Landmarks Illinois places Illinois Main Street on its Ten Most Endangered List
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Loading ...Last week Landmarks Illinois (the statewide preservation organization I headed for a while when the organization was called Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois) placed the Illinois Main Street program on its Ten Most Endangered List. See that announcement here. http://www.landmarks.org/ten_most_2010_c.htm
Illinois Main Street staff has been reduced to one person and the program has been suspended from the National Main Street Center as a coordinating program until the situation turns around. There are now 70 local Main Street programs in the state.
This is the second time the Illinois Main Street program has experienced staff and budget cuts. The first time this happened in 2002 I was state coordinator. I wrote about this experience in Main Street News. Here are the two articles. msnews-2005-01 Main Street Advocacy
This is deja vu, of the saddest kind.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...The reviews in professional journals of New Solutions for House Museums has been overwhelmingly positive. Check out all of them below.
Review New Solutions CRM Winter 2009
Review New Solutions Public Historian Summer 2008
Review New Solitions MAMReviewFeb08Bravery
Review New Solutions NERO NTHP 8-07
Review New Solutions New Zealand Museums
Review New Solutions Australia
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...In March, we again worked with good friend and long time client Carolyn Dellutri to facilitate a Goal Setting session with an inclusive group of Evanston IL downtown stakeholders. 
Downtown Evanston recently completed a branding campaign and the insights from the focus groups held as part of that process indicated that the time was ripe to set some ambitious, but achievable goals for the already vibrant downtown district. You can learn more about Downtown Evanston from their recently redesigned web site www.downtownevanston.org.
Ms. Dellutri invited representatives from the City of Evanston (including the Mayor, City Manager and community development DIrector), officials from Northwestern University (whose main campus abuts the downtown), key merchants and property owners to the session. 46 people attended the lively discussion.
The Goal Setting report has been published and we encourage you to take a look here. Evanston Goal Setting Report 5-18-2010.
If your downtown organization needs to undertake a goal setting or strategic plan, please contact us to discuss how we can help.
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Downtown Libertyville IL
From the “what I did on my summer vacation” file: a feature article about MainStreet Libertyville (MSL) which chronicles their stunningly successful 2007 residential membership campaign that tripled their base in four months to 1116 new members. Despite the drive’s evident success, it is a cautionary tale.
MainStreet Libertyville is a 1997 Great American Main Street Award Winner
Born from a rained out fundraising event and sharp drop in village support, MSL mounted a finely honed public relations campaign to engage residents to support the 55 days of events held in downtown. The article discusses how the MSL Board rallied behind a comprehensive public relations campaign to tell their story to the residents of the community about why MSL deserved the community’s support.
We review the many interesting ways they told their story, while making the case that many well-loved community events put on by the 18-year-old organization and 1997 Great American Main Street Award winner, could continue, but only with community buy in and support. I enjoyed interviewing Randy Nelson (former Executive Director), Pam Hume (current Executive Director) and Rick Pyter for the article and had access to Les Galo’s reminiscences.
Beautifully restored buildings in downtown Libertyville
The article talks about how MSL volunteers have done a remarkable job of retaining more than 90% of those members in the last two years through a comprehensive renewal campaign that brings in $90K yearly
Look for this amazing story called Make Your Case: Triple Your Membership in the September/October issue of Main Street NOW, the bimonthly journal of the National Trust Main Street Center. We will send another eblast when the article is published. Join our mailing list to get notified.
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Llano Texas--A bar that knows its customers
This Spring Anthony Rubano an architectural designer and old friend from the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and I teamed up to develop a training workshop about how downtown managers “curate” their downtowns as they seek to establish a compelling sense of place.
We were drawn to this topic because we believe that managers were frequently striving to nurture and maintain that which is authentic, quirky and inherently local about their commercial districts. They are doing this amidst competition from fake lifestyle centers that borrow heavily from the downtown visual collage of buildings and downtown event programming.
LanTex Theater in Llano Texas, operated by Main Street volunteers
I focused my research around retaining and promoting the authentic character and creating memorable experiences for shoppers. There is plenty of recent research about why residents and visitors want “real places” to shop rather than manufactured environments. Some new articles and books I came across on tourism and the quest for authentic experiences—such as those provided at farmers markets, craft fairs and social media meet ups—were fascinating.
We hang some of our talk around one of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s five principles for cultural tourism – authenticity. My research made me think that our downtowns must retool some of their events so that they become lasting memories for residents. Many special events would be well served if they were adjusted to include multi-sensory and hands-on activities and thus create new experiences for shoppers. To be competitive today, we must go beyond the traditional downtown attributes of quality products, personal service and convenience in the shops themselves.
Farmers Markets like this one in Evanston IL are viewed as authentic experiences
Our talk “Curating an Authentic Downtown Experience” includes Anthony’s sharp and witty commentary as he offers up his take about commercial districts that have developed over time, containing many different building types, uses, ages, and styles. It is his contention, that the rich heterogeneity of this urban and human collage can provide the key to a successful, authentic downtown experience. Because there are few things as resilient yet so easily diminished as historic commercial districts, we believe that our task as Main Street professionals is to maintain and enhance our downtowns’ real and authentic character, both physically and programmatically, in order to remain truly vital.
Guthrie OK has a distinct sense of place
Greater understanding of how downtown buildings fit into the large arc of American architecture, gives managers and volunteers the tools they can use to better advocate for the authentic historic building, to assure its proper stewardship and the overall districts’ sense of place.
We both loved putting this talk together and have both long (half and whole day) and short (90 minute) versions of it available. We found a very receptive audience at the Pennsylvania Downtown Center’s annual conference in Lancaster this June, and will be presenting this topic again at the joint conference being organized by the Delaware, Maryland and Baltimore Main Street programs in Rehoboth Beach DE on September 28.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...This summer, I worked with state coordinating programs in Missouri, Minnesota and Delaware to develop some new training programs for local Main Street programs to meet their specific needs. See if any of these issues are facing your downtown organization.
The majestic Bala Theater in Bala Cynwyd PA--Egyptian Revival at its best
Growing Major Gifts
Mounting a capital campaign to raise vast sums to save or restore an historic building in town is hard work for over many years for any Main Street organization. In this session you will be introduced to the components of a capital campaign: donor cultivation, the ASK, and stewardship of the donor. We will talk about developing prospect files and information you will need in those files. You will learn about the five different parts of “the Ask,” which is the “in person” approach to a potential donor to support your project. We will conclude with a short group exercise: a piece of improvisational theater to show you how to do the different parts of “the ASK.”
Upper floor doorway at the Bala Theater
Grow Your Ambassadors: Keep Former Board Members Involved
Board members rotating off your board are an often overlooked resource for many Main Street organizations. This workshop discusses a variety of methods, both formal and informal; to retain past Board members’ accumulated wisdom and good feelings about the organization so your ambassador corps grows for the good of the organization. Recent research and best practices for retaining the hearts of these good natured people, who have nobly served the local Main Street organization over the years, will be reviewed. We will show how and why to develop short individual assignments for retiring board members, as well as the Pros/ cons of establishing a formal advisory board or past board council. This workshop includes one group exercise, a resource packet of information including articles, forms and a bibliography.
Egyptian Revivial Bala Theater in Bala Cynwyd PA
Board responsibilities and the IRS
Recently the IRS completely redesigned the 990 form to collect much more information about nonprofit governance practices. Main Street organizations need to understand these expansive and highly technical changes and what information must be submitted. We will review the pertinent IRS 990 form questions and definitions, and provide sample policies and documents so that you understand the IRS concerns and be able to bring your organization into compliance.
MainStreet Libertyville IL event Let's Wine about Winter. photo courtsey MainStreet Libertyville
More Members: More Revenue
For most Main Street organizations, membership is the first form of fundraising undertaken, but it can be a potent resource for expanding the organization’s financial base. A case study will be presented about MainStreet Libertyville IL; whose 1100 members now supply 75% of the organization’s operating revenue. We will describe how they acquired, developed and renew their members in detail, so you can recreate their successes. A resource packet of information, including the feature article from September/October 2011 Main Street Now is included–it has not been published as of this blog post, but will be out shortly.
If you are interested in any of these new training programs for a conference or special workshop, please contact us to learn more. Thanks.
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MainStreet Libertyville survived a financial crisis by asking residents to invest in the organization
The September/October 2010 Main Street Now has hit the streets, and this issue is about local support. My article about MainStreet Libertyville is the featured article. Learn about how this 18 year old organization on the brink of financial collapse in 2007, asked area residents to support their program. Their amazing success in raising $88,000 in less than four months from 800 new members is truly astonishing. Downtown organizations nationwide can recreate their successes.
The first page of the article is below.
In October 2007, Board members of MainStreet Libertyville, Illinois, a 1997 Great American Main Street Award winner, realized the organization was on the brink of financial collapse. The month before, their annual fundraiser, Street Dance, was held on a “rainy and cold night. Attendance was down drastically and so was the revenue.” Street Dance’s net profits, which had been upwards of $60,000 in past years, fell precipitously to $2,000 that year.
MainStreet Libertyville raised over $88,000 from members in 2007
Adding to this looming deficit was the swift decline in Village support during the last three years. Since the organization was founded in 1989, the Village of Libertyville had made $50,000 matching contributions each year to support the organization’s revitalization work. In 2005, a new mayor and several council members decided to cut their support in half. A further reduction occurred in 2007 bringing the village contribution to $10,000. Between the losses in these two key revenue sources, the year-end projections indicated that the organization would need close to $60,000 to make it through December. All the Board members were understandably nervous. Without an immediate infusion of cash, the organization would not be able to put on its holiday events, and would most likely fold by the end of the year. Pam Hume, then Board President, said “I was determined that MainStreet would not go south on my watch.”
Read the entire article MakeYourCase MSN SeptOct 2010
Please send us your feedback about this article, or share your own successes in fundraising for downtown revitalization organizations.
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Punta Gorda FL has coped with Hurricane Andrew
The end of the calendar year is here, and for some, it is also the end of the fiscal year. The annual appeal letters have been out for several weeks (I sure hope so!), and each day the arrival of the mail brings checks—some large, some smaller than you expected, and some checks, sadly, don’t show up at all.
It is tough out there. Main Street organizations are facing unanticipated cutbacks from some of their most reliable funding sources—local governments, sponsors, utilities, even some long time donors. Many Main Street organizations are only starting to get hit now in the pocketbook, while other sectors of the economy have suffered for more than two years.
Boonton Main Street NJ has focused on raising revenue
I believe the commercial revitalization sector is hurting now because local government property tax collections lag a year behind. This year’s tax receipts are probably lower due to foreclosures, diminishing value of real estate in general and homeowners who have challenged any increase in their property tax assessments. Some state governments have been hurting for years; others seem to have weathered the storm. Again, most states are dependent on sales tax and business tax receipts as their main revenue sources. Even as key industries begin to recover, it will take another year before the bottom falls out at the state level.
If government is more than a third of your revenue, begin working now to come up with alternate revenue sources to plug that gap. If you have not felt it already, it is probably on its way in the coming fiscal year.
MainStreet Libertyville focused on gaining new members
What to do
I went looking these past few days for some advice to nonprofits struggling with financial reverses, with the hope that there might be pieces of wisdom for revitalization organizations as they face down the end of a difficult year.
Most of these advice sheets are geared for general non profits or arts groups. Read them all or read one or two to get the general gist of the advice. While all focus on the tried and true methods of “cut expenses and raise revenue,” some provide measured advice that fits a community based organization that is not saddled with real estate or collections that must be maintained for the public trust.
Downtown events have been extremely popular with residents in Libertyville IL
Some of the cuts mentioned here would be extremely painful, or would ultimately lead the organization to fold and liquidate its assets. Other cuts such as looking for cheaper insurance, cutting travel costs, or exploring shared services with other nonprofits might be easy to embrace.
Regardless whether your organization has staff or not, look at these suggestions with your board and select a handful to explore further. Perhaps pick three ideas from these lists for each of the following categories: Easy/no brainer; Minimal external impact; and finally Painful, but worth doing.
Here are my three favorites in each of these three categories for small to medium downtown revitalization organizations with small staffs and owning no real estate assets.
Easy/no brainer
INCOME –Follow up on all receivables and call each vendor to seek speedy payment. Consider changing your invoices to Net 10 and offer a 1% discount if vendors pay within ten days.
INCOME—Add a 50/50 raffle to any upcoming event (get the appropriate license if necessary).
INCOME–Review your membership/annual appeal levels, and increase some giving levels ASAP if you have not already sent out your annual appeal letters.
EXPENSE—Review all of your insurance payments (general liability, officers and directors, health insurance), and shop around for insurance around or bid your policies out.
EXPENSE—Review all office equipment; sell surplus office equipment–anything that still works– on EBay and Craig’s List; look through the rest of the office and clean up, toss, or offer any surplus supplies to another nonprofit, perhaps in the form of barter.
EXPENSE—Buy no more office supplies for the next three months; switch to on line bill pay, consider if you can get along without your land line phone, and just use a cell phone number; cut your paper newsletter to four pages, and mail only twice a year and use email newsletter instead.
Minimal external impact
INCOME—Hand write thank you letters to every donor over $100 for no reason, just to say thank you. Make phone calls to anyone who has donated over $50 to the organization in the last year; leave a message on their answering machine to thank them. Send an email to every member with lots of photos of a recent event and tell them how their membership makes these events possible. Focus on memories that your organization creates for anyone who visits downtown, especially during the holidays. While these suggestions won’t add revenue, they do position the organization to ask these donors within the next six weeks for additional support.
INCOME—Clean up and rearrange your office, and rent out a portion of your office to a similarly minded sub tenant (if your lease permits such).
INCOME—Determine if your organization is eligible to participate in your area’s United Way, and if so, widely distribute your agency’s number to members and volunteers, via newsletter and social media tools.
EXPENSE—Undertake a Board review of current work plan and budget, and develop scenarios with 5%, 10% and 20% cuts in expenses. Implement the 5% cut in expenses immediately, and monitor monthly if additional cuts are necessary.
EXPENSE—If you are audited, bid out your audit or shop around for a better rate.
EXPENSE—Cancel all but necessary memberships/subscriptions and travel. No more board packets– send everything electronically.
Painful, but worth considering
INCOME—Make a phone call or visit every donor who gives $100.00 or above, to ask for an additional emergency gift right now to support programming NOT staff or keep the doors open. Donors will be more likely to respond positively if you sell them the benefits of their donation.
INCOME– Review your work plan, and insist that every work plan item break even or make money. Cut every event that does not generate a profit for the organization. Reallocate your volunteers to those events that make money and revisit each work plan item to maximize revenue.
INCOME—Cut your lowest membership rate by half, and undertake a sustained effort for at least six weeks to increase the number of new member/partners/friends/donors. Offer to prorate any higher level donor who seeks to renew early.
EXPENSE—Negotiate with your landlord to find a subtenant for your space. Ask a board member to provide free office space, have the board and volunteers help you pack and move to the new space.
EXPENSE—Cut back everyone’s hours to four days a week for three months, and reassess whether this should continue at that point.
EXPENSE—Review various fees such as web hosting, bank fees, payroll and credit card charges for savings.
The moral of the story
Every downtown organization will have to make tough choices if their continued existence is at stake because of a fall off in donations. Let me know what you think of these articles and if you are using any of these ideas.
Coping with financial downturns, an annotated bibliography
Friedman, Alan J. “Tactics for Leading through a Financial Crisis.” http://www.noycefdn.org/documents/AlanFriedman–LeadingthroughaFinancialCrisis.pdf- From a nonprofit manager, offers positive and negative comments about each of his picks.
Fieldstone Alliance. “185 Cutback Strategies.” http://www.fieldstonealliance.org/client/articles/cutback_stragtegies.cfm This is an excerpt from their book Coping with Cutbacks: the Nonprofit Guide to Success When Times Are Tight. This is a great place to start. It gives the biggest number strategies, but not much detail about what each strategy might be able to accomplish. The broad range of choices are compelling.
Fieldstone Alliance. “20 Cost Cutting tools for nonprofits.” http://www.fieldstonealliance.org/client/tools_you_can_use/01-22-09_cost_cutting_ideas.cfm. A great article if you are facing serious threats NOW, and must take action, rather than sit around and only think about making cuts NOW.
Fieldstone Alliance. “20 Emergency Funding Sources for Nonprofits. http://www.fieldstonealliance.org/client/tools_you_can_use/12-16-08_emergency_funding.cfm. A great chart, short and to the point.
Network for Good. “The 2008 Online Fundraising Survival Guide: 12 Winning Strategies to Survive & Thrive in a Down Economy.” www.fundraising123.org/article/online-fundraising-handbook. This is just about on line fundraising and your web site, but is a good overall primer for those interested in maximizing your on line presence.
The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (PCA) “Strategies for Survival Checklist” from The www.pacouncilonthearts.org/docs_upload/SFSchecklist.pdf A good overview.
Hope you found this round up useful. Please add your comments and ideas.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Regular readers of this blog are curious. They are looking for advice and useful information they can use in their own nonprofit organizations. In February 2011 this blog will start its third year, and we have seen our readership exponentially grow, especially in the last year when it increased 400% from January to December in 2010. From the early months in 2008 when 25 visitors were a reading our blog, we now average more than 800 visitors a month.
Our blog visitors are looking at more pages and seem to be interested in a variety of nonprofit issues, but most especially fundraising, board development and preservation topics of all types. These top blog posts also show the range of project types that Heritage Consulting Inc. undertakes for its clients and this is probably our best “calling card” to promote the breadth of our consulting practice.
Below are the top ten blog posts for 2010. Some of these posts are from 2010, but some are from 2009 and offer specific information about an issue that seems to still be relevant today. If you have not read these posts, please click on any of the links that interest you.
1. Creating a Formal Advisory Committee to Involve Former Board Members (608 page views)
This post is the last of a series of five blog pieces about working with Board members who have completed their service to the organization and have rotated off the board of a revitalization organization. This post discusses how and why a nonprofit organization would want to create a committee to involve former board members in the organization to reinforce their loyalty and involvement in an organization they have served for years. These five blog posts came from a talk I did for the Missouri Main Street Connection annual meeting. Use the search feature on the blog, just enter the word or term you wish to search, and press enter on your keyboard. The other blog posts from that series can be found here.
2. Pinelands Preservation Alliance’s Heritage Forum on Nov. 14, 2009 (485 page views)
In 2009 and 2010, I consulted with the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, a well regarded environmental organization based in southern New Jersey that was seeking to increase their relationships with those interested in the history of the Pinelands, the environmentally fragile lands that cover almost 20% of the land mass of The Garden State. This blog post from October 30, 2009 describes the content of a Heritage Forum I organized for them, and lists the topics and speakers at the Forum. Learn more about our work with the Pinelands Preservation Alliance here.
3. Connecticut to Start Resident Curator Program (350 page views)
This blog post from April 9, 2010 was in response to an announcement that the State of Connecticut would begin a program to solicit for “Resident Curators:” individuals who would live in a deteriorated but historic house located on park land. In return for a long term lease, Resident Curators would restore the building using their own funds. This program is similar to long established Resident Curator Programs in Maryland, Delaware and Massachusetts.
I have blogged about this innovative means to maintain historic properties or historic house museums several times and Resident Curatorship’s are one of the chapters that I highlight in my book New Solutions for House Museums. A follow up blog piece from May 8, 2010 called Connecticut Resident Curator Program Building Assessments up for Bid Now also got more than 200 page views.
4. Affordable Housing in New Jersey Historic Buildings—the Road Trips (216 page views)
Preservation New Jersey has been a favorite client since we returned to the East Coast three and a half years ago. For them we have undertaken a variety of assignments including providing assistance to municipalities who wish to create or update their historic preservation element in their municipal master plan. This project funded by the NJ Department of Community Affairs, also had a component that we blogged about in this piece about the research we conducted to determine which historic buildings that had been rehabilitated for affordable housing to meet a municipality’s Council on Affordable Housing requirements. Look for the completed report soon.
5. Federal Cuts to Arts and Heritage Programs in Obama Budget (213 page views)
This February 16, 2010 blog post addressed the news from early budget negotiations for FY 2011 federal budget. Since this budget continues to be part of a continuing resolution, these proposed cuts have not yet been implemented.
6. An Authentic Downtown Experience: Red Wing MN (145 page views)
I visited Red Wing Minnesota in August 2010 to conduct Advanced Organization Training for the new Minnesota Main Street Program. This visit coincided with work I was doing with Anthony Rubano of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency on a topic of great interest to me called “Curating an Authentic Downtown Experience.” This talk which we have done for the annual conferences in Pennsylvania Downtown Center and Delaware Main Street continues to be popular topic with other state Main Street programs.
7. Invoice vs. Letter Membership Renewals—(138 page views)
Throughout the first half of 2010 I did a series of blog posts about fundraising for downtown and commercial district organizations which I called Downtown Fundraising Minute. These posts were meant to be consumed in 60 seconds, and offer a specific idea about fundraising based on my experience working throughout the country with Main Street organizations. If you are interested in seeing the whole list of posts on this topic, use the search feature and enter Downtown Fundraising Minute and half a dozen blog posts will pop up. Check out our list of workshops, talks and consultations for Main Street organizations on our web site–scroll down.
8. Year-long Sponsorship Packages (133 page views)
This blog post from April 9, 2010 is part of the Downtown Fundraising Minute series an includes PDF documents with sample yearlong sponsorship packages that I have found useful in my travels working with local Main Street organizations. Check out all six of these Downtown Fundraising Minutes blog posts by using the search feature on the blog. Another favorite in this series was Diversify Your Revenue Sources, No Really! with more than 140 page views.
These last two blog posts deal with lobbying and reports on the preservation movement’s economic impact.
9. Pennsylvania Senate Bill 850 Passes—Time to Step Up the Lobbying! (128 page views)
In 2009 there were are series of bills proposed in the PA State Senate seeking to cut funding for both the Pennsylvania Main Street and Elm Street programs as well as the grant programs of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. These proposals were thwarted during a long fight.
10. New Report on Federal Investment Tax Credit Show Remarkable Job Creation Statistics (109 page views)
A national report undertaken by the Historic Tax Credit Coalition and completed by the Rutgers University’s Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy discussed the impact of the Federal Rehabilitation Tax Credit Program from its inception in 1976 till 2010. The job creation statistics were very convincing and there is a link to the whole report in the blog piece.
What’s next?
Looking forward to 2011
In 2011 we are hoping to expand the number of blog posts and share more content on our Heritage Consulting Inc. Facebook FAN Page and Web site. Please become a FAN of Heritage Consulting so you can get our content first. Thank you readers for your continued and enthusiastic support of Heritage Consulting Inc. We are delighted that you find value in this blog.
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The Brinton 1704 House is one of many historic sites in Delaware County
The Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia announced the winners for their prestigious Preservation Achievement Awards on February 24, and we were delighted to learn that Heritage Consulting Inc.’s yearlong project for the Delaware County (PA) Planning Department, the Delaware County Public History Feasibility Study and Implementation Plan, has won a Grand Jury Award. Plan Philly wrote about the awards this past week.
This annual award will be presentation at the 2011 Preservation Achievement Awards Luncheon on Tuesday May 17, 2011 at the Crystal Tea Room in the Wanamaker Building. Our superb clients Jill Hall, Beverlee Barnes and John Pickett of Delaware County Planning Department, will be on hand to share this award with us.
The Caleb Pusey House in Upland PA
The Grand Jury Award to the Delaware County Public History Feasibility Study and Implementation Plan for the Delaware County Planning Department was the only Delaware County Preservation Achievement award winner this year.
The Barnes Brinton House in Chadds Ford PA
About the project
The goal of the Delaware County Public History Project was to determine how to best remedy the underutilized nature of historical organizations throughout the County and determine how these entities can better cooperate and coordinate efforts to present a more inclusive interpretation of our history that reflects all periods, peoples and geographic portions of the county. An additional goal is to preserve the County’s irreplaceable public historic resources, make history available to the public as an educational tool with better efficiency and success and help foster revitalization.
Chester Courthouse in Chester PA
In order to achieve this goal the study identified six outcomes:
- assist communities in strengthening their local historical organizations’ ability to communicate their heritage to the public;
- promote scholarly research that would include more inclusive interpretation;
- seek funding to develop new scholarship, programming, educational models, and digitally based mediums;
- better integrate local history into school curricula; and
- better, present the county’s history as an economic draw for heritage tourism.
The Final Report for this project is available here. Public History Report This report contains all of our recommendations. All of the appendix materials are here. Public History Report-Appendices You can read all of the survey and focus group responses as well as see the PowerPoint presentations for the three public meetings in this document.
The Delaware County Historic and Preservation Network (www.dchpn.org) is coordinating implementation activities.
About the Alliance
The Alliance’s Preservation Achievement Awards luncheon, celebrated every May during Preservation Month, is an annual celebration of the individuals, organizations, businesses and projects that exemplify outstanding achievement in the field of historic preservation throughout the region. The annual luncheon is the largest gathering of preservationists in the region.
About Heritage Consulting Inc.
Heritage Consulting Inc. is a Philadelphia-based consulting firm that works nationwide in three practice areas: downtown and commercial district revitalization, historic preservation and nonprofit organizational development. The firm’s mission is to assist citizen groups and government agencies to preserve cherished landmark buildings and downtown districts and to develop training programs to ensure the growth of high performing nonprofit heritage organizations to manage and sustain them. To learn more, visit our web site www.heritageconsutlinginc.com.
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Thornbury train station
The Final Report from the award winning and yearlong Delaware County Public History Feasibility Study and Implementation project has been posted to the Delaware County Planning Department web site. Heritage Consulting Inc. was the lead consultant for the client, the Delaware County Planning Department. The report is also posted at the bottom of this blog piece. The project was a Grand Jury Award winner from the 2011 Preservation Achievement Award from the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia.
Thomas Massie House
Project goals
The goal of the Delaware County Public History Feasibility Study and Implementation Plan was to determine how to best remedy the underutilized nature of historical organizations throughout the County and determine how these entities can better cooperate and coordinate efforts to present a more inclusive interpretation of our history that reflects all periods, peoples and geographic portions of the county. An additional goal is to preserve the County’s irreplaceable public historic resources, make history available to the public as an educational tool with better efficiency and success and help foster revitalization.
Library Delaware County Historical Society
In order to achieve this goal the study identified six outcomes:
- assist communities in strengthening their local historical organizations’ ability to communicate their heritage to the public;
- promote scholarly research that would include more inclusive interpretation;
- seek funding to develop new scholarship, programming, educational models, and digitally based mediums;
- better integrate local history into school curricula and
- Better, present the county’s history as an economic draw for heritage tourism.
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Interior John Chadds House
Project components
The project included an on line survey (80% response rate) and personal interviews with 40 of the 80 history organizations to determine current conditions. The data compiled is a rich source of information that can be used to apply for grants in the future or to guide individual organizations in their organizational planning. After the survey, we hosted seven focus groups to gain insights as part of a larger SWOT analysis. The outcome of the surveys and focus groups gave insights about how these historical organizations could best cooperate and collaborate now and in the future. The consultants interviewed school leaders to discuss specific challenges associated with increasing the use of historic sites by local schools. A chapter in the Final Report includes specific recommendations to improve the integration of local historical resources into school curricula. Additional research was conducted about the specific links and relationships between public history and community and neighborhood revitalization, especially heritage tourism.
Caleb Pusey House
Recommendations
The Study’s Recommendations are divided into early action (activities occurring during the study period), short-term (1-2 years), mid-term (3-5 years), and long-term (5-10 year) projects. All of these projects are designed to improve the effectiveness and impact of public history and its associated activities within the county. The recommendations identify new opportunities for public history interpretation and specific ways that organizations can engage new audiences, highlighting recent trends and changes in audience preferences.
Delaware County Historical Society
Implementation
One of the opportunities identified during the SWOT analysis is the potential to mitigate weaknesses and threats through an aggressive effort to provide training and technical assistance to the 80 historical organizations. We suggested that a series of public meetings be held during the yearlong project, which would include sessions during the Study. We identified needs for technical assistance and offered two training sessions on volunteer recruitment and fund raising for small organizations. Building on the list that Heritage Consulting compiled of needed technical assistance topics, the Delaware County Heritage Commission will devote its annual Seminar to Collections Management in April 2011.
Brinton 1704 House
Communication tools
One of the major issues discussed throughout the Study process was the need for more communication among the organizations. This led to the formation of a listserve, the Delaware County Historic and Preservation Network, which was organized in December 2009. The DCHPN (www.dchpn.org) is open to all and hosts a web site, list serve, and is serving as a robust communication tool. One recommendation of the Public History Study was to evolve the listserv into a consortium of organizations comprised of representatives from the various historical organizations.
Chester County Court House
Implementation Activities
Since the completion of the Study in the summer of 2010, DCHPN has met twice to begin discussing the project and deciding on how to continue the momentum that the Study began. The recommendations encouraged historical organizations in Delaware County to create more formal collaborative efforts, including meetings between similar organizations. At the first meeting of DCHPN, the Historic Architectural Review Board representatives felt it would be very beneficial to organize a countywide HARB meeting, and DCPD is organizing that meeting for spring 2011. A workshop for the DCHPN is planned for spring with the Delaware County Intermediate Unit representatives to help sites learn more about the needs of teachers when they visit historic sites. Delaware County Planning Department believes the continued implementation of this Study will lead to improved preservation and promotion of the county’s history and historic resources. DCPD staff will continue to facilitate and coordinate additional collaborative activities during 2011. The County Planning Department is excited about the progress made to date, and anticipate other innovative projects will result.
Chester County Court House
Final Report Available
The Final Report for this project is available here. Public History Report The report contains more than 20 pages of recommendations. All of the appendix materials are here. Public History Report-Appendices. The Delaware County Historic and Preservation Network (www.dchpn.org) is coordinating implementation activities.
Making Affordable Housing in Historic Places report published by Preservation New Jersey
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Preservation New Jersey announced last week, the publication of “Making Affordable Housing in Historic Places,” a 65 page full color report containing eight case studies with recommendations on how to better utilize historic buildings for low and moderate income housing purposes in the state. Heritage Consulting Inc. completed this report for Preservation New Jersey in 2009. Click on the link to read the entire report Making affordable housing in historic buildings report.
The Montclair Inn, now used for senior housing in Montclair NJ
During the summer of 2009, Preservation New Jersey (PNJ), the statewide nonprofit historic preservation education and advocacy organization for New Jersey, contracted with Heritage Consulting Inc. to undertake a research effort funded by the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs (DCA). The purpose of the project was to review projects statewide that use older and/or historic buildings to provide affordable housing to meet the state-mandated Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) regulations.
43 Glenridge Ave in Montclair NJ one of the case study properties
The PNJ research project had four goals:
- To understand how historic or older buildings were being used for affordable housing purposes in the state;
- To create eight illustrated case studies of successful projects as a means of encouraging municipalities to use some of the underutilized or threatened historic properties in their community for affordable housing purposes;
- To produce a series of recommendations to encourage better quality rehabilitation of historic buildings for affordable housing; and
- To develop a list of additional research projects to further the aims of the project.
Providence Square in New Brunswick one of the case studies
The project used a case study method to gather information about the more than 100 projects statewide that had created low and moderate-income housing in historic buildings. After review of more than 100 projects, eight projects were identified for case studies. They included:
- 43 Glenridge Avenue, Montclair developed by HOMECorp, Montclair, NJ
- Bartles House, Tewkesbury Township developed by Tewksebury Township NJ
- Broad Street Bank, Trenton developed by Bayville Holdings LLC, Long Island NY
- Colonial Building, Delanco developed by MEND Inc., Moorestown NJ
- Montclair Inn, Montclair developed by Montclair Shared Housing Association, Montclair NJ
- Miller Street Historic Homes, Montclair developed by HOMECorp, Montclair, NJ
- Providence Square, New Brunswick developed by Pennrose Properties, Philadelphia PA
- Salem Historic Homes, Salem developed by Pennrose Properties, Philadelphia PA
Ron Emrich, then Executive Director of Preservation New Jersey conceived this project, and provided broad insight and assistance throughout, took photos of affordable housing projects in the Trenton and Ewing areas, and served as co-pilot and guide during our two-day driving trip to visit the 45 potential case study projects. Ron contributed to the list of recommendations, and identified most of the additional projects resulting from this study.
One of the Miller Street Historic Homes in Montclair NJ, a case study
Council on Affordable Housing staff was supportive of this work. Lucy Vandenberg, former Executive Director of the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) encouraged PNJ to undertake this project. Gina Fischetti, Deputy General Counsel at COAH played a key role in sorting through the Council’s database to find likely rehabilitation and conversion projects for Heritage Consulting to review. Keith Henderson, Director of Policy and Planning provided insights and thoughtful questions of during our initial and follow up meetings.
This report was researched and written by Donna Ann Harris, Principal of Heritage Consulting Inc., through a grant to Preservation New Jersey from the NJ Department of Community Affairs. Donna Ann Harris took all photographs used in the publication unless credited otherwise.
Colonial Building in Delanco NJ, a case study site
Interns conducted substantial initial research for this project. Andito Lloyd, a graduate student at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn NY in their graduate Historic Preservation program, researched several of the potential case study projects, providing memos and compiled documents.
Alexander Balloon, now a consultant to Heritage Consulting and in 2009 a recent graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Historic Preservation Program in the Graduate School of Design in Philadelphia, PA researched housing master plan elements for each municipality on the list of 110 properties provided by COAH. Laura DiPasquale, now a graduate student in historic preservation at the University of Pennsylvania undertook internet research on many of the 45 properties being considered for case studies, and created the tour routes for the driving tours. She also compiled research for the 18 top prospects for case studies.
Marc Coleman of Tactile Design Group, Philadelphia PA., designed the publication.
Contact us for additional information about this project.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Requests for information are like a well. You drop your information down the well, and then have no idea what happens to it. But sometimes something does come from sending your information down the road.
Last month Priya Chhaya, a program associate in the Partnerships Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation put out a request over Twitter, LinkedIn and the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Facebook page about people using blogs in preservation to get their message out.
What Priya found was a good cross section of the blogsphere in general. Preservation people are using blogs to advocate, inform, network, raise money, and tell stories about places that matter. She says that this new technology allows the interested public to “to follow the latest case studies, best practices, and trends in the field. Job seekers, too, find these tools are great ways to keep up with the larger preservation world. But one tool in particular — a blog — is one of the best ways to stay current with what is happening in preservation.”
We are delighted that Heritage Consulting Inc.’s blog is included in her article Ten Ways to Make Blogs Work for You. See the whole article in the career section of the Trust’s web site www.preservationnation.org. Thanks!
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Colonial Building in Delanco is profiled as a Case Study
Preservation New Jersey has announced the publication of our report Making Affordable Housing in Historic Places: Case Studies and Recommendations, which we prepared for them under a grant from the Department of Community Affairs in 2009.
This report contains eight case studies of historic buildings around the state that were rehabilitated for low and moderate income housing by nonprofit, for profit developers or government entities.
The Montclair Inn in Montclair is a Case Study property
The purpose of the study is to show the range of options available for municipalities to encourage reuse of threatened historic properties for workforce, senior or low/mod income persons. See the entire report on the Preservation New Jersey web site.
Miller Street historic homes in Montclair are profiled as a Case Study
The report was written by Donna Ann Harris with Alexander Balloon, and interns Laura DiPasquale and Andito Lloyd providing research assistance. Ron Emrich former Executive Director of Preservation New Jersey conceived the project and added to the recommendations portion of the text.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...The Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity has taken a bold step to reinstate the Illinois Main Street program by entering into a three year contract to provide technical assistance and training to the existing Illinois Main Street communities.
Heritage Consulting Inc. is proud to be a member of the winning consulting team led by our good friend and former deputy state coordinator Diane Williams of Business Districts Inc. The consulting team also includes our friends Charlotte Anderson, Darius Bryjka and Todd Tracy of (IN)ALLIANCE. We began work on April 19, 2011, and have hit the ground running.
We will be seeing all of our old friends and making many new ones at the National Trust Main Street Center conference later this month in Des Moines IA starting on May 20. We will be attending state coordinator training to brush up and the annual Illinois State Dinner on Monday night during the conference.
The consulting contract is a big step for DCEO and will help the 51 communities to recommit to the Main Street Four Point Approach. ™ Our team of five consultants will provide much needed training and assistance to the IMS communities. We are starting our work with self assessments which will permit us to take the pulse of each program and identify needs and trends among the entire state.
We are so looking forward to working with so many old friends and seeing what has transpired in downtowns statewide since 2002 when I served as State Coordinator.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...All local Main Street revitalization organizations collect reinvestment statistics as part of their work. It is universal throughout the movement and a critical information piece for the National Trust Main Street Center’s annual monitoring of trends across the country.
Traditionally each state program develops their collecting mechanism and then has local program report monthly or quarterly. Here are some of the reinvestment statistics that are usually collected.
Number of jobs new/lost
Number of biz new/lost
Number of façade improvements
Number of new construction projects
Number of housing units
Public sector investment
Private sector investment
Number of volunteer hours
How many private building sales there have been
Increase sale price of similar sized buildings
But after you go through the effort of tracking down these numbers from City Hall, the chamber, local businesses, the county assessor’s office, and from your volunteers, do you actually use these stats?
We have been thinking about the many ways to use these stats in the everyday life of a local Main Street program and offer the following 25 suggestions.
- Covert your most important reinvestment statistics into charts and graphs to make them more understandable and useful/colorful. Chart the increase in your volunteer hours as a bar chart graph. Show your new business openings as a part of a pie chart of all businesses in the district. Trend lines can be very easy to understand if you have several years of data to share.
- Post your stats on your web site every year as proof of the worthiness of investing in your organization. Your stats can be compelling reading, even if you are a start up organization. Include them each year in the same place on your web site, such as a “Successes” tab on your web site, where you show off your best work.
- Include appropriate stats on the narrative portions of your IRS 990 tax return. Every IRS 990 document is available on www.Guidestar.com for everyone to see. You may as well include the most significant increases in this document which you must make available to the public upon request. While you are at it, review and add to your GuideStar organizational profile and include the key stats there too.
- Create trend lines for specific stats on your web site. Use other graphs to show how your downtown work is making a real difference.
- Use your stats and trend lines in your Annual Report. An Annual Report is an excellent tool to tell your story. Other than photos of happy people having happy times at your events, the graphics and charts of your reinvestment figures are key information points that you can boast about.
- Organize your annual meeting presentation around the unveiling of your stats.
- Stats are proof of good work and are excellent for use in grant applications to public and private foundations. They show in clear form, the progress being made by your organization over time.
- It is often essential to sell your worth to local government for their annual investment in your program. Your stats show tangible evidence of value in numbers that bureaucrats understand. Comparative numbers, especially if available from your state coordinating program, may prove helpful if your stats are especially good.
- Your stats and those of the other local Main Street programs when collected together are the strongest tool you have to use to lobby for continued support for your state coordinating program. Whether you have an independent advisory or friends of group for your state Main Street program, or not, the statewide reinvestment statistics are critical to show state legislators of the real economic benefit that the state Main Street program brings to local communities.
- Volunteers like to know they are involved with a popular program. What better way to show that through the number of volunteer hours donated each year? Tracking these stats monthly through sign in sheets at committee meetings help the Committee chair to keep tabs on the many ways volunteers contribute to the success of the local Main Street effort.
- Use your volunteer hours in any volunteer orientation presentation that you host. Identify the dollar value of a volunteer hour in your state by looking it up on www.volunteeringinamerica.gov. The Federal Department of Labor calculates this value each year. Do the math for your program and make sure local elected officials know how much time and in dollar value the community residents give back to the community for the downtown effort.
- Your stats are great for general PR purposes. Sprinkle appropriate ones in each press release you send. For example you can include a sentence about the trends in new business openings when you welcome a new business to town.
- Make sure you tell the world about your successes by using your stats in the “About Us” section of your web site.
- Every press release should have a short “about our organization” paragraph at the bottom of the news release. Up date yours to include some good and compelling stats.
- Most local programs have a general PowerPoint show that the use for presentations to the Rotary and other service clubs. Make sure that at least one slide has some of your stats in graphic form showing the ongoing trends in your program.
- When you announce your stats for the year, dedicate one e-blast or newsletter showing your incredible story.
- Pitch a story to the local reporter about some trends you see based on your reinvestment statistics.
- Create a media event around the release of your reinvestment stats each year. Hold a press conference with key local economic development leaders, and elected officials.
- Use the stats throughout the year for “Did you know? “ Facebook posts. These are great for a slow news day when you don’t have other news to share, and you can spread your stats over several months.
- Your statistics are especially useful in your business recruitment/retention packet. New business owners want to know how many new businesses have located in your district, and how many new hires have occurred. They also want to know if property values are going up or how vacancies have plummeted—all because your program works hard to keep, expand and get new businesses to come into downtown
- Your stats can help you get more sponsors. Use your stats about new business openings to attract new sponsors to existing events.
- Use some stats in your annual appeal letters. Individual donors to local Main Street organizations want to know about successes, so they know they are contributing to a winning organization. Promote especially volunteer hours, vacancy reductions, and new business opening s because these are things people see every day as they use the district.
- People who are being recruited to your Board to serve, may understand how their committee works, but not the whole organization. By reviewing the entire set of reinvestment statistics with new board candidates, you can explain how each committee contributes to the success of the organization, and make the potential Board member a better ambassador for the organization
- The local Main Street Executive Director donates the most hours to the Main Street organization because they are paid to work 40 hours a week and often work 60. Make sure these volunteer hours are included in your overall volunteer hours. The Executive Director should also keep track of these numbers and share them with Board members during evaluations or to justify a new staff hire.
- Committee chairs are the ones who collect the volunteer statistics for their committee each month. As the role of chairperson of the committee changes each year, the outgoing chair can review these stats with their replacement. These stats can reinforce the value of volunteer involvement in the Main Street effort, but also as a supervision tool for continued performance. And as a bonus-here is one more….
- Finally, the reinvestment statics are essential for painting the big picture about the success of your organization when you are ready to apply for Great American Main Street award. Five communities a year are awarded the highest honor the Main Street movement bestows annually. Your reinvestment statistics can set your organization apart from your competitors.
We hope these ideas are useful to you. Please add your thoughts and ideas in the comments section below.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Here are the handout materials mentioned during the presentation today including all the Power Points and exercises.
BID Feasibility April07 Main Street News
MSN_AUG08_MakeMore$fromMembers
Make Your Case Triple Your MembershipMS News Sept 2010.
5 things board members can do to raise $100 to $5000
Woodbury Event Sponsorship Opps
IMS Aug 2011Basic training 4 up color
IMS Basic training Fundraising exercises
IMS Volunteer Recruitment Exercises
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...The American Association or State and Local History annual conference takes place in Richmond VA on September 15 and Heritage Consulting will present on two panels. This is an annual gathering of history leaders from across the country and we are delighted to talk about our work as we have done for the last six years. This year we are speaking on panels with two different clients on what we think are two very significant projects.
For the last six months we have worked closely with the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency on a nationally significant, grant funded project called State Policy Responses for State Owned Historic Sites. At AASLH we will discuss our national research for the IHPA on a variety of state policy responses for states, with a focus on historic sites. Many are facing unprecedented budgetary pressures due to the economic recession and corresponding state budget cuts. Alexander Balloon and Donna Ann Harris will be joined by IHPA agency Director Jan Grimes and Karen Everingham, an IHPA historic site staff member.
States have a continuing stewardship obligation toward their important state-owned historic sites, but many are facing unprecedented economic and political pressure to reduce hours, close sites or shift management responsibility to other entities. Our panel will highlight several of the more innovative actions taken by state governments across the country as states search for new revenues, cost savings, and operations restructuring. We will discuss a series of case studies we developed and specific projects for two IHPA sites: research on expanded programming at the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Dana-Thomas House in Springfield IL and feasibility study of a vacant restaurant facility at Lincoln’s New Salem in Petersburg IL. Please join us if you are coming to Richmond. This session kicks off the conference’s educational programming for Thursday September 5 from 8:30AM-9:45AM. Attached are the powerpoint handouts. State Policy Reponses for Historic Sites AASLH Presentation 9-15-11
Another session that was accepted for the upcoming AASLH conference is about our award winning public history project for Delaware County PA. This session is called Beyond Colonial: Expanding Stories, Promoting Revitalization. See a recent blog post on that session, as well as all the handout materials here. Check them out!
This panel includes our client for this project, Jill Hall, Senior Preservation Planner with the Delaware County (PA) Planning Department, Rich Paul, Chairman of the Delaware County Historical Commission, along with Alexander Balloon a consultant at Heritage Consulting and Donna Ann Harris. This project won the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia Preservation Achievement Award for 2010. Our session begins at 1:30PM to 3:15PM, please stop by if you are in Richmond. Contact us if you would like to learn more about either one of these projects.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission is hosting a morning workshop on Diversifying Revenue Sources for business improvement districts on October 5 in Collingswood NJ. Donna Ann Harris is the featured speaker. We are in the midst of gathering background information for the workshop through an on line survey of these organizations in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania, to get the freshest information we can about the variety of revenue sources being used.
If you would like to participate into the survey, which is open only until September 15, click this link https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/dvrpc which will take you to the Survey Monkey survey. If you fill it out completely and provide your name and email address we will send you a copy of the survey results for your own information after the workshop.
Here is the promotional literature about the event.
Diversify Your Revenue Sources!: A Workshop for SIDs and BIDs
This half-day workshop will assist existing Special Improvement Districts and Business Improvement Districts working in downtowns and commercial corridors in the region to diversify their revenue sources. SIDs/BIDs today are pressed, as never before, to offer their ongoing clean and safe efforts, retain existing businesses and grow others in their district and promote the downtown with ever dwindling resources. This workshop will focus on proven revenue generating strategies for small and midsized BIDs/SIDs in the region.
Before the workshop, the presenter will circulate a brief survey to all invitees to gather information about current revenue sources of SIDs/BIDs in the region and key issues about fundraising. We will use the survey results to hone the agenda.
During the workshop, we expect to speak about boosting sponsorship and special event income, expanding contributed revenue especially from fundraising events and discuss a wide variety of earned income opportunities. Our emphasis will be on intermediate level revenue opportunities that the organization controls rather than grants and government support. During our morning together, we will do one short group exercise, and end with Top Ten Tips. We’ll take questions throughout the program. After the workshop, we will have a Dutch treat lunch and take a behind the scenes tour of our host’s downtown district. Participants will receive a Resource Packet including a CD of templates, forms, articles and work plans to help you increase earned and contributed revenue when you return from the workshop.
Learning objectives
- Learn about typical revenue sources for SIDS/BIDs in the region from a pre-workshop survey by the presenter
- Understand why SIDs/BIDs should have diverse funding stream of both contributed and earned revenue, especially revenue the organization controls.
- Gain detailed knowledge about how to implement or expand existing sponsorship, special event and fundraising events geared to downtown organizations.
Agenda
8:30 Coffee and pastries
9:00 Welcome and introductions around the room
9:10 Trends in budget cuts for downtown organizations nationwide; why diverse revenue sources for existing SIDs/BIDs make sense; results of SID/BID revenue survey; typical revenue sources of SIDs/BIDs today; ideal revenue mixes pie charts; where does contributed money come from today?
9:40 Why focus on revenue YOU control? Common earned income sources for SID/BIDs in the region.
9:55 Special Events; adding component parts to existing events to boost revenue
10:35 Sponsorship; review sponsorship benefits; creating a year-long sponsorship program
11:05 Signature Fundraising Events; deciding which ones makes sense; location; adding component parts to existing FR events to boost revenue
11:45 Exercise: Case studies for these three revenue sources; presentation of results
12:15 Top Ten Tips and Final Questions
12:30 Adjourn for lunch at local restaurant
1:30 Behind the scenes tour of host downtown
3:00 Depart for home
The DVRPC flyer and sign up information is here. http://www.dvrpc.org/announce/2011-08_BID_Workshop_Registration.pdf We will have a dutch treat lunch and then a tour of downtown Collingswood. Please join us in Collingswood NJ for this great event.
Handouts posted for AASLH session Beyond Colonial: Expanding Stories Promoting Revitalization
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Thomas Massey House Marple Township PA
We submitted our handouts in advance of our session on Thursday September 15 at 8: 30 am at the upcoming American Association for State and Local History annual conference to be held in Richmond VA next week. These handouts have just been uploaded on the AASLH web site. Check them out. There is a two page summary of the project, the executive summary of the entire report and the PowerPoint presentation in the bundled PDF file. We worked with all of the historic sites pictured here.
John Chadds House in Chadds Ford PA
Here is a short summary about the presentation.
Our session that was accepted for the upcoming AASLH conference is about our public history project for Delaware County PA. This session is called Beyond Colonial: Expanding Stories, Promoting Revitalization. We were so pleased to win the Grand Jury Prize from the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia for this project in May this year.
- Thornbury Train Station in Delaware County PA
The just-completed Delaware County (PA) Public History Study’s main goal was to identify needs of the 80 county history organizations, and encourage collaborative projects, including expanding the county’s interpreted history beyond the Colonial era. The study’s research identified that 77% of the organizations are still run solely by volunteers, so technical assistance and networking were tools used to encourage tourism product development (new tours and joint programming) as well as neighborhood revitalization. The project seeks to commemorate suburban Philadelphia locations associated with industrial heritage, civil rights and suburban development through theme tours, while not neglecting the county’s numerous Revolutionary War era sites. A volunteer developed list serve and website connects all organizations and promotes new programming. Volunteer teams are now working on cooperative projects that promote their communities and organizations.
The panel includes Heritage Consulting Inc.’s client for this project, Jill Hall, Senior Preservation Planner with the Delaware County (PA) Planning Department, A. Richard Paul, Chairman of the Delaware County Historical Commission, along with Alexander Balloon a consultant at Heritage Consulting and Donna Ann Harris. Our session begins at 1:30PM to 3:15PM, please stop by if you are in Richmond.
Contact us if you would like to learn more about this project.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...For the 2012 Downtown Revitalization and Management Institute, Main Street New Jersey has invited Heritage Consulting Inc., to present a day-long workshop on two vexing issues: getting the word out and cultivating more volunteers to help downtown programs.
This half-day workshop in Red Bank, NJ, will focus on components you can add to any downtown’s public relations arsenal to get broader name recognition for the program and for the quality merchants in the district. We will discuss how to make your Main Street program an opinion leader in town by becoming more “quotable” for local and regional reporters and making connections between national—and even international—events and the impact they have on your local district.
The afternoon will focus on:
- the changing nature of volunteerism, given that local programs around the country are continuing to have difficulty getting volunteers to monthly committee meetings.
- how a local Main Street program can respond to volunteers interested in only short-term or “bite-sized” assignments.
- how the role of the Team chairperson must change, given the casual nature of many volunteer assignments.
- how to engage different groups of volunteers, especially Baby Boomers, Hispanics, youth organizations, families, and African American churches and other organizations.
- how to make volunteer assignments interesting to these groups by customizing assignments to their interests or needs.
Please join us in Red Bank on February 15. Sign up for this workshop at http://msnjidpgms.eventbrite.com/
Heritage Consulting has a complete range of training workshops for historic sites and revitalization organizations. Click here to see the complete list.
PS the shopping is excellent in Red Bank!
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...In February 2012, we will celebrate the fourth anniversary of this blog. From a humble start of 25 readers a month, we have grown our readership this year from 800 a month to more than 1,300 unique readers each month, by year-end. We had more than 9,000 page views each month in 2011, and we are finding that the number increases by five to ten percent each month. Our highest days for page views and visitors seem to correlate to the recent publication of Main Street related “how-to articles,” as word seems to spread about useful content throughout the Main Street movement. Based on the analytics from Word Press, here are the top ten blog posts (in reverse order—David Letterman style):
10. Handouts from Your New Board Policies Courtesy of the IRS
We presented this session at the National Trust Main Street Center conference in Des Moines IA this May, at the worst possible time, Wednesday at 8:00 a.m. Conference goers know that this is worst spot possible because the Big Bash is held the night before and many conference goers have a good time, but not so many people show up bright and early for an 8:00 a.m. session the next day. The hundred souls that did attend this session were fully engaged in what is a highly important but potentially snore-inducing topic, but the reviews were stellar. If you missed the session, this blog post has all the handout materials, including the PowerPoint presentation and links to more content.
9. Neighborhood Shopping in Portland OR
In April we were asked to visit with the new Portland (OR) Main Street program to provide fundraising training for their three new neighborhood commercial districts. This blog post is about one of the great commercial corridors there Alberta Street. This corridor has some of the best commercial signage we have seen in years (clearly a sign ordinance must exist there) and this blog post is lavishly illustrated with photos of the best signs we saw.
8. Survey Results Posted–Diversify Your Revenue: a Workshop for BIDSs and SIDs
The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission has been working hard to organize the suburbs that participate in their Classic Towns effort, a joint marketing program. Many of these Classic Towns have downtowns that are in the midst of starting or have already successful downtown revitalization programs. We provided a day-long presentation on fundraising options for Business Improvement Districts (BIDs, and SIDs as they are called in NJ) to help these corridor management organizations to diversify their funding base and expand their budgets. This blog post also includes the results of an online survey we conducted of more than two dozen BIDs/SIDs in New Jersey and Southeastern PA.
7. 25 Great Ways to Use Your Main Street Reinvestment Statistics
Main Street New Jersey continues to be a highly valued client, and since moving back to Pennsylvania in 2007, I have presented at their Downtown Revitalization and Management Institute each year. This blog posts offers 25 different ways to share and use the reinvestment statistics collected monthly (or quarterly) by Main Street organizations nationwide. These stats, which are time-consuming to gather, need to be featured more prominently to show successes for local programs. This post offers some ideas about how to use them throughout a local program’s PR efforts.
6. Heritage Consulting Inc. Project Wins 2011 Preservation Achievement Award
We were delighted to learn that we had won the Grand Jury Award for our yearlong project for The Delaware County (PA) Planning Department called Delaware County Public History Feasibility Study and Implementation Plan. For this project we surveyed and got to know the 80 history organizations in the county, of which 77% are still run entirely by volunteers. These organizations maintain more than 300 buildings, and most are run admirably by their nonprofit and government stewards. This blog post has a link to the entire study. The Delaware County Historic and Preservation Network have a lively listserve, blog and event calendar—all outgrowths of our work.
5. Making Affordable Housing Publication Available
During 2009–10, we worked with Preservation New Jersey on a yearlong program to offer technical assistance to local preservation organizations that wished to establish historic preservation plans in their municipal planning documents. Another part of that study was a review of the creation of affordable housing in historic buildings throughout the state. This report finally published in 2011, offers case studies of eight exemplary projects statewide and provides a basis for the renewed emphasis on combining both federal tax credits (historic preservation and low-income housing). We hope this report will encourage more uses for threatened buildings statewide. Read all or part of the study in the blog post.
4. Being Introduced to Main Street Saline MI
We enjoy providing training to new Main Street organizations, and the volunteers in Saline, MI, wanted to get off to a strong start. This post describes the handsome downtown in suburban Ann Arbor, MI, and the work the residents had before them as they were trying organize themselves to submit for Main Street community designation by the Michigan Main Street program.
3. Reaching Further: Cultivating African American, Latino and Youth Volunteers
Guest blogger and a longtime consultant Alexander Balloon wrote this blog piece about research he conducted this summer on expanding the representation of ethnic and racial groups among Main Street volunteers. This post was picked up by the American Association for State and Local History and retweeted in their network.
2. Fifty People Attend Historic Tacony Revitalization Project Kick Off meeting
In the fourth quarter of 2011, we began working as interim staff for the Tacony Community Development Corporation as they wanted to start a Main Street revitalization effort. This post describes the response to the kickoff meeting and key concerns along the corridor.
1. Scenario Planning—2 of 5 blog posts on Surviving a Financial Crisis
One of the component parts of our Main Street New Jersey presentation for 2011 Downtown Revitalization and Management institute was about creating scenarios to judge various solutions to financial problems that local revitalization organizations are facing. This post offers useful ways to think about an uncertain future.
Thank you for reading this blog. Please add your comments below.
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We are so grateful for our friends and clients this year, who have given us so many opportunities to help you throughout the year. We are looking forward to working with all of you in the coming year and beyond. Thanks for making 2011 the best yet for Heritage Consulting Inc.
We thank all of our many of our returning clients and welcome new clients to our practice.
2011 Clients
American Association for State and Local History –conference presenter
Delaware Main Street
Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission*
Friends of the Jacobus Vanderveer House*
Heritage Ohio*
Historic Bartram’s Garden
Historic Saline (MI) Revitalization*
Iowa Main Street
Illinois Main Street
Illinois Historic Preservation Agency*
Main Street New Jersey
Michigan Main Street
Minnesota Main Street
New Jersey Historic Preservation conference presenter
National Trust Main Street Center conference presenter
Philadelphia Cultural Fund
Portland (OR) Main Street*
Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia
Texas Main Street
Tacony Community Development Corporation*
Whitesbog Preservation Trust*
*new clients in 2011
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...At the December 6, 2011 joint meeting of the Clean and Safe and Design Teams of the Historic Tacony Revitalization Project, we had a presentation by Chris Creelman, who is the chief of staff for Joan Krajewski and the treasurer of MARC, the Major Artery Revitalization Committee. MARC is a nonprofit organization charged with making physical improvements to major streets and corridors throughout the Northeast section of the City of Philadelphia. Mr. Creelman reported on the history of the Torresdale Avenue Project including its initial phase, which was completed in 2004-5 when the old Route 56 trolley line wires were removed along Torresdale Avenue with the tracks, when Torresdale Avenue was resurfaced and repaved.
In Phase 1 of the project, SEPTA renovated the bus depot in 2008-9. MARC worked with SEPTA and funded the murals associated with the depot. These were funded with City of Philadelphia funds from a Restore Philadelphia Corridors grant funds obtained by Councilwoman Joan Krajewski’s office. The project also placed pedestrian lights along Torresdale Avenue from Tyson to Knorr Streets. These blocks received the pedestrian lighting, according to Mr. Creelman because wires along these streets were already underground making the installation of pedestrian lighting much less expensive than for blocks where wires still remained above ground. He noted that higher wattage lighting was also placed along Torresdale from Harbeson to Cottman Avenues. These improvements were completed in 2009.
The last and final phase of improvements is scheduled to begin in 2012 if approvals from PennDOT come in a timely manner. Mr. Creelman explained that this phase includes a 19 block stretch from Harbeston to Cottman Avenues. He noted that the plans for this section have been held up because the funding source was not federal stimulus money. Projects receiving those funds were executed first, while projects like the second phase of the Torresdale Avenue Project, which are funded by PennDOT and the City of Philadelphia were put on hold. Funding for the last phase of improvements includes one million dollars obtained by Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz’s office. Other funds for this project include $920,000 from State Representative McGeehan’s office.
During the period when other projects moved ahead, there were changes to Federal standards for handicapped ramps. The changed necessitated that the Torresdale project be redesigned adding an additional cost of $60,000 per four corner intersection. MARC was able to secure additional funding from PennDOT for these costs, as well as the additional $60,000 needed for project redesign by Urban Engineers the designers of the 19-block project. The project also ran into additional delays from the Philadelphia Streets Department, as the initial paving pattern (honeycomb) in the crosswalks is no longer approved. MARC and the engineers are working with Streets Department to identify an acceptable pattern.
The project as designed will include new handicapped ramps to meet the new Federal standards at 19 intersections. Ten intersections will be restriped for school crosswalks and the remaining intersections will be stamped in a pattern acceptable to the Streets Department. Two curb cuts will be closed along Torresdale Avenue including one around Dave’s Auto and at the 7/11 store. There will be Solar Belly Trash Cans placed along the avenue, along with benches, bike racks, newspaper corrals, metal banners (as opposed to fabric) and hanging flower baskets on poles and planted tree beds. Mr. Creelman noted that MARC staff would water any flower baskets placed on poles. Some sidewalk replacement will occur in places along the avenue where needed, but wholesale sidewalk replacement is not included in this project. The City will empty the Solar Belly Trash cans. There were several questions about trees and Mr. Creelman said that trees would be replaced with hardy ones as recommended by the MARC arborist on staff. Funding was received for the ramps by MARC from PennDOT with the help of State Representative McGeehan and State Senator Stack.
The plans are now under review by PennDOT for safety and design field review, and this could take several months. When the plans are returned from PennDOT review, then the engineers will complete the final design, which will take about two months. These final plans are then submitted to PennDOT again for final review, which takes another several months.
Mr. Creelman is hoping that the job can be bid out about June 1, 2012. Mr. Creelman promised to bring the final design to another meeting of the Historic Tacony Revitalization Program and supply the inventory of street conditions to the Clean and Safe Team so they can use it for their planned “walk about” to determine current conditions. The Clean and Safe Team is very interested in placement of these new street amenities and looks forward to working with Mr. Creelman, MARC and our new Councilman Bobby Henon in the coming years as these long sought series of improvement to Torresdale Avenue are implemented. If you want to know more about MARC or the upcoming phase of work on Torresdale Ave., please contact Chris Creelman at thecreelmans@verizon.net
The Historic Tacony Revitalization Program is an effort of the Tacony Community Development Corporation, for which Heritage Consulting Inc. is a consultant. We are assisting the organization to start up a local commercial revitalization effort. Learn more on the program’s blog www.historictaconyrevitalization.com and become a member of the group www.facebook.com/historictaconyrevitalization .
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...On Wednesday October 25 I will be speaking at the Illinois Main Street annual conference in Galesburg IL on a topic near and dear to my heart: Diversify Your Revenue Sources. I have spoken on this topic at least two dozen times in the last five years, as it is an evergreen topic. Please join us if you will be Galesburg, our session starts at 1:00PM after lunch
Here is the powerpoint presentation IMS Diversify Your Revenue Source handouts ppts
Here are the additional resource materials discussed during the conference session. Click on the link to go to the document.
Membership/Annual gifts
MSN_AUG08_MakeMore$forMember Donna Ann Harris
MSN Sept 2010 Make Your Case Triple Your Members Donna Ann Harris
7 easy ways to boost membership programs
Sponsorship
Batavia year long 2011 Sponsorship Brochure
Boonton NJ_sponsorship brochure
Boonton NJ_sponsorship_fax_form
Libertyville IL Year long sponsorship package
Woodbury IL Event Sponsorship Opps
Business Improvement Districts/Special Service Areas
MSN April 07 BID Feasibility article Donna Ann Harris
Are there specific fundrasing topics that you want to know more about? Please let me know.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Over fifty Tacony residents, businesses, property owners and friends attended the kick-off meeting for the Historic Tacony Revitalization Project on October 172011 held in the basement meeting room of at the Tacony Branch of the Philadelphia Free Library.
Addressing a standing room only crowd, Pete Naccarato, Board president of the Tacony Community Development Corporation (TCDC) welcomed everyone and shared the history of the Tacony CDC. He highlighted many of the important projects the CDC had completed during the past ten years. Mr. Naccarato urged the audience to become an active part of the commercial corridor revitalization project to begin shortly for Torresdale and Longshore Avenues. He stated “The Historic Tacony Revitalization Project is a very important priority for the Tacony Community Development Corporation.”
After Mr. Naccarato made his remarks, he introduced Donna Ann Harris, of Heritage Consulting Inc., a consultant to the TCDC. Ms. Harris spoke about the Main Street Approach to commercial corridor revitalization and how it would be used in Tacony. Ms. Harris outlined the reasons commercial corridors had changed over the past 30 years, and how these changes had affected Torresdale Avenue. She then spoke about how residents, businesses and property owners can become actively involved in the revitalization of Torresdale Avenue by undertaking volunteer projects. Ms. Harris discussed the team structure of the Main Street Approach, which will be used to organize the project’s efforts. This comprehensive approach will focus on four areas:
- the design, safety and cleanliness of the corridor;
- the promotion of the district for shoppers;
- communication, fundraising and volunteer development, and
- expansion of existing businesses and recruitment of new businesses to the avenue.
At the heart of the effort, Ms. Harris noted, was the power of volunteers. As active partners, volunteers provide the energy for the revitalization effort. She invited attendees to join teams to create specific projects to help solve problems. She also introduced the job description and press release for the new corridor manager to be hired for the effort.
After her remarks, the audience broke into small groups and to identify top challenges and ideas for new opportunities on the Torresdale Avenue corridor. Each of the seven small groups identified their top three ideas and concerns, and shared them with the audience. After everyone had shared his or her ideas and concerns, Ms. Harris spoke about where each fit within the team structure of the Main Street Approach. There was consensus about forming volunteer run teams on the following topics: Economic development, clean and safe, and design/historic preservation.
After Ms. Harris concluded her remarks, the audience reassembled to three discussions based on the major topics identified to discuss possible first projects to undertake to improve the Torres dale Ave corridor. The group agreed to meet again to discuss next steps and form project teams on Monday October 24, 2011 at the Tacony Branch of the Free Library at Torresdale Avenue and Knorr Streets. Registration begins at 5:30PM; the meeting will be held from 6PM to 7:30PM.
More information and an agenda for the meeting is available from Donna Ann Harris at 267 251 5444 or historictaconyrevitalization@gmail.com
The mission of the Tacony Community Development Corporation is the revitalization and preservation of the neighborhood of Tacony.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...The Tacony Community Development Corporation (TCDC) announced today that it will hold a kick off meeting for its new effort to revitalize the Torresdale Avenue commercial corridor in the Tacony neighborhood on October 17, 2011. This meeting will begin with registration at 5:30 PM and the program begins at 6PM and runs until 8PM. The meeting will be held in the basement meeting room at the Tacony Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia at 6742 Torresdale Avenue (at Knorr Street) in Philadelphia PA 19135. All neighborhood residents, merchants and property owners are invited to attend.
The purpose of the meeting is to discuss why the Tacony Community Development Corporation is launching the Historic Tacony Revitalization Project now and what they hope to achieve in the next few years. Peter Naccarato, the Board President of the Tacony CDC will also discuss the role of the Retail Market Analysis study being conducted now, and the process the organization will undertake to hire a full time employee this fall to manage the commercial district revitalization work.
After Mr. Naccarato speaks, Donna Ann Harris, principal of Heritage Consulting Inc., a consultant to the Tacony Community Development Corporation will give a twenty minute presentation on “An Introduction to Commercial District Revitalization.” After the presentation, Ms. Harris will facilitate a series of small group discussions where neighbors can identify their major issues and concerns about the Torresdale Avenue commercial district that they wish to see changed. The small groups will present their ideas and Ms. Harris will describe how these concerns fit within the Main Street Four Point Approach™. Small group participants will be encouraged to identify projects to solve some of these problems that might interest them from these lists. The next meeting date will be determined to create committees to move the revitalization effort forward.
“We are very excited about the launching of our revitalization effort for Torresdale Avenue in historic Tacony” said Mr. Naccarato, “we hope to see many community members at this meeting, and hear their views about the future of the Avenue.”
More information and an agenda for the meeting is available from Donna Ann Harris at 215 546 1988 or historictaconyrevitalization@gmail.com
The mission of the Tacony Community Development Corporation is the revitalization and preservation of the neighborhood of Tacony.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...We often do training for startup Main Street organizations who just cannot seem to grasp the importance and central role of work plans in Main Street revitalization. For a recent client, we developed this short piece that lists ten ways to use work plans.
- Use your work plan as a volunteer recruitment tool to show individuals as well as partnering groups exactly what you need them to do, since all the tasks are listed.
- To give confidence to a new program, your work plans can show funders and others that you can complete complex events with volunteers running the show, because all the tasks and money needed is written down.
- As a blue print for next year’s budget planning, your work plan can be used as a baseline document from which you can make improvements.
- The Board can use work plans to prevent taking on ill advised projects, or poorly performing projects hosted by others that they want to foist on your very successful organization
- Work plans approved by the board allow the Executive Director to say no to pet projects suggested by others. “I’m sorry our Promotion Committee just cannot take on another project because our Board has voted on our work plan for the year.”
- Use several years worth of work plans to help with forecasting budget increases, staffing and strategic planning.
- Use your work plans show local government how many groups with whom your program partners in a given year
- Work plans permits funders to understand how well you manage scores of volunteers with only one staff member and why they should invest in your well run organization.
- Use your work plan as a raw annual report showing what your program accomplished in the year.
- Use the work plan to celebrate all the fantastic achievements of the Board, Staff and volunteers when the fiscal year is done.
Have other ideas? We would love to hear them.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...On Wed. October 5, 2011 we are presenting a half day workshop for the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission about a favorite topic Diversify Your Revenue: A workshop for Business Improvement Districts. This session is now filled to capacity.
The survey was sent to 85 business improvement districts, Main Street organizations and commercial corridor organizations in the Delaware Valley and other bordering counties. The survey was open for four weeks, and we got a 15% response rate. The survey results are available here. Survey Responses DVRPC BID-SID survey
We also prepared more detailed charts of the results of specific survey questions dealing with the variety of current revenue sources and the major concerns facing survey respondents. Find this chart here. BID SID Handout revenue concerns.
If you are interested in seeing a copy of the PowerPoint presentation please contact us for a complimentary copy.
Here is the promotional literature about the event
Diversify Your Revenue: A Workshop for SIDs and BIDs
This half-day workshop will assist existing Special Improvement Districts and Business Improvement Districts working in downtowns and commercial corridors in the region to diversify their revenue sources. SIDs/BIDs today are pressed, as never before, to offer their ongoing clean and safe efforts, retain existing businesses and grow others in their district and promote the downtown with ever dwindling resources. This workshop will focus on proven revenue generating strategies for small and midsized BIDs/SIDs in the region.
Before the workshop, the presenter will circulate a brief survey to all invitees to gather information about current revenue sources of SIDs/BIDs in the region and key issues about fundraising. We will use the survey results to hone the agenda.
During the workshop, we expect to speak about boosting sponsorship and special event income, expanding contributed revenue especially from fundraising events and discuss a wide variety of earned income opportunities. Our emphasis will be on intermediate level revenue opportunities that the organization controls rather than grants and government support. During our morning together, we will do one short group exercise, and end with Top Ten Tips. We’ll take questions throughout the program. After the workshop, we will have a Dutch treat lunch and take a behind the scenes tour of our host’s downtown district. Participants will receive a Resource Packet including a CD of templates, forms, articles and work plans to help you increase earned and contributed revenue when you return from the workshop.
Learning objectives
- Learn about typical revenue sources for SIDS/BIDs in the region from a pre- workshop survey by the presenter
- Understand why SIDs/BIDs should have diverse funding stream of both contributed and earned revenue, especially revenue the organization controls.
- Gain detailed knowledge about how to implement or expand existing sponsorship, special event and fundraising events geared to downtown organizations.
Agenda
8:30 Coffee and pastries
9:00 Welcome and introductions around the room
9:10 Trends in budget cuts for downtown organizations nationwide; why diverse revenue sources for existing SIDs/BIDs make sense; results of SID/BID revenue survey; typical revenue sources of SIDs/BIDs today; ideal revenue mixes pie charts; where does contributed money come from today?
9:40 Why focus on revenue YOU control? Common earned income sources for SID/BIDs in the region.
9:55 Special Events; adding component parts to existing events to boost revenue
10:35 Sponsorship; review sponsorship benefits; creating a year-long sponsorship program
11:05 Signature Fundraising Events; deciding which ones makes sense; location; adding component parts to existing fundraising events to boost revenue
11:45 Review and Q & A
12:15 Adjourn for lunch at a local restaurant
1:30 Behind the scenes tour of host downtown
3:00 Depart for home
The DVRPC flyer and sign up information is here which has an agenda. We will have lunch and then a tour of downtown Collingswood NJ.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...
AltaMira Press, the publisher of my 2007 book New Solutions for House Museums: Ensuring the Long Term Preservation for America’s Historic Homes, recently issued the book in a wide variety of formats for e-readers including the Kindle, Nook and other versions. Ordering the book is now very easy from the publisher’s web site.
The publisher has also provided a variety of quotes from recent reviews in professional journals. Take a look below.
“In this book, Donna Ann Harris, a preservation consultant with more than 20 years of experience, provides a critical resource for boards, staff, and volunteers at historic house museums, who need to consider whether creative alternatives to the house museum model may allow them to better realize their fundamental obligation—the preservation of the house.”—Michelle McClellan, University of Michigan, Winter 2009, The Journal of Heritage Stewardship
“Harris’s book is organized in a very clear fashion….At every step, the author displays an emphatic objectivity….Harris comes well positioned to write such a book….Donna Harris has done a great service for historic house museums and the people who are passionate about them.”—September 5, 2008, The Public Historian
“This publication brings together a number of workable solutions for a contemporary issue of concern….Timely, concise, practical, well researched….and written in everyday language, this is a handy management tool.”—November 2008, Museums Australia Magazine
“Harris’ message is prudent and pragmatic and the operating circumstances surrounding her case studies of house museums that have successfully made the transition to a new owner or a new use will be very familiar to many small museum operators…”—Journal of Museums AOTEAROA
“Donna Ann Harris brings unique insights to a critical problem facing advocates of historic preservation: the proliferation of house museums, too often under-funded and under-staffed. Through penetrating analysis of actual as well as hypothetical cases, she outlines how transitions to new uses and new owners can best achieve the desired result of saving the building itself. This book should be required reading for anyone even remotely connected with running a house museum.”—David G. DeLong, professor emeritus of architecture and former chair, graduate program in historic preservation, University of Pennsylvania
“Taking care of an old house isn’t easy, and being a responsible steward of a historic house museum is particularly challenging. In this thoughtful book, Donna Harris offers advice that can help boards and staff ask tough questions–and, if necessary, make tough decisions–to ensure a viable future for the historic resources they manage.”—Richard Moe, President, National Trust for Historic Preservation
“I would certainly recommend this book to my colleagues in the historic house museum community who may be facing house museum sustainability challenges, and who may be able to use the contents and insights offered in this book as a source of inspiration, and/or as a catalyst for moving their institution forward in pursuit of a successful alternative.”—Terry Dickinson, Newport Mansions