OAHSM Conference: Day 2: Ideas Marketplace III

Fundraising and Development

Andy Veroff from Campus Martius and the Ohio River Museum led this discussion session.

• Andy started off by discussing the effort to raise money to preserve the boat, the J.P. Snyder, at the Ohio River Museum. The project was kicked off with a Save America's Tr sures grant of $350,000 and they raised $172,000 from the community. The team effort involved with this project is really what has made it vibrant and successful.
• The museum also raised a field trip fund. Both projects had very specific goals, which makes fundraising easier and the message brought to funders more appealing. Target projects by interest and ability to give. Ask for an amount!
• The Columbus Historical Society held a live, themed auction of Billy Ireland cartoons. It was also a cocktail party and lecture. The auctioned items were donated. The lesson learned from this project was: Ask for what you want and ask for a specific value that items should be auctioned for.
• One organization held a Chinese Auction with over 150 items; they had so many, they had to turn donation away. Attendees pay an admission and get 25 tickets (they can buy more). Attendees put tickets in the basket of the item they're interested in. Items ranged from $20 in price to $100. This event brings in $10,000 a year. There are two hours of bidding and then the person who placed the most tickets in the basket receives the item.
• The Delhi Historical Society had a $75,000 1:1 matching grant over three years. They started by soliciting businesses. During the third year, they used their Christmas Party as a fundraiser to finish donations for the grant.
• The Rotary Club of Ottawa worked to raise funds for preserving their Firefighters Memorial. They used personal contacts with companies and gave bronze plaques for donors of $1000. They received a personal "Thank You" and invite to the dedication. The found descendants of people whole build the memorial and go hem to donate. A nine-year unveiled it in 1915 who is still alive and did the re-unveiling!
• The Athen County Historical Society did an appraisal fair before the Antiques Roadshow was popular. They hold the event every 2-3 years and limit the number of tickets. This builds anticipation and interest for this event.
• Waynesville, OH is a small town without big donors. The Museum at the Friends Home did research on the town's early history and created haunted tours that bring in $9000 over the course of 18 days. They draw an audience from outside the town. The history is well researched. The tours are $10 for one hour tour and an hour in the museum.
• Because of falling property tax revenue, the Toledo Metro Parks held a big gala and found that they were always going to the same people for development and fundraising. In order to move towards more audiences, they've created friends groups and have reached out to community groups with low-pressure events. They bring the groups in once a month for breakfast and to celebrate successes. There was some resistance to paid events (they are tax-supported and there is a feeling that everything should be free) so it was important to have specific incentives to justify the cost.

Some other discussion:

Should organizations wait on annual giving because of the economy? Keep going even though times are bad in order to maintain a cycle. It will be tough, but it is important to keep trying.

Members vs. Friends: what are the benefits, how are they different? This should be clear because some people seem to think that members have to commit time.

OAHSM Conference: Day 2: Ideas Marketplace II

Idea Marketplace: Educational Programs

This session was led by Maggie Marconi, curator at the Follett House in Sandusky, Ohio. Each organization presented one of their successful educational programs to the group.

• Delhi Historical Society- Received a grant from the Ohio Humanities Council to establish a speakers series about the Great Depression. The speaker series, held at local libraries, targets teachers and offers professional development hours.
• Manor House, Toledo Metro Parks- Offer behind the scenes tours, allowing guests to go into the boiler room, attic, washroom, etc. and open closets and doors. The tours have been successful and now there is a waiting list for them.
• Madison County Historical Society- Offers experiential learning through archaeological digs. The National Park Service provides teachers a guide book on archeology. Bob Johnson, who presented the program, suggested requesting 2 copies. They send one to the teachers before they come to do the activity. He also suggested getting a copy of the Ohio standards book so that programs could be design to meet teachers’ needs.
• Engineers Club of Dayton Foundation- Produced an award winning documentary, Ropewalk, about the rope making industry in Xenia, Ohio. It began as a slide presentation by Bill Hagenbuch and developed into a DVD.
• William Holmes McGuffey Museum- Created a hands on activity at the museum relating to food preparation. Food is not allowed in the educational space, so students create “butter pats” using a reproduction butter mold and pieces of Tempur-Pedic material. They have found that the material holds the impression from the mold for about 60 seconds, making it possible for another student to do the same exercise.
• Westerville Public Library/ Westerville Historical Society- Created the program, History Exhumed, to celebrate the city of Westerville’s incorporation and commemorate the Civil War. Re-enactors set up a Civil War encampment and the Hanby House was set up as a house in mourning to teach visitors about funeral customs. To make this a legacy project, the historical society got 2 markers for soldiers buried in local cemeteries and held a memorial service.
• Knox County Historical Society- For the county’s bicentennial, the society divided the county geographically and held lectures by historians targeted toward the history of the specific section of the county.
• Toledo History Museum- Creating a new quarterly publication that includes both scholarly and popular articles. Wants to incorporate articles geared toward children, possibly including articles written by them.
• Wilmington College and Peace Resource Center- Holds the largest collection on Hiroshima and Nagasaki outside of Japan. They have been doing inventory and cataloging the materials. Wilmington College students are required to visit the museum during their time at the school. Switched the focus of the exhibit from a negative view of the bombing to new focus- stories of hope. They have been receiving a better response on the new exhibit. They also helped a student on a History Day project on the bombing and she own 6th in the nation. She was so inspired she continued the project the next year and won 1st in the nation for her project.
• Clark County Historical Society- Held a night at the museum over Labor Day. Re-enactors were placed around the museum to provide information. Was so successful they will be doing 2 nights next time. They are thinking of adding an element to the night by giving visitors a card of a person who lived in the area and throughout the tour they will learn more information and what happened to the person. They hope this will provide a more personal connection.
• Richland County Historical Society- held a day camp this summer that focused on the history of the county from the Native Americans through present. Every day was a different time period. The days were activity based- kids made ice cream, quilted, and a variety of other activities. They suggested started publicity early for such a project.
• Walsh University- are starting to plan service learning projects on Ohio history for students.
• Follett House- On international museum day the Follett house and other museums joined together to create a day of activities. The Follett house had free admission and all museums held various family activities. A grant provided funding for a trolley to carry visitors between the museums. The event was so successful that more museums joined in the following year.
• Wood County Historical Society- Held a night at the museum for children. First, they watched the movie and then were taken around the museum with flashlights and allowed to explore. The historical society also has a traveling trunks program. Recently put together a trunk of the American Revolution, based on teacher suggestions. As they do not have a lot in their collection on the revolution they got help from the American Legion to raise money to get materials for the trunk. Volunteers helped create productions of clothing for students to try on.

OAHSM Conference: Day 2: Ideas Marketplace

Volunteers: Recruiting, Retaining and Training

This session was led by Elizabeth Schultz from the Oberlin Heritage Center.

Recruitment Ideas:

• Create an application form and system that allows you and the volunteer to find out where he or she will fit best in your organization.
• Post ads in newspapers, recruit at high schools, put a sign up on your wall, and let people know during public programming that there are volunteer opportunities.
• Many universities have centers for service and civic engagement (or some equivalent), or fraternities or sororities that need to do community service.
• If you're near a university, get to know professors and the courses that they teach. You may be able to find interns that way.
• Any college or university that receives federal work-study funding has to use a percentage of it off campus. An internship at your organization could be paid through work-study money.
• To find adult volunteers you can recruit from retired teachers, county leadership programs, or young professional groups. Starbucks also has a volunteer program. If you recruit Starbucks employees as volunteers, the company will pay you $10/hour for their time and bring coffee!

Training Ideas:

• Board members are great volunteers that may not need to be trained.
  The Allen County Museum has a program that requires volunteers to complete 60 hours a year. The first year they are a provisional docent and follow three other guides. There is an annual volunteer enrichment program that lasts a week from 9am-noon with lectures and informational sessions.
• At Fort Ancient, new volunteers follow experienced volunteers. Everyone learns one thing at a time and is allowed to master it before moving on to a new task.
• At the Oberlin Heritage Center, it varies by task. Sometimes it is one-on-one work with a librarian or curator. Tour guides follow other guides until they are ready to conduct their own tours.

Retaining Ideas:

• Pot luck recognition dinners can cost no or little money.
• Wal-Mart is often willing to give in-kind donations to volunteer recognition events.
• Small local shops may also be willing to donate to volunteers.
• The Quaker Heritage Center provided a nice framed picture to their interns and candy in their mailboxes on their birthdays.
• A volunteer trip or lunch with recognition of people with 5, 10, 15, etc years of experience.
• The Oberlin Heritage Center has bookmarks with their volunteers on them, produced in-house and laminated and create A-Z lists of what volunteers have done for the institution.

Background checks for volunteers was a point of discussion in this group. Many organizations require that their volunteers are background checked, but this can become expensive. County websites can offer background checks, or the Sheriff's office for $20-$50 depending on the office. Some organizations require the volunteers to pay for the background check. It is important to remember that if someone is coming in for a few hours to do one program, he or she does not need a background check.

OAHSM Conference: Day 1: Concurrent Sessions

Pat Smith, Director of the Allen County History Museum shared her experience as being a novice and creating two websites and pod casts with a Mac using software iLife and iWeb.

Pat talked about looking at other websites to find what you like and what you don't.

Check out the Allen County A-Z and Paddy's Place.

Some other tips:
Keep it simple! The more neat and clean your website is, the easier it is to look at.
Think about your message: what is your website going to say?
Try Google Alerts to see if other people are blogging about you, or if a newspaper publishes information about your organization.

Kimberly Kenney, curator at the William McKinley Presidential Library and Museum, provided a lot of great ways to celebrate anniversaries. In 2007, the McKinley monument had its 100th anniversary. Three years out, the staff started planning a series of events including:

• A book about the momument: The McKinley Monument: A Tribute to a Fallen President from the History Press.
• An Exhibit that included a few object from the memorial, a coloring contest, a model building contest, a drawing contest, an essay contest, a photo contest for adults, and community photos, all about the monument.
• Special Tours of the monument's basement
• 100th Anniversary dinner
• 100 X $100 endowment campaign that found 100 donors to give $100 towards the endowment.
• The Penny Campaign- "Let's Do it Again." The monument was originally built by fundraising and school children donating pennies. The museum resurrected the campaign, had pennies from across the country and ended up collecting 1.4 MILLION pennies!

To top it all off, they held the 100 Hours Celebration where the museum stayed open for 100 hours straight. The staff did not see this as a fundraiser and Kim said, "Some events you make money, some events you make friends." This giant event was pulled off by a full time staff of 6, a part time staff of 15, and a volunteer core of 100.

OAHSM Conference: Day 1: Lunch

Dr. James Bissland, author of Blood, Tears, and Glory: How Ohioans Won the Civil War spoke at today's lunch. Dr. Bissland laid out his three main reasons he wrote the book.

1. To reclaim some of Ohio's "lost" or not well known history
2. To show how the Civil War was the most important event in American History
3. Because people learn history best through the telling of stories

Storytelling with history seems to be an emerging theme...

Dr. Bissland said history is "a fascinating mosaic of human stories."

Ohio was important in the Civil War for many, many reasons:

• John Brown, from the attack on Harper's Ferry is from Ohio
• The Underground Railroad was very strong in Ohio
• Abolitionists like Harriett Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, had a strong voice in Ohio
• Three of the four most important military leaders during the war are from Ohio: Grant, Stanton (Sec. of War) and Sherman (Lincoln being the fourth, but also a mid-westerner)
• Ohio sent tens of thousands of men to fight

Dr. Bissland wanted to challenge the idea that the war took place mostly east of the Appalachian mountains.

At the end of his session he left the group with assignments:
During our celebration of the Civil War Sesquicentennial, make sure to show how the local events are important to the nation story. Also, talk about how the Civil War helped define the American Dream.

Restore the Memorial in Memorial Day. Take some time to visit at least one Civil War veterans grave.

OAHSM Conference: Day 1: Plenary Session

This morning's plenary session was presented by Prof. Andrew Cayton from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Dr. Cayton has written several books, notably Ohio, a History of a People. An overview of his discussion is as follows:

Local historians and academic historians are often separate in their work, but Dr. Cayton hopes through his own work, that this will not so much be the case. While that work is different in audience and the size of the message, there are places for intersection.

Dr. Cayton presented the idea that Ohio was the center of the world during the mid-19th Century through to the 1920's. Everything that was going on and changing in the world was happening in Ohio, and Ohio was central to it. From 1750-1850, the world changed dramatically. Society in 1700 was much more like society of 1400 then it was like the world in 1800. With industrialization, innovation and railroads, Western Europe and America became dramatically different that other places in the world.

Moving on to the second part of his talk, Dr. Cayton discussed a recent project with the William Holmes McGuffey House in Miami. He was asked to select an object and write 500 words about that object. He choose an Atkins Clock from Bristol, CT, circa 1850. His reason was very personal, the clock reminded him of his grandparent's house.

The curators at the McGuffey House sent Dr. Cayton information on the clock, including all of those details near and dear to curators and public historians: condition reports, provenance, history, other information. Through this clock, Dr. Cayton reveals several layers of stories and history.

There is a personal layer to this story. For Dr. Cayton it is the relationship to his grandparents. That clock symbolized the conservative nature of their lives during the 1950's. Dr. Cayton talked about spending summers with his grandparents and his grandfather would not each lunch until the clock struck noon. There is also the personal story of the people who gave the clock to the museum. The pleasure of presenting objects with personal significance to a museum is a wonderful gift our professor can give to our stakeholders.

From the historical and curatorial perspective, there is the story of the Atkins family in Connecticut who owned this business and mass produced these clocks. The American Watch and Clock Museum has published a book that brings more light to this story.

But then there are the stories told by academic historians on a state, national, or global level. This clock is a symbol of the social and cultural change and shows why Ohio was the center of the world. Mass manufactured clocks had a large impact on society. Prior to mass production, only the very rich had such time pieces. Before a mass "clock culture" life did not run on a strict schedule. It wasn't possible, time wasn't standardized. The clock is a radical transformation in regular life, living by time. The clock symbolizes that this was the home of a regular, American, middle class family.

At the beginning of the 19th century, people started to make more clocks, and people wanted to buy them. After the end of the War of 1812 in 1815, the U.S. was economically set up to supply the world. Ohio was central to this development and became the state as we know it during this time. In less than 100 years, Ohio had an infrastructure, cities, factories, canals and began mothering presidents for the nation.

Dr Catyon said "In this new world, nothing mattered more than time." The world sped up with innovation and industry and time was money.

So these different stories are all important and can intersect. Dr. Cayton was encouraging of academic and public or local historians working together. While the local and academic history may seem separate, it can, does and should intersect.