Education Outreach at the Minnesota Historical Society recently took a survey of how history education works at local historical organizations in our state. One of the more compelling statistics that emerged from those that answered relates to financially planning to accomplish mission. One of the questions was whether or not the organization had a line item in its budget for school tours. Forty-two percent said that they did. A later question asked for an estimate of the number of school children served on tours. Of those served, 82 percent of all of the children went to an organization that had a line item in its budget for school tours. This seems to indicate the usefulness of intentional planning to accomplish goals that further mission.

What goals have you specifically planned to accomplish through your budget? Is there any success that seems to work without the organization having to cultivate the activity?

Thursday June 4, 2009, was the “Practical Leadership: A Balanced Approach” conference from the Minnesota Council of Foundations. In the “Beyond Mergers” session Stan Birnbaum of MACC Consortium challenged the assumption that two organizations merging or cooperating in other ways would reduce operating expenses, commonly thought of as “administrative overhead” in core services such as finance, human resources, technology and facility. In the example he provided those costs generally went up with the merger, but other efficiencies were gained so that his example saw an overall cost savings in program areas of about 10 percent.

Why? Mr. Birnbaum demonstrated that most nonprofits are undercapitalized in their core services. In other words, the cost of administering nonprofits is often artificially low because of a desire to infuse as many of the organization’s limited resources into its programming. How often has an organization continued to utilize an out-of-date computer, which slows other operations, just to avoid the expense of a new one? The practice of funneling maximum resources to programming then colors aspirations for cost savings in new alliances. His message seemed to be when considering partnering or merging that the two organizations should challenge assumptions about how the new joint venture will actually function.

Whether or not an organization considers a joint venture, challenging operational assumptions is a healthy exercise. In what specific ways do you feel your organization might be “undercapitalized”?

In the Overlooking Local Museums discussion last month, the tenor was about failing to visit locally when other sites further away seem more exciting. Many people probably desire to visit Washington DC. Why not? After all it is the nation’s capital and decisions made there affect so much of what happens in the world. As long as one is there soaking in firsthand its rich significance, there are plenty of museums that are part of the local flavor. Those museums have integrated themselves by supporting the ambiance of the place. The museums are as distinctive as their host city.

It seems to me that several local history organizations in Minnesota also actively seek that same kind of integration in their communities as distinctive enhancements. Although there are more to name, let me highlight just two. Anoka County Historical Society in the metro area has a strong track record of work with both the City of Anoka and around the county. ACHS assisted the City of Anoka with the creation of historic markers along a popular walking trail beside the Rum River. While people may not necessarily go for the history, the several times that I have randomly visited it there have always been people looking at the markers. In this way ACHS blends in with its host community to amplify a positive experience for residents and tourists alike by portraying the city for what it is: a place important to people.

Morrison County Historical Society in Little Falls a number of years ago likewise had the opportunity to work with its host city, but this time on a curriculum. Through what is taught in school, hopefully young residents will discover compelling reasons to stay in the community when they grow up. Many communities, even states as a whole, grapple with how to keep its young people.

There are many other strategies for integrating history, a history ethic, and clues to the support role that historical organizations have in enhancing the attractiveness of a community profile. How do you or your organization show that grass is just as green and lush locally? I don’t mean what do you tell people, but what specific projects have you accomplished that are now part of the community’s identity?

The Cokato Museum & Historical Society debuted its web site in the late summer of 1997.  At the time, and to the best of our knowledge, only three other museums in the state had a presence on the web.  A culmination of what seemed like months of planning, this event was met with little fanfare, other than a small article in the museum’s quarterly newsletter.  The local newspaper did not even provide coverage. During our discussions about creating a web site, I made the comment: “Within ten years, the Internet will be the preferred method of information retrieval for a large chunk of the populace.”  Needless to say, I was a little off on that estimate.

Since that humble unveiling, it should come as no surprise that Internet has radically transformed how historical organizations can and should conduct business.  For the Cokato Museum, those changes can be seen in numerous ways. 

One is in handling genealogy requests.  Since we are not the county museum, we were not typically the “first call” people made.  But with a presence on the web, genealogists can find us quite easily.  With our list of available resources, they can decide if we can assist them, and send an e-mail query.  Our research numbers have tripled since 2000, due almost exclusively to the web site.

Another item is providing general historical information about our community.  From a simple “Quick Facts” sheet, to our Lost Cokato series, and articles from our newsletter and the local newspaper, interested persons can learn a great deal about Cokato’s history from the comfort of their own home.  Those who seek further information can easily contact us.

Membership services are another area of benefit.  Early on we utilized email to contact members about upcoming events and other items of interest.  Unfortunately, the proliferation of spam forced us to curtail that avenue.  Now we encourage members to visit our News & Upcoming Events section of the web site, which is updated weekly or as needed.

A list of available publications, membership forms, and other information helps keep the activities of our organization in full view of not just our membership, but all who choose to view our page.

Social networking sites are quickly becoming another avenue by which museums can further advance name recognition.  Pick a network, and you can find organizations which have established a presence there in one form or another.

The negative side, and of course there always is one, can be found in the staff time needed to maintain these digital presences.  With so many organizations struggling to maintain current staffing levels, an honest conversation about time management must take place before embarking on these ventures.  Setting up that initial presence is easy.  Devoting time on a consistent basis for site maintenance can be the difficult part.

The obvious question remains then: what will the future bring for museums as the digital age progresses.  Considering how rapidity by which the technology had advanced, one can only guess at the next directions.  With barely over a decade having passed since museums made their initial forays into the digital universe, many of us in the field are anxious to see those new directions, and to determine if they will be beneficial to the advancement of our mission.

Mike Worcester

Cokato Historical Society

“As they are for home-town residents everywhere, the local attractions always are just ‘there,’ with seemingly plenty of time to stop in.  Trips to distant attractions beckon, and we don’t discount the road trip’s enduring appeal.  But somehow time to visit the local sites never seems to materialize, and its always in the wake of such disasters that we finally learn what we’ve lost.  So here’s a plea to take advantage of your local historic sites, support them however you might—both volunteer help and financial aid are eagerly sought and gratefully accepted—and appreciate how truly fragile our collective past is before it’s too late.”
- James M. Tarbox,
History Channel Magazine,
regarding the institutions flooded in Cedar Rapids IA in 2008

Dustin Heckman, executive director of the Mower County Historical Society in Austin, sent the above quote. Does this capture a sense of why people seemingly overlook local history museums?

When contemplating a means in which the Fillmore County Historical Society could achieve a web presence, I chose a free blogging service, Word Press.com.  Our Board wasn’t quite ready to embrace internet technology by purchasing a domain and paying for web hosting.  Yet I wanted to get our museum out online, as well as to give our members an idea of what is possible on the World Wide Web.   I decided it best to begin simply, and with no cost involved.  It’s my hope is that our starter web site will grow up and one day serve as the foundation of a larger, commercial site.  At the very least, we’ve put ourselves out there in cyber space for the time being until we’re able to take it to the next level.

The following are a basic dozen steps to get your non-profit organization launched on the web.

12 STEPS TO CREATE A WORDPRESS.COM BLOG:

1. Register to sign up for your blog. 

2.  Choose a user name that will be your blog domain name.  Ours is fillmorecountyhistory.wordpress.com.  Make this choice with careful thought to your own brand as you cannot change your user name later.

3. Choose a blog title - this may be changed at a later time if you wish.

4.  Choose your language and privacy settings, and then create your blog.

5.  Choose your password, and key in your email address.  Your account will be activated by following instructions in a confirmation email sent to you.

6.  Every time you log on to your WordPress blog, you will need your user name and password.  (Passwords can be changed later.)  As the administrator(s) of your blog, you have access to the dashboard and control over settings and content.

7. Choose a theme for your blog from available options.  Go to the Appearance/Themes menu option at your dashboard.  The theme becomes your blog’s style, appearance, and color motif.  In many cases, themes offer extra bells and whistles, called widgets, which the web designer created expressly for that theme. It is possible to preview themes by clicking on screen shots.  You may easily choose another theme with just a click of your mouse, should you change your mind.  Certain themes support widgets.  In themes that do, you may replace default widgets with ones of your own preference.

8.  Not every theme supports custom headers.  I expressly chose one for our site which did since I wanted to customize the header image with my own photo.  I sized a digital image to exactly the same pixels as that of the default header image.  If you skip this resizing step, you will be given opportunity to crop the picture to fit when you upload it, but you will lose a portion of the image when cropping.

9.  The ability to create “pages” which look very much like traditional web pages, rather than typical blog posts was the prime feature that sold me on using WordPress.com to host our blog.  I created ten separate pages that can be accessed from the top menu bar or sidebar.

10.  A free blog account at WordPress allows for 3 GB of free file storage.  To go above that limit, you will need to purchase optional premium upgrades.

11.  Your posts or pages can be composed in either WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get: Visual) or traditional HTML.  Both posts and pages may be edited or deleted at any time.  You may upload images, audio, video, and certain other media files to your posts or pages.

12.  The statistics system offered to WordPress bloggers is awesome.  How easily and informative it is to check stats.  Clicking on “View All” will allow your administrator to observe the traffic your site has received in days/weeks/months.   It also tracks referrers- people who clicked on links from other websites to get to your blog as well as incoming links from other sites.  Your top posts or pages provide traffic count so you’ll know which page or post is currently receiving the most hits.  A list of search engine terms helps your administrator know how your viewers found your blog.  Click on the summary tables for your blog for detailed numbers as to your traffic.

My decision to use WordPress.com came after testing several other blogging services. As I understand policies at WordPress.com (which is sister site to commercial blogger WordPress.org) bloggers may use WordPress.com for non-commercial use.  It’s been my intention to use our site for informational, rather than commercial, purposes.  I wanted a web presence for promotional reasons only.  I don’t plan to use it for the sale of merchandise.  I want our viewers to be kept informed on what is happening at our museum.  The blog is used to spread the word about upcoming events.   One of the drawbacks of a free blog at WordPress is the possibility of Google text ads occasionally popping up on your site.  But in my experience, this happens rarely, if ever.  All in all, I’ve been pleased with hosting our site as a free blog at WordPress.com.  I highly recommend any small non-profit with limited funds and means to try their hand at it putting themselves out there in as creative manner as possible.  It’s working for us in Fillmore County.

Debra J. Richardson, Executive Director
Fillmore County History Center

It’s mid-April, which takes me back to my days of working as an interpreter at historic sites. At this time of year the buildings are cleaned, last minute minor repairs are performed, kits of clothing and props are issued and inspected, and all of this is done to prepare for the public. Of all the aspects of the summer season of working in history, I most likely enjoyed anticipating meaningful interactions with visitors.

What are your looking forward to most for the 2009 summer visitation season? What are you doing right now to prepare for the summer season?

Ordering for gift shops is well underway.  With the economy the way it is, we must be even more prudent about what we bring into our gift shops.  I’m curious about what companies area museums use for their wholesale goods.  Currently we use Ohio Wholesale, Kennedy’s Country, NMN, KIPP, Historical Folk Toys, Homestead Folk Toys, and Your True Nature (3 of these are new orders).  Your True Nature is a very green company and their products look fantastic, so I am taking a chance on them.  Can you share what sells best in your gift shop and who your wholesaler is?  It is expensive to try new product lines and I personally would feel more comfortable about bringing in ‘tried and true’ products over guessing!

June Lynne
Executive Director
Chippewa County Historical Society

“The financial crisis, through which the country has so lately passed, has had a calamitous, but it is to be hoped, temporary effect upon Minnesota.  [It has] been variously ascribed to the excessive inflation of the banking system – to the large importations of foreign goods – and to general heedless speculation and extravagance of living.  Whatever may be the … causes which have super induced a revolution so wide spread and ruinous, the periodical recurrence of such disasters would seem to indicate that they are as necessary to the due regulation of commerce and trade as are storms for the purification of the physical atmosphere.  They will doubtless occur as frequently in the future as in the past.”

– Gov. Henry H. Sibley, inaugural address, 1858

Economic adversity is nothing new for Minnesota. Gov. Sibley comments on the Panic of 1857, but his words would be an apt description of 2009.  What precautions do you take to ride out economic thunderstorms?

On Wednesday and Thursday last week the American Association of Museums held a webinar to address the nation’s financial crisis as it relates to cultural organizations. One concept that emerged was “redeployment.” We’ve often heard that we must “do more with less” or more recently that we should “do less with less.” Commentators however suggested that cultural organizations constantly adapt and even in the best of times there isn’t enough money to simply add more to already over-worked employees and volunteers. Instead, we must make strategic allocation of the limited assets of time and money through redeployment. That means stopping some services that are outdated and no longer highly desired, and adding new practices that further our missions.

If you were to redeploy to best meet your mission in the modern climate, what aspects that you do now might you consider obsolete? What emerging practices might you adopt?