both us and you And the invoice to f a i c would be for $3,900 and the invoice to your museum would be for $500 in this example So it's not You don't have to front the $4,400 and then we reimburse you for that It's the assessor billing us and billing you separately, right? Um We also had some questions about how many applications are typically received in a year Um, that's a good question. Um, and one that I can't answer very easily. Um, I our first year in, um, in Uh administering the cap program was this past one and we had a really short application period and Not much of a notification period. So we didn't have a lot of time to market it for the 2017 year So I don't have a lot of information to be able to to tell you, you know, what what percentage of Applicants are accepted into the program. Um I would say if you apply early So if you apply in november applications open november 1st, if you can get them in before the end of november I'd say you have a really great shot And that is as specific as I will be So we've also had a few questions asking more information about how you find the assessor And how you match yourself up with an assessor for your institution Yeah, so um, we provide f a i c has compiled a list of About 65 building assessors and probably closer to 70 collections assessors There are assessors. We've screened to meet our eligibility requirements for assessors, which means that they need to have At least five years of work experience in the field. They need to have professional training in Um Conservation or architecture or whatever field they are are applying within Um, and they also have to have experience performing general conservation assessments in the past Um, we create a comprehensive Really crazy spreadsheet Um, and I don't want to share it with you because it's it can be confusing. Um, if you don't get a A little bit of an introduction to it, but it provides all of the information About all of the assessors in terms of their specialty areas You know, some conservators focus on paper some Focus on industrial objects and we encourage you to find one whose specialty areas match the the makeup of your collection We also provide links to all of their resumes so you can read through all of those. Um, so and also we provide links to some References so other folks for whom they've worked so that you can give another museum a call and ask for their opinion on them So we give you a lot of information. We do some initial screening, but we We let you Find a good match for you and we're also always help happy to help with that process So the next question asks does the full-time staff member have to be within the collections? department I'm assuming They're asking because they are part-time, but most of the staff are full-time Oh, that's a great question. Um Yes, we do want we do want full-time help on the collections But it could be collections and buildings. So if you have facility staff We view those folks as being integral to the care of your collections So if you have a housekeeper, that's wonderful If you have security if you have Someone who's responsible for policy development. So probably your executive director or someone like that Spends time on things that influence the care of the collection. So we We do want them to be involved in some way if you're a university museum I'll give that as an example And you're the only person you're part-time and you're the only person that does anything with collections at all And everyone else in the university is Uh is teaching that that may be difficult for us to swing Um, but we can usually come up with a way to find 40 hours at your institution And if you need help with creativity, um, we've we've helped others. So please let us know Great so the next question also asked about funding. Um And it was just wanted to confirm that the The money goes directly to the assessor rather than being funneled through the museum That's exactly right. Yes, correct. So the assessor is paid Their allocation somewhere between 35 and 39 hundred dollars directly from f a i c And then any additional costs travel costs or whatever it may be are paid from the institution Excellent So we have a museum who is Wondering if we can recommend an organization that may provide a similar services cap But specifically focuses on audio visual or film collections Um I may be able to do that but not off of the top of my head. I'm not that good. I'm sorry. I wish I was um Let us, um, I'll I'll check your name here and um, we'll have if you registered through and Pre-registered for the webinar. Um, we'll be able to go back and find your email and um, I'll shoot you an email I I have an idea But it's just not coming to me off the top of my head. So I'll send me a link So the next question asked does the assessment Report include suggestions for funding sources to address various archival needs procurement, etc Oh, i'm so glad you asked that. Um, right. So the focus of cap should be Not only What do you need to do? But what kind of tools might there be to help you with that? A good cap assessment does provide Those types of recommendations when the assessor is familiar with them. Um, so in some cases, there just may not be formal tools available or grants or other types of funding Liz has been diligently working on a comprehensive list of grants that are available for Things that we typically see in cap recommendations. So conservation funding Building care funding that kind of thing. Um, and you will soon see that on the FAC cap website under our resources link And so we try to provide that And assessors in the report also should try to provide that as well when it's available So the next question, I'm sorry just want to be clear. We don't provide the funding Nor can we provide any additional help with getting that funding? But sometimes just like Liz talked about earlier submitting the The cap report as evidence or as supplemental material in your application Is extremely helpful So the next question asked that they are an art museum and they have a library and archive Would the assessment have to cover those areas or only the art? um No, we can we can um I think your assessors would want to be aware that the library and archive exists But the focus of the assessment would be on the museum collections excellent So the next question asked would cap be appropriate for assessing the needs such as a building renovation And collections for moving to a new facility So it depends on what again where you are in the process and what you're you're expecting out of the assessment What cap won't do is create a move plan or a handling plan Or or something like that. What cap could do is review Plans that you may have drafted Or talk to you about You know here here are your current in your current situation here are your vulnerabilities If you have this opportunity to to Move to a new facility here are the things that you should You should be focused on improving If it's an existing building they may be able to say here are the problems with this existing building um and things that you should fix either before your move or Shortly thereafter or things you should work around and be aware of before you move into it They may also if it's a brand new building they may do the same thing looking at construction drawings And saying hey, this is going to be a problem or your h-fax system isn't sufficient or who knows It's a little bit more difficult with a non-existing building Then it would be with an existing structure. Um, but it's uh If the timing is correct, it can it can be done Well, but you you have to be in a position to be able to make changes Um, so if you are not If you know, you're not going to be able to make those kinds of adjustments based on the results of the cap assessment It's probably not going to be helpful to have that assessment The next question asks if cap can focus on conservation issues only not sure if I fully understand And that um, if the if the concern is if by conservation issues Um, you mean uh individual object conservation. So um, I have You know these three paintings and I they're flaking and I want Someone to look at them and see what needs to be done to To fix the paintings then no cap is not a prop program that does that kind of item by item Conservation assessment. Um, it's really like Liz described it as a kind of bird's-eye view of preventive conservation measures. So What are your what is your Environment what is the environment like that's housing your collections? What kind of storage materials are you using? Is your collection vulnerable to theft that kind of thing? Um, but if you're looking for conservation Conservation work and repair then this is unfortunately not the right program Okay, the next question asks We are a settlement and our primary purpose is to provide services to the most needy in the community However, we have an extensive archive in a single room in one of our buildings We especially need help with those archives. Do we sound like an appropriate match for cap? Um, so that's really interesting. We've worked with some interesting, um kind of not similar situations, but similar situations in that The museum is not the primary focus of the organization So we worked with a theater this year that has a significant art collection And they do have a curator on staff and a collections manager to take care of that um, I would want to talk to you more paula about Um, uh about your staff, um about your archive and You know whether Whether this is a good fit or maybe there are some other resources that we could send your way to help So paula if you don't mind contacting me offline, I'd really appreciate it Let's see the next question says, uh, we are both a nature and heritage center So we have a historic collection and a number of historic buildings in our collection But we also have an arboretum We are primarily interested in cap for our historic collection But do the assessors need to split their time equally between the nature and heritage components? Um, no, we can focus in this in this case. Um in most cases I will say that our assessors do want to look at the collection holistically It's a little different with With sites that have both living and non-living collections Only because our budget only has enough funding to focus on A small amount. Um, so we're happy if you want to focus on the historic collection I'm fairly convinced you have folks on staff who Can help you with your your living collections and we would be happy to help with the historic section great The next question is is it possible for the assessment to be conducted in the summer since we are a seasonal museum? Absolutely. We let every museum work with their assessors on their own schedules. Um, so you can plan your own And we would just it would just be important for you to make that An important part of your conversation as you're interviewing assessors Just to let them know that that's a priority And i'm just going to jump right in real quick because I want to get to I know there are a couple more questions that I haven't gotten to yet But I do want to say that for those of you who need to leave because we're reaching the end of our hour These recorded version of this webinar will be available on the cap website. Um, hopefully in the next day or two and You can also get it just by emailing us if you can't find it on the website, but I hope you will And I'm going to keep going on questions here So we have a question that says is it Could assessors be able to help determine if artifacts follow the mission statement or are they only looking at environment and collection storage spaces Excellent question. I tend to use a storage and environment as my examples and that's not good. And so I apologize Yeah, no, they I think they can definitely Look at do you have a collections policy? Does your policy help you? with Deciding how to accession objects or what what objects are appropriate for your institution? Um, what they won't do is go item by item So they're not going to go through every box in your collection and say get rid of this keep this get rid of this Keep this But they can help you look at the way your policies are structured They can talk through the process that you have for accepting new items in the collection And to help point you in the direction of best practices Wonderful and finally we have a collection or a question asking. We are a military museum. What our vehicles count as part of the collection? Um, I would turn that question back on you and say do you consider the vehicles part of your collection? Um, if they're historic vehicles and you treat them as part of the collection, then yes Um, we have we've had several aviation museums participate in CAP Um, we've had maritime museums that have boats that are That are objects in the collection. So in most cases, I would say Yes, probably Um, just because an object is in use. I don't know if you if those vehicles are actively used if Either way, um, I I think they could be considered collections items Great, so it looks sorry. I noticed um, we kind of we had received a private message just asking about availability of the slide deck and um, I could email the slide deck if all you care about are that are the slides, but The recording will be available on the website Well, we also have another question that says We have some functioning tanks as part of our collection Um, so we do like yeah, so like I mentioned before, um Your collection could include anything that you identify as part of the collection Um, so it really is up to your institution and your collections policy And someone wanted you to just repeat what the funding allocation was for Yeah, I'll flip back to that slide. So it's right here. So less than 250 000 The, um, allocation per assessor is 3,900. This should read 250 000 one dollar to 750 000 dollars is 3,700 And then over 750 000 one should be 3,500 per assessor Well, that looks like it might be the end of the questions Oh wait, we might have one more. Nope Okay, great. Well, I want to thank everyone for joining us today I know I said it a hundred times, but if you have additional questions or questions specific to your institution, please give us a call We'd be happy to talk through individual scenarios or if you have questions on the application as you start to fill that out Please also give us a call We're excited to see so many participants from around the country and I look for looking forward to some really great Applications coming our way here in just about a week