Let me tell you about one of the most successful fundraising events I have ever attended.  The Jacobus Vanderveer House is located in Bedminster NJ.  My client, the Friends of the Jacobus Vanderveer House have beautifully restored a 1777 structure over the last ten years.  Their annual event Colonial Christmas takes place in early December, and has a multitude of component parts that bring in a staggering amount of money over four days.  I attended the 2011 event and comments here flow from that event. Area designers decorate the house itself for Christmas and admission is charged to enter over four days.  Antique dealers sell items in several of the unfurnished rooms and a percentage of the sale goes to the Friends. There is a small boutique of items for sale upstairs in one of the bedrooms. Raffle tickets are sold at the house.

There is also a cocktail party held at the house in the evening. This event has a silent auction of wines, a raffle, the small designer boutique and many sponsorship opportunities.

Finally, there is the formal luncheon held at a famous country club nearby.  The luncheon, which for the last two years has had a $100 or $150 admission price, is only one of many fundraising components of the afternoon.  There is a $25 or 5 for $100 raffle of five substantial prizes including some really handsome designer name jewelry; a silent auction for several large, stuffed Christmas stockings filled with high end toys, sports tickets, and gadgets for a Mom, kids, grandparents and Dad; two dozen designer boutiques selling personalized items, jewelry, scarfs, belts, designer bags, leather goods etc. (These vendors donate a percentage of sales to the Friends.)  There are plenty of sponsorships: of the wine at lunch, the luncheon food itself, the program book, publicity, and the swag/goody bag to take home.

No doubt about it, this event takes the whole year to pull off, and has a highly dedicated, large group of volunteers who want to make each year’s Colonial Christmas better than the last.  In addition, they have been spectacularly successful.  The volunteers make Colonial Christmas a fundraising machine.  The committee really knows its audience and each component part is carefully considered.  Each one of the many component parts adds to their fundraising prowess.  No one component dominates, but all have a role to play in making the four-day event successful.

Any nonprofit that pursues fundraising events, should consider what kind of components make the best sense for their event. Ticket sales are but one part of your profit.

For the last three years, I have been lecturing nonstop about fundraising in general and collecting ideas about fundraising events—the kind just devised to raise money.  Here is a list, not complete, but extensive, of the component parts that I have seen used in Main Street fundraising events.  Do not use all of these components in your next fundraising event, but pick and choose a few that align with your goal and audience preference.  Let us know if you use any of these ideas, or need more information.

MSN_AUG08_MakeMore$forMembers Donna Ann Harris

MSN Sept 2010 Make Your Case Triple Your Members Donna Ann Harris

Membership Sponsorship FR events Handout

Woodbury Sponsorship package 2009

Bridgetonb NJSponsorship Brochure side a

Bridgeton NJSponsorship Brochure side b

Boonton_sponsorship_fax_form

Boonton_sponsorship brochure

VinelandNJmembership Brochure

UrbanaILMembershipBrochure

Laramie Wy Membership brochure

Ideal Membership Brochure MS

Biblio Mem, spon, FR events.

7 easy ways to boost membership programs

BoontonNJBizMembershipPac2011

Please contact us to discuss any of these handouts.

• Library, journal and internet research on incentives for adaptive reuses of historic buildings
• Research and write case studies on downtown revitalization topics
• Develop surveys, tabulate, analyze and produce reports on data for clients
• Attend and support focus group activities
• Update mailing list, scan articles, photos and brochures
• Research topics and issues related to historic house museums, commercial revitalization or nonprofit organizational development.  Write drafts of portions of reports.

Internship Location

The intern will work off site on his or her own PC and Microsoft operating system.  If you use a MAC, please discuss this during the interview, as you must have Microsoft Suite.  Progress meetings will occur weekly during the internship period at Heritage Consulting Inc.’s office in Philadelphia Center City.
Stipend and Timetable

The internship period is flexible, and is part time.  Depending on projects in the office, there may be more than one internship opportunity.  We anticipate a pay of $15 an hour for first time interns. Depending on the need, some projects may have very limited turnaround time and the stipend may be project based.  Interns will be 1099 employees, no benefits offered.  There may be opportunities to attend client meetings, but these will be determined later.

Experience

Intern must have excellent Microsoft Office Suite, library and Internet searching skills. Familiarity and/or good skills in graphic design program are useful.  High quality writing skills are essential.  Excellent attention to detail is expected.  An intern with course work in urban planning, public policy, nonprofit management and/or historic preservation is preferred, and those enrolled in Masters Degree programs are encouraged to apply.

To Apply

Students wishing to apply for Heritage Consulting Inc.’s Internship should e-mail all of the following items by May 1, 2012.  Please note in your cover letter any graphics programs in which you are skilled, salary needs, and your availability and career goals.  Please include the following items as attachments in your email: A cover letter, current resume, a short (no more than three pages) writing sample, names, email and phone numbers of three references.

Please send all materials to  donna@heritageconsultinginc.com.  Please no phone calls. Applicants we wish to interview will be contacted by May 15, 2012  for interviews. Thank you.

Here is the link to the article. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-selling-history-20120324,0,2459410.story from March 24

Here are some earlier stories in this series.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-historic-properties-20120319,0,7132936.story from March 20

The blog post that resulted from my talk was called 101 on Heritage Site Collaboration, a fitting name for a complicated subject.

Are historic sites underperforming assets?

I believe that many heritage sites are under performing assets, in that they have spaces that are not used daily for mission related purposes that could be filled with performances or art installations.  Some sites have larger spaces that can be logically used for presentations or performances. Historic church buildings have sanctuaries and fellowship halls, or empty class room space that may only be used on Sunday.Partners for Sacred Places is piloting a project on just this subject right now.  House museums pose other problems because they are often filled to gills with furniture and other decorative objects/displays. But there might be spaces where artists can have pieces displayed. These sites offer grounds or landscapes that might also be venues for art pieces as well. Nevertheless, most sites do have spaces that can be venues for new art in old buildings.

For many people at this talk, which was held at the New Century Trust on 13 and Locust St., the idea of working with an historic site or church is foreign.  They are artists first and foremost and not museum managers.  They don’t understand that moving furniture in an historic site is a big deal. Or, how much insurance costs. Or how to deal with crowd control. The physical surroundings of an authentic historic site is what may draw an artist to the site, but making the case to the site manager for an art installation or performance use, is another question.

Constraints and benefits

Historic sites have many constraints—most of which are size related because the site was often once a small home.  The grounds or the setting of an historic site, offer other possibilities because spaces can be large but the grounds cannot be disturbed because prehistory may be buried there.  The house is also a creation of a particular time and place, and this may offer other constraints about suitability of a project.  It is often said that architects thrive on constraints as it forces them to be more creative, and I suspect that artists may be the same. Thus small heritage properties may yield interesting opportunities for new art.

Make your case

My talk then was to try to make my audience understand that they must do some good research before they make their approach, and bring along some “party favors.”  According to the CultureWorks blog posts, I defined these “party favors” as “the elements that you bring to show the owners of a heritage site that you are indeed invested in the constraints, history and uniqueness of the space.”

Here are some elaborations on ideas I presented in February for artists that want to pitch a project to a heritage site owner:

Mission coherence—I talked about how artist-developed projects need to somehow touch on the mission of the historic site/venue, so that the owners understand that the artist has chosen the site for its authenticity and historic character.  Ideally, if the performance or the piece has a direct connection with the site, the artist will probably get a better  or more sympathetic audience from the site manager about their project or idea.

Site history and current neighborhood—Many sites are now located in fundamentally different neighborhoods than when the building was constructed.  Artists seeking to use that change can mount interesting and culturally relevant programs.  How the piece/performance matches the current community may help to make the historic site more relevant to the current neighborhood by participating in a contemporary art project. Historic sites are struggling to be relevant to today’s audience. This might be a good angle to highlight in any artist’s pitch.

Money— None of these projects can take place without financial support, and artists approaching historic sites must understand that they must bring along some funding to make the project work.  Understand there will be additional costs for security, insurance and wear and tear on the site during the performance or art piece.  Artists need to collaborate with the site on any funding applications and grants to assure that the costs to the site to host the piece are covered and provide a bit more to ensure the future preservation of the site/building

Appreciation —Historic sites like to know that they are appreciated (who does not?) by a nontraditional constituency.  Here artists and performers can make a real impact by showing how they can add life to a space and bring it new audiences.

Infrastructure and safety—these are essential.  New uses or users in old spaces can be jarring, but also wonderful.  The site still needs to be protected against damage so proper insurance is key.  Everyone should be concerned about protecting delicate historic fabric—be it wallpaper, decorative painting or precious fabrics for drapes and upholstery.  The more the artist/performer understands security and preservation concerns, the better.

Talk takes time–These projects take time to put together, to gain permissions from perhaps reluctant board members, time go gather financial support, time to install, time to dismantle and clean up. It will be far longer than both parties realize at the outset, so plan for far more time than you could ever imagine. Talk takes time.

We were fortunate to have Rev. Edward Sparkman of Shiloh Baptist Church in the audience, who offered a wonderful response to the question: “when do you want an artist to come to you, when they are just thinking about the idea or when it is pretty much ready to go?”  His response was when it was still in the planning stage.  This permits the heritage site manager/pastor to help shape the proposal to meet the needs/objections of the Board whether of a historic site, church or other venue at an historic building.  While Rev. Sparkman was not prompted to make his reply, I would have answered the question the same way, if it were posed to me.

After all, collaboration can only yield a win/win for all, when there is good communication, trust and good faith among all parties.

If you want to read more from the CultureWorks blog about my talk click here.

Another blog post about my talk from CityGirl.

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!

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.

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

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 .

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

Ideal Membership Brochure MS

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.