 So, thank you so much for joining us for today's webinar. This is, of course, the first in your 8-part series to complement your in-person training for the Seattle Heritage Responders Program. These webinars are made possible through the generous grant funding support of the National Redamit for the Humanities. You're kicking off this webinar series with three programs that take a broader approach to the topic of disaster response. And go ahead and pull over the overview of the schedule here as a refresher for you all. So, today's program, of course, is on the funding of cultural institutions affected by disasters. A session on July 18th will cover the psychology of disaster situations. And then a session on July 25th will look at health and safety considerations for effectively working scenarios. From there, we'll move on to programs that address material-specific salvage considerations. We all had a bit of this during our in-person session earlier. Actually, last month, no, I think May. So we'll look at paintings, textiles, close on electronic media, look at paper, and wooden and upholstered furniture. So all of these sessions are taught by members of the National Heritage Responders Team who are conservators who have specialties in those areas. We'll wrap the final program on October 10th, which is a little less than a month before the final in-person meeting and disaster scenario. If you miss any webinar series, I will email you with a recording of the program. Just write to me when you finish with that recording and I'll note your attendance. You'll be expected to complete all webinars before we meet again on November 1st. Before we begin today's presentation, I wanted to share some technical notes. On your screen, you'll see several boxes, including one labeled chat and a left-hand side. So you can of course use that chat box to say hello, to ask questions, or to share any information or links that you like. If you post a question in the chat box, you'll receive a response from me. All questions will be noted, collected, and then I will verbally ask them of our presenter, which completes her remarks. You will also note a box at the bottom of your screen titled Web Links. So how this works, click on one of the links to highlight it in blue, and then click that Browse to button at the bottom of your screen. I will go ahead and open the link in your preferred browser of choice. And with that, I'm very pleased to introduce you all to our presenter, Susan Matheson. Susan has worked in museums for 35 years as a conservator, administrator, and fundraiser. She has held conservation positions at the Morgan Library, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Gallery of Art, and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. She was also the administrative conservator of the Conservation Center, New York University, where, in addition to being the department's development officer, she served in the adjunct faculty as a textile conservation consultant at Villa Le Piedra in Florence, Italy. Development positions include those of the National Academy Museum, the American Academy in Rome, and the friends of the American Museum in Britain. In 2007, she started Stay on Fundraising Solutions, a firm specializing in fundraising for historic preservation and art conservation. She helps museums, historic houses, and grassroots groups meet their fundraising and strategic planning goals and presents workshops on a variety of fundraising topics. She also works with European organizations seeking to develop American patrons programs. Susan has published and presented extensively on topics ranging from textile conservation, collaboration, and fundraising. She is a master of arts and museum studies and textile conservation from the Fashion Institute of Technology, the Certificate in Fundraising from New York University. She has served on a variety of boards and committees, including the Collection Committee of King Manor Museum, Historic House in Jamaica, Queens, and on the board of the Historic Districts Council, New York City's only advocacy groups are historic neighborhoods. And with that, I'm pleased to turn things over to Susan for her presentation on fundraising for disaster scenarios. Great. Well, thank you, Jeff. And welcome, everybody. Glad to see you here. And I'm excited to be the first one. I'm usually the last one in this series. So this is a different take. Anyway, so let's get started. And, Jeff, I'm not seeing my slides. Oh, yeah. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So you've had a disaster. And while you're all dealing with that damaged structure or your water-locked collections, you also need to think about how you're going to pay for it all. And initially, there are a lot of funders you can go to right at that time of the emergency. And besides, you know, the obvious, like your insurance company, there are local disaster recovery options, such as those through state and local governments. And here, you know, the Washington State Department of Commerce, the Emergency Management Grants. And I see there's someone from there in the audience. And basically, these are not grants you can apply for, but that your city or county can apply for, and then get filled with the money through to you from that. Of course, there's the National Heritage Responders of AIC, as we all know. There's also the National Trust for Historic Preservation that has grants for a site that's been damaged in the last few days or weeks and damaged by unexpected events, such as a fire flood or high winds. And these are smallish grants, 1,000 to 5,000. I'm basically there to bring consultants in to help you assess the damage and figure out, you know, what needs to be done and what the dollar's going to cost. Of note two, for the first time this year, some of their other funds, like the Favreau and the Mitchell, are supporting bricks and mortar work. So if you've got building damage, they're a good place to go. And those grants range from about 10 to 15,000. And then of course there's FEMA. And rather than spending time going through the maze, that is the FEMA process. I actually got in touch with a cousin of mine who did, who processed the applications after Hurricane Sandy here on Long Island. And you know, I wanted to give some of his tips for dealing with FEMA. And basically he said that completing the applications the easiest part. It's really the burden of proof that's much more difficult to produce after a disaster event. So he said make sure, you know, your documents and everything are backed up, they're off site or in a cloud or someplace where you can get to them easily. You know, if you're dealing with a disaster, things are destroyed, they're waterlogged, whatever. And you know, if you're able to access them in a cloud or something, they're much better to get at too. Make sure your taxes and financial documents are accurate and up to date. No government agency, including FEMA, is gonna wanna talk to you if you owe them money or you've neglected your obligation to them. And you may say, well of course our 990s are all filed and everything. Be careful and double check because I actually had a client who, you know, it was a case of one person thought the other person who thought the other person was submitting the 990, none of them did and they lost their tax exempt status. So it's just safer to double check. You know, also look at your financial statements to your audit. You know, make sure things aren't understated. You want an accurate schedule. Same thing with your schedule of art or documents or what have you. You know, make sure they're supported by recent appraisal. And you know, have a conversation before that disaster with your insurance broker to make sure that, you know, you might need different schedules within your policy for specific items. Know your geography and know that the risks that come with it. You know, so you can plan contingencies around those risks and that's a theme I'll go back to quite a lot. And more important to, at all, you know, when you're doing a grand claim, particularly if you're dealing with FEMA, just give them exactly what they ask for. Don't think you're gonna be smarter by giving them more. It's not the way bureaucrats think. Give them what they ask for and if they need more, they will ask for it. Now, what I've just outlined is responsive fundraising. There's a problem, you've had an emergency, a disaster and you're seeking funds in reaction to that problem. But once you're past that initial recovery, you need to start thinking about how you're gonna raise funds beyond your FEMA and government money and all of that. And that's what we're going to talk about today. And I'm not giving a list of funders. This is about how to use the funders you have and how to find new ones. And frankly, because somebody will ask, they always do, there is no list of funders. I get asked about it all the time, it really doesn't exist. So what I want you to do is think about fundraising strategically, you know, creating that plan and thinking strategically about whom you're going to approach and how you're going to ask for and for what. You know, how are you gonna approach your disaster? Can you be more creative about presenting the problems the disaster has caused? And thinking too, you know, we're all planning, you're doing your disaster readiness, disaster preparedness plans, include fundraising in that as well. You know, are you gonna do an immediate crowdfunding campaign? Are you gonna do appeals? How are you gonna communicate the disaster and its impact on collections? It's doing this, it makes it a little less painful when it happens. And because you know, you sort of know what disasters you're amenable to. I mean, in your area, it's fires, here, it's hurricanes, I'm in New York, it's hurricanes. So you can sort of tailor your disaster fundraising plan to that and then tweak it let's say you're hit by a major storm or windstorm or something like that. Now, one of the things I always hear as a conservator and I still consider myself a conservator, not just non-practicing as I call it, is that many feel this isn't relevant to their job. And my response to that is, oh, it is so relevant to your job. Because who is the best to communicate to your development department, director, board, the impact of collections and in conservation, collections, care and conservation? That's what falls onto your soldier. And so what we're gonna do here is, besides giving you background and real-life examples, it helps give you the language you need to communicate the need for fundraising for collections, care and your institution. It's gonna help you talk to the development department in their language and help you understand what information they need, justification, impact. When that in turn will help you get the resources you need to maintain your collection. And I've often heard all our needs are too small. Just remember, collections at the core of your institution, without their care there's no mission fulfillment. So if you think of it that way, suddenly your needs are not so small. Okay, so how are we going to do this? Really quickly, I'm going to do a brief fundraising one-on-one. And along the way, give you a few pointers to help you think beyond usual suspects and how you approach looking at your donors. They'll be helpful hints along the ways, which is basically tips and tools. Research tools, how do you do prospect research? If it falls on your shoulders. In some cases, if your institution is small enough or even if your institution is big enough, sometimes it happens. And then we'll end with a couple of case studies. So you can see different approaches to recovery as well as different types of disasters because it isn't always a flutter of fire. It can come in many forms. So on that cheery note, where does the money come from? And the main four, as you probably know, individuals, corporations, foundations and government agencies. And with individuals, they're the ones we're going to be spending most of the time of, yes, they may be dealing with their own recovery. But remember, we're beyond the post-immediate disaster now. We're a couple of months out or down the line, what have you. So why do you go to them? Because 75% of channeled giving is from individuals. They have no restrictions. Unlike corporations, foundations and government agencies, there's no tax requirements. There's no grand caps. They can write, give as much as they want, have it designated for what they want, and determine how it's going to be paid out. Why did they give? The motivation. They believe in your mission and share your values. They're interested in your programs. And more importantly, they want to make a difference in your organization. And that is key at the time of disaster funding. So you really want to show them that even if they're giving $100, they're going to make a difference in your organization. And we'll get into that a little bit later on. But one of the things is that we as humans are hardwired to react to disaster. We want to make a bad situation better, even if we aren't in the thick of it. So we'll give when we wouldn't have otherwise. And I mean, if you think about it, all of the various hurricanes, Irma, Maria, Harvey, the tsunami, the fires in California, all of that, people living in other areas, wouldn't, or Katrina even, wouldn't have normally given to something like New Orleans. But because of Katrina, everybody did. So yeah, like I said, we can't get there. So we want to throw money at it. And you might have even read too, this is something else, not to get political. But there have been a lot of rage donations, where after the election, people felt that they needed to do something to counter the organization. So they started throwing money at organizations they thought could counter. And so you'll see things like the ACLU got a huge number of donations from people that had never been on their radar or in their donor list or anything. And they wanted to do something. So like I said, throw money at it. OK, so how do you find your individual donors? And your constituents are your most important. Do you have a wealth of prospects with whom you already have a relationship? They're using your services or resources, they're visiting you regularly. So look at your current donors. Who can you get interested in your recovery? And don't just look at the big ones. I am far more interested in the donor that gives me $250 a year than the one who comes to a benefit once and buys a $10,000 table. That $250 donor is loyal. She's engaged. And she could possibly give more, but she hasn't been asked. So don't assume that she can't give more. If you really start looking at or your development department starts looking at your donor list, you might find some surprises. And I always use the example of one client of mine. They were very much, oh, we need to find big money, big money. And I went back and started looking at their list. And in one case, I saw this one woman who was not giving a lot. Her total giving was about $300. But I noticed she was starting to give and give more and was engaging more and all of that. So I did a little research and it turns out she's worth $1 billion. But if you hadn't taken the time to do that, they would have just, they, the client would have just said, oh, she's only given $300. She can't do more. So really, look, another one I like to talk about are lap stoneers. They already have a connection. They might not have given to you for the last two, three, four years. But now you have a unique situation. So use it as a way to bring them back into the fold. Your volunteers, they view financial contributions as an extension of their commitment. And then there's, of course, there's the board. And I can hear all the groans. I know it all too well. But in time of disaster, now that's more than ever is when you need them to be engaged in the process in order to succeed. So I always say fundraising is a team sport. It's a partnership between the staff and the board. It's not the responsibility of one or the other. So work with them. If they're nervous about soliciting gifts, figure out other ways to engage them in fundraising, whether it be they take a donor out of coffee, they introduce new people, they help cultivate, they help steward, they attend the major gift meeting, but they don't ask, they just sit there because the presence is needed and all of that. So just think of other ways to engage them, but they need to be involved. And now I talk about sort of expanding the pool. You've gone internally, now look externally. And I usually start with those who give to similar organizations. People concentrate their giving. So they will support more than one organization with a similar mission or relates to a particular interest. And the way to do it is through collaboration. Let's face it, you're gonna be in the same boat as all your fellow nonprofits in the area. So why not work together to engage donors? You have an unusable site, they have a usable one. Why not have a joint event? Is this stealing? No. Evidence shows that collaboration results in gains on both sides. Because again, it goes back to that that they're interested in what they're doing and your missions are aligned, they're gonna be interested in what you're doing. And I always use the Anglo American because my European work, there's a huge contingent of British American, UK American organizations. And everyone is a member of every one of them. So it's not stealing at all. And similarly, foundations like to see this. They can help two grantees with one grant, particularly of importance when you're dealing in a disaster situation. And similarly corporations that getting more bang for their buck. And then I look, say to look beyond the obvious. And those whose interests align with the work you do. So who funds the subject matter of the materials in your collections? Wouldn't they be interested in saving it? Who is interested in local history? Geology, sorry, genealogy, whatever. So you're not looking at somebody who's interested in disaster recovery or conservation or libraries or archives or whatever per se. You're looking for someone who's interested in the broader context of that disaster recovery. Their interest is in what you're recovering. So use that to attract donors. Now you found them and you've got your prospect list. So what do you need to do to help bring them into the fall? Well, you need to know something about them first and that's the prospect research. And really quickly, I always say, look at things like where they have given because it shows them what type of projects they're interested in. How do they get to organizations? Are they endowing things? Are they giving annual gifts? Are they like their name on things? What's their average gift size? That'll give you an idea of their capacity. Are they engaged with the organization? Are they on the board or on a visiting committee? Where do they work and how is that business doing? What is their work? Talk to board members, staff volunteers who may know them and talk to the prospect too. Talk, figure out what their philanthropic priorities are. And also, well, look at the various research tools. Some of these you probably know. Annual reports, the gift lists, the donor walls and things. Hoover's online, Edgar's various other things give you insight into the businesses where they work and how those businesses are doing. Zillow and Trulia, if you know where they live, you can get an idea of what their house is worth and that could give you an idea of their net worth. Net worth sites. Not all of them are celebrity driven. You can actually find information about business leaders and other people within that. And if you have Razor's Edge, if you're a big enough institution, BlackBow, who makes Razor's Edge, has a sub database called research point where you plug in your contacts and they can supply more financial information for you. And donor search works similarly. And you know, so once you've found them and you've done the research, then it's the cultivation, the dances I call it. And I'm not gonna discuss it here because there's so much out there on cultivation, but I will say that disasters do give you a new opportunity for this. You know, there's hard head tours, there's participation in panels, there's museum re-envisioning downfalls, all of that kind of stuff. So you can use that disaster as a way to engage your donors. Yeah, I've gone through all of this. Now you guys start asking them for money because you do have to ask them. And for smaller donations, appeals campaigns, targeted donations, the adoptive campaigns, but what you have to watch out for is donor fatigue. And I'll give a case study about how one of my clients we prevented that later on. Donor fatigue becomes an issue in times of disaster because remember, you're gonna be raising money for a long time after it. One client has been doing it for seven years. You know, you have a lot of money, if your building's been destroyed, if you have massive amounts of conservation work or collections, post disaster salvage or anything to do, it's gonna cost a lot of money. So it's not something you're gonna, you're not gonna raise several million dollars in a year. You're gonna have to do it in a while. So to prevent that donor fatigue, you know, be creative. People get bored with the same old promotions. Mix it up, think of new ways to solicit funding from your donors. Be different from everybody else. Refrain, so yours is the same appeal that they're getting from everybody else impacted by your disaster. Use visuals, show state of need. Don't be afraid to show less than ideal storage conditions. That'll give, you know, bolster your argument for the need for funding. Show your past accomplishments, show the progress. And don't think on a large scale, 100 million books, documents, whatever, your donor can't wrap his or her mind around that. Nor are they going to think that $100 donation is going to make a difference. So think smaller, one book, one document, one object. Suddenly that $100 donation can make a difference. Creating a team effort. Ask them to join the disaster recovery with their donation. So they feel a part of the team restoring and recovering the collections, the building, whatever. And, you know, and naming opportunities, we all know about those. Now, I would be remiss if I didn't discuss crowdfunding. And I'm not going to discuss all the platforms. Again, there's so much out there about them. But I wanted to give a few thoughts about how to go about doing one successfully because you will be doing one, everyone does. And just like when we all jumped on the social media bandwagon, you know, jumping into crowdfunding requires strategy in setting realistic goals. You can't set up a campaign and expect to reach, you know, what you wanted to raise in three days and double your donor base. It's not going to happen. Mainly because the crowdfunding campaign is about empowering your current supporters. And I'm talking here about your Facebook friends, your Twitter followers, those who do whatever it is you do on Snapchat, Instagram people, all of that. They don't necessarily give you money, but they're still your stakeholders. They're the ones who are coming, you know, who are going to help you find the donors and they will do so by your empowering them. And how do you do it? Make it easy. Make it easy for them to spread the word. Send them e-blasts, Facebook postings. You name it that they can easily forward and do it weekly during your campaign. Encourage them to forward that blast and ask that they encourage their friends to give. And remember, a gift results from every four emails that that stakeholder sends to a loved one friend's acquaintance. So it actually does work in terms of getting donations. All right, now it seems like a lot, but if you plan accordingly, it won't be. Fundraising for crowdfunding campaigns, the success isn't made during the fundraiser. It's made during the weeks before the launch. And so plan for that promotion before that launch. Make sure all your e-blasts, your updates, your status thing, all the tweets, everything is ready to go so all you have to do during the campaign is hit send. And you can even, going back to the image of planning, you can make this part of your disaster preparedness plan. Sort of how you're going to say, okay, well, we're doing X, Y, and Z, and then you'll just know and you'll go into autopilot. Now, if you're soliciting, and you will be soliciting big money gifts, because you are going to be raising millions of dollars, if you're going to that major gift donor, however your institution defines a major gift, the best means of solicitation for these is face to face. And have a game plan. Make sure everyone from your organization attending are on the same page regarding the project, the amount of ask for, the organizational mission. Then the key is make sure the right person is doing the ask, whether that's the board member, the executive director, you, your relationship with the donor will tell you who that's going to be. And in terms of how much, don't sell yourself short. Ask for what your research shows the donor is capable of giving and don't thinking asking for less or make the donor say yes. If you have a donor who's able to give a $50,000 gift and you take them out for coffee or lunch or breakfast or dinner or whatever, and you ask for $5,000, their reaction isn't going to be, oh, okay, get fine, that's easy. Their reaction is going to be, why are you wasting my time when I can give you so much more? And don't low ball a project, you know, thinking that will help you get the funding. People know what things cost. They know a new roof is gonna be five, you know, a million, $500,000, a million dollars. So, if you kind of say to them, oh, we're gonna do it for, you know, 50, they're not gonna believe you or think you're just trying to get something for the ask. Now, when you're going into the meeting, you know, obviously ask in establishing report, discussing the project and asking them to consider the gift. You do your ask. Then it's time to step back and let the donor talk. And, you know, listen for the issues of concern, answer the questions, don't product push. And really, if you get a no, stay positive, but use that no response to keep the conversation going. You know, determine why. Maybe they can't do it right now. So say, okay, in six months from now, can we revisit this? You know, maybe it's not enough or it's too much. You know, maybe that's the project you're pitching, they're not interested in. And if you're afraid to ask for HRSA first, there's nothing wrong with that. And I think the thing most people have to realize is you don't really need to convince the donor. By the time you're having that donor meeting, you've done your cultivation, you've done your research. They know why they're at the meeting. They're engaged, they know the work you do. They just are waiting for you to do the final ask. And you, as I said before, you have to ask. And if you do get turned, no, told no, just remember it's not personal. They're turning down the project, not you. Corporations. And yes, again, everyone will be going to the same companies or they're in their own recovery. But that doesn't mean they don't want to put a good face on the community. So, you know, why do they give? Again, positive image in the community and it's good business. Data has shown that a corporation that is active in the community, sorry, that was my dog snoring in the background, it's not good. Anyway, it's, you know, that giving to the community actually increases their profit. So how do they give? Outrider matching cash. Probono equipment or services. Yes, yes, he has snored on past programs. Probono equipment or services. You know, if you need a backcoat for cleanup, someone, a construction company might lend you one. Facilities use. You know, say you need a place for a workshop or a board meeting. You need to borrow a conference room. In kind gifts, computer equipment, office supplies, food for a benefit. And sponsorship, you know, which is something we all sort of know about. And of course here too, you need to do the research as well. And, you know, press releases, SEC filings, they're a public company are a good source of either where they may be giving and what kind of money they've been giving away, but also what their value is and how much they can give. Websites such as Edgar's Hoover's again, Yahoo Financial provided that's kind of information. A company foundation. Usually they're on a company website under community. And even if there's no foundation, they may have less programs and initiatives that they made possible there. And then also look at the information in smaller companies. So your local chamber of commerce, your local CDCs can also provide, excuse me, information about corporations in the area. Helpful hints, think of beyond cash, again, things like equipment, conference rooms, that kind of thing. And don't forget the little guy. And I mean, I know I'm talking to people from a major tech area, but look at, you know, those big guys, the Goldman, the Amex, all of those, you know, if you're not a huge major institution, they aren't gonna know you. Look at the little guy. He, the little store, whatever, down the street, they have much more to gain in terms of publicity and community goodwill and will probably be much more approachable. Now, again, you have to approach a corporation with a business mindset. This is how they will think. So use marketing techniques to pique their interest, show the profit they will make by, quote unquote, investing in the project, and figure out how you fit, you and your project fit into their corporate strategy. You speak their language, markets, clients, return on investment, tangibles, you know, the impact your cause will have for them. And in the past, you know, corporations and conservation used to interface about the name on the wall for that exhibition. But when the market tanked, a lot of that changed. And the fact of the matter is, is we don't know what the other wants anymore. So take that leadership role because in that negotiation, because that's what it is, it's a negotiation. Ask what their goals are, express what yours are, and then find the areas of alignment and build from there. And someone once told me the best thing to do is start with what you can't offer. You can't offer a client dinner in a historic dining room or, you know, with collection materials around. But once both parties, you know, once you understand what you can't do, or they understand what you can't do and you understand what they can't do, then you can put all those aside and the options that can be put on the table can be negotiated and discussed. Yeah, that's enough on that. And we're going on now to foundations. And in time of disaster, many will step up. So contact those you have existing relationships with, see if they can provide emergency support. And I give you, give the example of the Loose Foundation. When after the market collapsed, they sort of cut out all new grantees and basically just provided general operating support to their usual grantees because when the market tanked a lot of people's endowments tanked as well. So suddenly they weren't getting that endowment income. So they were able to help address the shortfalls. So how do you find them? Again, it's all about research and I may sound like a broken record, but the fact of the matter is, is that fundraising is 85% research. It really, really is. And, you know, they're the obvious sources. The Foundation Directory online, we all know, and it's a great resource. There is the Foundation Directory online free because the big one is a subscription. This one allows you to search about the profiles of about 90,000 private foundations. It doesn't allow for subject searches, but at least you can get an idea of who's in your neighborhood. Foundation websites, obviously, more and more foundations are having them these days. And if you're dealing with a lot of, there are a lot of smaller family foundations out there. They often don't have websites. And your Form 990, which is the Foundation's IRS tax filing, same way you do, your organization does one. They do them as well. And that can give you a really great idea of who they're giving to, how they're giving, how much they're giving, and all of that. And really look, particularly with a small family foundation, there's kind of three ways you can go. There are ones who basically support the same organization in and out. And there's one where you can look at their gift size and see that they're basically using their foundation to buy benefit tickets. So it's usually if you see a lot of 1,000, 2,000, 1,500, 750, 1,250, that kind of thing, that's what they're using the foundation for. And then there are others who are much more engaged in the impact investing that's currently become very, very popular. And that's a subject matter for a whole other webinar, but again, a lot of information about that out there on the Chronicle Philanthropy site, the nonprofit quarterly, it's a magazine, their site, a lot out there on that. Lastly, the government agencies all clearly stated in their guidelines, I'm sure all of you have gone for NEHs or IMLSs or NEAs before, but I will say that make sure your online vendor registration, your SAM.gov and your grants.gov is all up to date because you can't even go to FEMA if they're not. So make sure. And then also too, don't just think of the federal, look at your state historic preservation office, your archive library, Arts and Humanities Council, local county agencies, there's a lot of government money out there. And similarly too, going back to the idea don't looking in the obvious, don't look in the obvious, but there as well. There might be Department of Education or Environmental given if it's a natural disaster and that kind of thing. There may be other avenues there that you can go to as well. Okay, you found your donor list, you've done your cultivation, you've done your research and everything, you're good to go. But how are you gonna communicate that disaster situation? Start with a story. The most successful way of communicating information is through a story. People react more positively to a good story. It elicits an emotional response and when folks are emotional, they tend to give. And it also gets you beyond the hard data. It helps people understand what is going on and the issues regarding the collection or the building that's been hit by disaster. Like I said, it goes back to that taking one book, one object, one document and telling the story of that artifact of how it went through the disaster and what needs to happen to it afterwards. It's also a great way to make a case for need. While it seems obvious, our building fell apart. This isn't about financial need, it's about justifying the need for your recovery work. What's the problem? How are you gonna solve it? And it kind of ties to demonstrating that impact. Articulate yours and the recovery's value to the community. Why is your recovery necessary and needed and good for the community? It's not just about doing the good work in the museum. You need to show how you are an integral part of the community and your contribution to it and that you're helping solve its problems and that your recovery is necessary so you can continue doing your good work. It's positive changes beyond your walls and that is what the need for collections care in the eyes of many now has really become. Not about the object anymore. It's about make a picture and I'll explain that a little bit as well. And also you need much more about evaluation. I mean, it used to be we reached our goals and now, again, it's about the positive changes as a result of our work, the external results that matters. What changes in the knowledge, skills, behavior occurred in the people that you serve and what evaluation methodology did you use to determine that? So, I'm not gonna, again, not gonna go into this but the IMOS on their site and you can see in the EM with web links linked to it. They have a little sort of online course so to speak called shaping outcomes and it walks you through how to evaluate your audience, how to know what they're getting from your programs, how to quantify it and how to qualify it basically. So it's a really good resource to do and I really recommend going through the little online course that's there. Now, how do you take all of this and put it into practice? So what I'm going to do now are three case studies and these are not always your typical disasters because not all disasters, as I said, are friends of Kinequat. The friends of Kinequat is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation, conservation and history of the 3400 acre Kinequat River State Park Reserve. This is a state park on Long Island and they work with the park's management to take care of the trails and hiking and the fishing and the various historic buildings on the property and they do public programs and all these great things. What makes the park so special and the reason why the friends are working to ensure it's preserved is the land was originally part of a royal patent given to William Nicholl in the late 17th century, so it has colonial roots. And then in the latter part of the 19th century, the 318 acres of the land was deeded to the South Side Sportsman Club of Long Island. And the reason why the boys, as I call them, did this is because Kinequat's actually one of the finest trap fishing sites in the world, definitely in the country. And the members of this club were, you know, gilded-aged notables, the Vanderbilt's, the Roosevelt's, the Carnegie's, and they flocked to this land. A lot of them had mansions and estates in the area. You often hear, anyone knows, about Long Island's Gold Coast on the North Shore. There was actually one on the South Shore as well. And they were Vanderbilt's and Belmont's and Roosevelt's and they all had houses there as well. And in addition to the clubhouse and some of the other buildings on the site, and if you look at the left in that image, that's a colonial Grismill that the friends have recently completed the restoration of. But in addition to all of this, the preserve actually boasts the oldest hatch house in New York State and the country, which opened in 1884. This is the project I wanna talk about. The hatchery, and I know I've got a fisheries person in there somewhere, so this is for you. The hatchery had been continuously operating for over 120 years until January 2009 when the Department of Environmental Conservation denied the park's department renewal of the permit for the hatchery because there had been infectious pancreatic necrosis virus detected. And this is, IPN is a pathogen detrimental to juvenile trap and not to humans. And this is what I always say, you learn a lot about different things when you start doing fundraising. I now know more about infectious pancreatic necrosis virus than any non-fisher should. So seeing the urgency of the situation, the French chose to address the hatchery revitalization. And working with New York State and the Freshwater Institute, they have cleaned the facilities of the IPN and reconfigured the water sources of the hatchery to prevent a relapse. So now they're using well water instead of river water. So if there is another outbreak, it's contained, it's not going back into the river. Now that it's clean, quote unquote, the friends are forging ahead with plans to improve the hatchery's environmental impact and its use as an educational resource that include restoring the historic hatch house and a construction of a new visitor center and educational exhibit. So this is a disaster of a different sort, but it's one whose impact reached far beyond the institution because the force closure had a devastating impact not only on the environment but on the local community. Because the park was no longer producing fry and fish, the paid entry of fishermen was down by 90% and the number of the visitors overall was down by 30%. So the denial of the permits caused cancellation of numerous events and curtailed the use of the preserve by educational outlets such as local technical schools for student classes. And it also prevented the preserve from participating in the governor's initiative to expand fishing clinics. So but the biggest impact of all was the losses and fees for fishing, which was estimated at about $400,000 a year. Similarly, it was also a huge detriment to the economy and revenue of Suffolk County where the park is and New York State because there was losses in sales tax revenue when local businesses such as area hotels, restaurants and sporting shops saw a reduction in patronage due to the decreased angler visitation in the preserve. And the park was no longer serving handicapped anglers and Kinequat, just so you know, is one of the few handicapped accessible fishing sites in the state. And lastly, the lack of fish also disrupted the normal cycle of the river and impacted wildlife such as the migrating nesting birds, the herons, the egrets, the osprey who would feed on the abundant fish in the river. Therefore, the fundraising for the hatchery revitalization wasn't focused on the hatchery as a historic site but on the economic impact to promote the preserve and the community. And because of that, we were able to broaden the scope of the funders we approached. In addition to local government agencies, they have to well have had community-wide impact, we were able to look at economic development funders and local business foundations and adding all of those to the existing pool of members and anglers groups. What was the story we told? We'll give you another picture to look at. Well, you know the usual. Cultural and historic tourism, you know, every dollar invested in tourism promotion generates a $51 return in the private sector. Cultural tourists spend more than other tourists. Cultural attractions bring in new dollars and retain local dollars, you know, job creation, how many full-time equivalents you add a new area with the hatchery. But then there were the more, you know, sorry, sorry. There were more direct economic benefits, the nonprofit as a source of revenue spending, so you had salaries, real estate, purchase and rental. You had the professionals hires, contracting, marketing people, financing people, purchasing power, you know, the local businesses in the area need supplies. They were buying supplies. The local businesses in the area were either running out of business or closing. They weren't, people weren't buying the supplies anymore. And then of course, tax revenues. And then there's the indirect, the dynamic recreational resource that attracts individuals and businesses to the community. You know, it improves quality of life. High-skill workers are attracted to communities where arts are available. Businesses are attracted to communities where there's high-skill workers. And, you know, overall, when you have all of this, economic development improves and results. So it all kind of works together. And so settling this emergency of IPN wasn't just about recovering the building and clearing out the virus. It was about improving the overall economic stability of the area. And that is how we presented it and we were able to raise all the money to do this. And the Friends actually serves as a role model for other state parks, friends groups in New York. In addition to the hatchery, they've also spearheaded, again, as I showed you before, the nickel grist mill preservation effort. And, you know, because of their successes, they've actually won awards. And together we've raised over a million dollars for these various projects and the educational programs and everything as well, which isn't bad for an organization's annual operating budget is about $30,000 a year. So, with that, let's go look at a much more typical disaster, the Barna Museum in Bridgeport, Connecticut. On June 24th, 2010, an EF-1 tornado formed over the city of Bridgeport and, without warning, hit right in front of the Barna Museum. The damage was monumental, needless to say. The dome, which you see here, actually twisted and completely undermined all of the structure below. The windows, you see those lovely big plates, that's the whole building, you see those lovely plate glass windows in front, they completely shattered. One of them was by the air intake for the HVAC and all of that debris went into the building to the gallery and you can kind of see some of it here. So, and I wish I could, images really can convey it, I wish I went into the galleries a few days after and everything sparkled because it was all covered with pulverized glass. It was a whole roof. First, we went, that's Barry, who came to visit us for a couple of days. And, you know, the collections also suffered a result, there's a lot of mold, water damage and all of that. In the true spirit of Barnum, the show must go on. And this writing on the boarding here was actually the brainchild of Executive Director Kathy Maher who despite all of the chaos that was going on around her within the institution, went to the Home Depot, got a can of spray paint and put that on one of the boards. And she just describes it now as sort of a testament to the need for a sense of humor and the sense of humor everybody had regarding the situation because the only way you can get through it all is if you can laugh at it. Now, do the, or at least you can keep your sense of humor. In the days after the storm, everyone went to triage, regardless of the collections. There were thousands of them, they were all assessed and basically they all exhibited, you know, typical damage that you would expect in this situation, mold, dirt. Then once the artifacts were secured, they really started looking into the extent of the damage in the building, you know, looking at the scope and getting it an idea of what it was cost. Now, once all of that was done, they could have said, well, we've had a tornado, we're going dark for the duration of the recovery. They didn't. They decided to see the tornado as a paradox that this scary opportunity, this scary reality was a remarkable opportunity to move the museum into the 21st century and do something really innovative and really creative. So they began figuring out what the future of the museum was going to be as part of that disaster recovery. And that's what the story for fundraising became. Not the damage, but the future of this important institution within the community. So as a way to remain vital within the community and re-engage the membership general audience, they opened on a limited basis in April, 2012. They had a back adjacent undamaged space they were able to use. And they opened with a exhibit called Recovery in Action. And this enabled members, sponsors and guests to view the activities of the museum during this unusual time and have a rear behind the scenes view of the complexities of disaster recovery at a major historic institution. There was a looping PowerPoint that showed the program in a video showing the damage in the building because it couldn't bring anyone in. It had been not condemned, basically it was unsafe. They were able to maintain their school and education programs for children and lifelong learners in this space and through outreach. And they continued to do projects with the collections. We were awarded an NEH grant to do a collection partnership project with the Bridgeport Library. It was about digitization of collections. And through all of this, we were able to show funders that we were still a viable cultural resource providing the service to the community. And we were able to keep our donors and audience engaged so they wouldn't forget us or the work that lay ahead, which is much more important. It also allowed us to introduce new funders to the museum because we all had something to show them and continued to make collections accessible via smaller exhibitions and online. And, but more importantly, it wasn't just disaster, as I said, it wasn't just disaster recovery and re-envisioning. So we were able to go to different funders that we wouldn't have been able to otherwise for that aspect of the project. So we were able to hire scholars to help with the development of new contact. We were able to find the right exhibition designers to take all that scholarship and combine it with Barnum's showmanship and to put together a seamless captivating experience. We could go to agencies like the NEH for a challenge grant, which a capacity building grants, because that's what we were doing. We were rebuilding our capacity. Or we could go to sustaining heritage collections at the NEH or the IMLS because we were planning on implementing sustainable preservation strategies. Now, in recent years, the messages changed to re-envisioning the museum. And you can see how all of this is coming together. There's a link on the bottom for director Kathy Mars. She did a great TED Talk on what the multimedia presentation they are planning and how it's gonna really change how visitors engage with the collections, the stories, and the themes. So it's really spectacular. I highly recommend you go into. But when stepping back, what we realized in the re-envisioning and what we have all learned is that it's really critical that the community be at the center of your disaster recovery. You may need them to be at the table if you want them to support it financial or otherwise. So what we museum began doing was having, you know, community in for workshops and meetings to get their input and behind the recovery and going through all of these town halls and everything. What they really learned was that no one really cared about the tornado. The recovery effort shifted to what the museum could do for that audience. You know, whoever that audience was at that moment. So the learning takeaway from this was that if the community doesn't think you're relevant, you're not. And that's what legislators want to know as well. So when you're looking for that government money, you have to be relevant. How are you creating jobs? How are you part of economic impact? How are you serving the community? All those questions come back over and over and over again. And, you know, in reality, in many ways, this is where a lot of funders are going. It's not about that institution anymore. It's about that broader impact. I can't say it more than enough. And I often give the states the example as the New York State Historic Preservation Grants, Bricson-Warner's Grants, one of the few we have here. And the application, 62 questions, two of them are about site significance. The rest of them are about job creation and what are you doing back to the, giving back to the community in fulfillment of state, you know, various state economic development plans and that kind of thing. Our last case statement is the Merchant's House. Again, this is going back to preventing donor fatigue. And the Merchant's House is truly a unique institution in New York. It was built in 1832 and purchased by the Treadwells in 1835. And the family remained in the house until 1933 when the youngest daughter died. It was about then that a cousin who was given it, inherited it, decided to convert it into a house museum and it opened in 1936. It is significant as a rare survivor from the early 19th century in New York City. It has a nearly intact collection of the original owner's possessions to display it in a largely unaltered Greek revival interior. So it's interpreted with the family's possessions in the interior that is basically as it was as the family lived in it. It has the finest extant example of historic cluster work in the country. And it's because of this that it's not only a state and city landmark, it's also a national historic landmark. And it's one of the few buildings that's actually been landmarked for its exterior and interior. So what's its disaster? In April, 2012, plans were announced for a hotel in the lot adjacent to the museum. And I'm gonna point here, it's this property right there. And this caused much concern in the community. Again, it goes back to the community. The design was deemed un-compextual for the Noho neighborhood. North of Houston, it's a historic district. But more importantly, the construction was going to pose a serious threat to the structural stability of the merchant's house, its interior elements and its collections. And even though the developer says it was making protection provisions, they were completely inadequate. And these provisions are really mandatory because enough vibration or ship building shift, even an eighth and an inch was going to damage that historic plaster. So in the two years, the hotel became a catalyst for community action. The house, government officials, preservation organizations, local residents, all rallied to protect the house and the neighborhood sense of place as well. There were petitions, things were presented to the community board who has continuously voted against the hotel and the rezoning of it because we also have to rezone for that hotel. But despite all of this, despite the design height, despite the materials being wrong, our Landmarks Preservation Commission approved it in 2014. And I don't know how, if you are aware about how our Landmarks Preservation Commission, the LPC works, because it's landmarked and in a historic district, any work or any construction needs to be approved by the commission. And then it goes to the community board and the borough presidents and the city council and all of that. And despite that, the developer said, we're going to take all these precautions to protect the house. The reality is that nothing was in writing. So while the lawyers have been negotiating, the museum has been really proactive in conducting assessments to predict possible damage and develop protection plans for the structure of the collection. In the last three years, and here's some of our materials, the lots have changed in the last three years, but what has remained consistent is the museum's effort to keep the disaster in the forefront of the audience mind and that's the focus of their philanthropy. First, the buildings and collections fragility served as a springboard for educational programming aimed at correcting the misconception a landmark is guaranteed survival and that there are many diverse issues that it's not immune from. Landmark, handled with care, with the educational program that included lectures and workshops featuring noted experts that address topics such as the care and conservation of the historic class to work to the bricks and mortar's work that constantly takes place to ensure the house's structural stability. In all of these programs, efforts to protect the house from the impending construction next door was emphasized and this not only educated donors, both current and future, because we did attract donors this way, it kept them engaged in it. And then other ways the construction was used to engage donors is, oh, sorry, there was a shot of the house there. They were called on to sign petitions, write letters, give testimony, or even just be in a room for a community board meeting or what have you to demonstrate that the community wanted the house to be protected. And these activities continued as well to keep donors informed of the situation. I made them active participants in saving the house. All of our appeals at the time of the hearings and after even up till now, GAID members and current donors updates on the construction and ask that they support the cause. New institutional funders were solicited for technical assistance grants for the architectural collection protection plans, the engineering analysis and communications strategies because you need publicity when you're, when you're planned to do all, you need a publicity plan when you're doing all of this and legal fees. We also applied to new institutional funders for the educational programs that focused around the emergency, like the National Trust, like local preservation, like our Humanities Councils. And now these funders have continued on and supporting sort of non-emergency related programming. During tours, donors were asked for donations or audiences were asked for donations and there's signs throughout the house on the threat. There was also an online campaign. I'm gonna end here with a pretty picture of the garden because you have to do crown funding, as I said. And we've also introduced a lot of new groups to the house through those collaborative events. Again, it shows how collaboration works. We have seen their members, seeing how special the house is, become members themselves, attendees in programs and donors. And at the last one, people came in, they already knew about the construction and they were asking about it. So the message is getting out there, even though we're eight years beyond from when it first hit the news. And despite the fight, the museum has continued to implement its historic restoration and furnishings plan and it always remained open during the work so visitors could see what was involved in preserving a historic site and just what the construction would destroy. That message that the museum would continue despite the threat was told through other fundraising campaigns that were designed to just fund the care of specific objects or new initiatives like when you postured all that lovely furniture you saw in the front parlor suite. Benefits at annual galas, they kept going and again, they served as a way to remind donors of the uniqueness of the house and the threat that was still very much alive. In other words, the museum continues to offer its programming, yet the visitor is consistently reminded, albeit sometimes quietly, that there is still that specter of the construction next door. But by using different avenues to keep the members abreast of the situation, the museum has prevented donor fatigue on the construction, you know, oh, that construction project I've already given to that. We don't have that issue. We are, what we are insured of is that the donors are still engaged in the emergency and are still willing to get to the cause and actually the last gala and a couple of recent events have focused on new developments that have been happening and I don't have to talk about them yet, but it's constantly evolving and changing and because it's constantly evolving and changing, we're able to constantly evolve and change our fundraising materials. And again, it keeps people in the loop and engaged and, you know, they're not hearing that, oh my God, we're having this construction next door. They see things are happening. And with that, I'm going to end and turn it back over to Jeff. Well, thank you so much, Susan. Such a wonderful overview of this very important topic and I think you made an excellent point at the beginning that, you know, even if this isn't necessarily in your job description, you all as stewards of your collections need to be aware of the role that you can play in helping to raise funds to your institution back on its feet after a major event. So I just want to remind you all to go ahead and feel free to drop any questions you might have in that chat window. You used to say hello. So feel free to go ahead and chime in if there's anything that you have to ask of Susan. Susan, I believe do you have your final slide here with your website? Oh, my top. Yeah, so Susan provided her website here. If you want to go for more information, this is a really excellent resource as well. So I'll go ahead and anyone's percolating if they have some questions, go ahead and pull over. This is a link to a survey tool. So if you all could just take six, probably about two minutes of your time to just fill this out. It's very helpful for us in figuring out how we can make these programs as helpful and effective as possible. So this works the same way as the links at the bottom of your screen. So just click on evaluate the webinar and click that for us two buttons and hopefully that should take you directly to a survey tool. So any more questions possibly coming in here? And again, a reminder, if you didn't get the chance to go ahead and open those links at the bottom of the screen, please do go ahead and do that. They will be captured on the reporting webpage as well. You can always refer back to them, but these are two really excellent resources. So I would encourage you to check them out. Finalize. And okay, here's a question for Desmond. Can you speak to how fundraising may be managed within our cultural institutions, i.e. who was primarily responsible for it? Most of us will be focused on the hands-on recovery of our collection, so we would be providing support to whomever is doing the actual fundraising. Well, that depends on your, okay, so Corey, you're at the fry. The first question is, do you have a development department or somebody on the staff there for who is primarily responsible for it? Depending on the size of your institution, and I know the fry, I'm pretty sure you have a development department there. It's usually the development department that is primarily responsible for developing a plan for seeking support after a disaster. They are working in concert with your director as well as your board member. I'm assuming the size of your board if there's a development or fundraising committee on your board sort of working there. But it's sort of taking the step back in terms of assessing the need and then figuring out from there who is going, developing that disaster plan, disaster fundraising plan after you've kind of gotten through that, those initial fundings, your FEMA and insurance and all of that, sort of who will be going for there. So it kind of varies from institution to institution and depending on size. But if you have a development department, it would be their responsibility sort of preparing the materials. What also happens too is you as the archivist, conservator, curator, registrar, whatever will be called upon to help give that development department whoever is doing the fundraising at your institution providing them with the information they need. So a lot of times, and I've been subjected to this as well, you have the development officer developing the programs and that's really not the way it should be. It should be whether it be the education department or the conservation, they should be the one developing what the project is going to be and then the development person basically putting it into fundraising speak if I like to call it or figuring out the gaps like the community impact, the impact, the evaluation and all of that sort of materials, the conservation team or whatever will pull together the project budget and how much things are going to cost and all of that. So it's sort of primary responsibility is managing the project managing of a request is development but everybody else is feeding into it. I hope that answers your question for the long round about life. Thank you, Susan, that really helps to clarify what those relationships look like and the roles that the folks who are participating in this training should be expected to play when it comes to a call. Right, right, again, as I said, it's fundraising as a team sport and so it are... Right, so this group learned about the incident system and Corey's pointing out that, yeah, within that there should be a position specifically for fundraising and I think certainly within the immediate response phases it makes sense for it to be functioning within the ICM. Yeah, I mean, exactly, I mean, it goes back to my earlier point when you're doing your disaster preparedness plans or disaster recovery, whatever, you should include some information about fundraising even if it is sort of figuring out, okay, well, who's taking the lead on this aspect of it and what avenues do we think we're going to go to first? And basically you may wanna lay it out with, okay, development's going to pull together the information needed for FEMA and your finance office may be dealing with the insurance issues and all of that. That's, it's a good section to have sort of this way people can just know who needs to, who needs to do what, when and how. Well, I don't see any other questions coming in at this point but I hope you all have been given some nice food for thought here and... I'm gonna type in my email. If anybody else thinks of anything, feel free to drop me a line. Perfectly happy to answer questions. Thank you guys for this. I appreciate that. And just a reminder again, please do feel free to go ahead and fill out that survey link. It'll be very helpful for us. And I wanna give a big thank you to Susan for this fantastic presentation today. And thank you to everyone who was able to join us live. Hope you found this webinar platform to be easy to use and I'm looking forward to continuing the series with you all throughout these summer months. So thanks again, everyone. And so folks on the West Coast, I guess you're coming up on, well, I guess you're a little afternoon now so enjoy your afternoon. All right, have a good one, everyone. Thank you.