NAI Blog

Today, August 31, 2010 would have been my father’s 100^th birthday. Unfortunately he didn’t make it to 100, but he accomplished a lot in the years he had. As the first municipal park naturalist in the western US, he helped break ground for a lot of us that followed down that path. That path has grown, perhaps even split in a few places over the years. And there’s no doubt this path is sometimes rocky with steep slopes and lots of fascinating twists and turn—but then any curved path holds the most interest.

In the first half of the 20^th century the people that interpreted natural history were commonly referred to as naturalists or nature guides, and they often came from a different place than today’s interpreters. The naturalist was often a field scientist, with a detailed knowledge of botany, zoology, geology, paleontology or other formal “ologies.” Colleagues that interpreted cultural history often came from a formal background in history, anthropology, archeology or related disciplines and went by the title of historian. In other words, without the formal discipline of interpretation in that era, naturalists and historians came from other formal academic disciplines. For example, Dr. Loye Miller and Dr. Harold Bryant who initiated interpretive programs for the National Park Service in Yosemite were both zoology professors from UC Berkeley.

My father was cut from that same cloth. He was a talented botanist and ornithologist that started out working as a field scientist and collector for museums like the American Museum of Natural History and the California Academy of Sciences. But there was something different about some of these naturalists. Their mastery of the subject matter was driven by this intense sense of discovery and curiosity, and often fueled an incredible sense of awe about the world around them—the same qualities that create some of our most inspired interpreters. This is perhaps where the path split from the technically proficient naturalists to branch off toward today’s interpreters. My father made that split in the 1940s when he began doing interpretive programs at Lakeside Park in Oakland, California. On a national/international scale we saw people like Rachel Carson, Jacques Cousteau, Aldo Leopold and many others with solid academic credentials turn toward connecting nature to the larger public, following in the footsteps of John Muir and Enos Mills. Parallel efforts brought cultural history and anthropology out of the halls of academia to make cultural heritage meaningful for the larger American public.

I was always a bit disappointed that my father didn’t consider himself an interpreter. He was always at home with any group of birdwatchers or botanists, but felt a little ill at ease at a gathering of contemporary interpreters. I think it may have been that so many of us also have backgrounds in communications, sociology, psychology or other areas of social sciences—perhaps we just seemed like a slightly different species. We’ve certainly added more layers of technology, methodology, research findings and evaluation to the tool kit of today’s interpreter, but our work still revolves around the fundamental relationship of people and resources. Even though many of those formal naturalists or historians can tell spell-binding stories or answer nearly any question you can think of regarding their resource, I always fear we may leave them behind if we’re not careful to acknowledge them as peers and colleagues. They are a big part of our professional heritage and we need to build on their good work, not leave it behind.

I’m willing to bet that wherever you practice, whatever your place or resource may be, there are people that have gone before you that were passionate scientists and historians, that discovered and described the unique nature of your resource. I would urge you to find those people, talk with them (if they’re still alive) or read their work, and dig through the layers of technical information to the deeper sense of discovery that drove their passion. That’s where you can tap into some very real and authentic inspiration to interpret your resource.

As for me, every time I’m looking for a little inspiration I just have to think back to a little boy sitting next to his dad in the hollowed stump of an ancient redwood tree in the Oakland hills, listening to stories of grizzly bears and lumberjacks. We all have a chance to pass that inspiration on to the children that will follow us. If you do it well, perhaps some child out there will celebrate your 100^th birthday.

—Jim Covel

Bison in Yellowstone National Park.

The U.S. Government and President Obama are soliciting ideas about protecting the places we love in the nation. There are public hearings being held all over the United States and their America’s Great Outdoors Initiative website allows you to post your ideas. I posted my ideas there as follows.

I find the comments on my post there interesting for they reflect the broad range of thinking in the U.S. about government intervention and shared responsibility. Some do not want the government in our lives in any manner whatever – no taxes, no public education, just NO.

Those of us who love parks, wilderness, natural areas, clean air, clean water and a healthy environment know that the shared responsibility for those must depend on all of us. Leaving people to their own with no protection of natural resources would doom mankind to an early extinction at our own hands. There are those who would cut every last tree, mine every mountain and drain every oil basin, no matter what the damage to our land, air and water.

A hundred years ago most Americans lived on farms and learning about food, land and energy was a part of everyday life. Young people today assume that food comes from grocery stores and energy comes from wall sockets. How would they learn about the real sources. Simcity and similar video games do teach about such things in a virtual environment, but nothing helps you understand how the world works as well as hands-on experiences with the real places and things.

I would like to see every 18-year old give some period of time to her/his community, parks, non-profit service organizations or military service with no exemptions at all. We would all learn earlier in our work lives what value there is in public service. It would provide a valuable opportunity for contextual learning in all directions. Military personnel face those realities on our behalf.

During the hard times of the Great Depression, my father worked for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) cutting trees in Illinois. He had a 7^th grade education and was unemployed with three children to feed. He used to complain of the long days of outdoor labor and low pay but later would brag of the good work that was done and the value of a job of any kind in those dark days.

In my first job as a park ranger and visitor center manager, I was very aware that the visitor center was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps as a picnic shelter. Later walls were added along with exhibits and a visitor contact area. I often had young workers from Youth Conservation Corps or Young Adult Conservation Corps helping me. I’ve written before in this blog about the great experiences with those programs. They give young people a better understanding of how the world really functions. All the resources we use in life still come from the Earth.

The America’s Great Outdoors Initiative is a great chance for you to share your ideas or give your view on the ideas of others. It is especially a good time to share the value of outdoor experiences for young people to learn about our planet. I welcome whatever judgment you make of my suggestions.

-Tim Merriman

The interpretive planning class gets a site visit at West Creek Reservation to better know the site early in the planning process.

Last week in Cleveland our interpretive planning class worked on plans for interpretive media for the grounds of the new park and interpretive project being developed by Cleveland Metroparks (CM) in collaboration with the Northeast Ohio Sewer District and City of Parma. A previous class worked on the overall concept for the Stewardship Center and many of their suggestions have been included in the design of the building. At last week’s class, John Cardwell, CM’s landscape architect, presented on progress being made on the center that is now under development, the WaterShed.

The West Creek watershed is on the Cuyahoga River, which caught on fire thirteen times in the past hundred fifty years and served as a catalyst for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to toughen standards regarding water pollution through the Clean Water Act and other legislation.

Not only is West Creek on a famously polluted watershed, the specific property of this reserve has an old landfill on it. It is surrounded by industrial sites and some homes who have only recently been moved to city sewage from having septic fields. The stream quality here is currently not so good and it is a great place to pursue their two goals – demonstrate restoration change on the ground and engage local citizens in applying best practices to bring about the positive change.

John began by explaining that they are working with “The Sustainable Sites Initiative™ (SITES™) in design of the grounds and  LEED standards with the building for the WaterShed. Best Management Practices (BMPs) are being encouraged already in the community by doing rain barrel workshops at some CM nature centers. These help homeowners build inexpensive rain barrels to install at home. Rainwater HOGs, large rain barrel systems, are being installed on nature centers as demonstrations. Slowing down water in the watershed is desirable to

Wetlands provide wildlife habitat while serving as a filter for stormwater and residential runoff.

increase the natural filtering of stormwater. Wetlands, in addition to providing wildlife habitat, are key components in this streamshed for slowing down stormwater.

CM’s chief scientist, John Mack, explained that they have 30 years of mainstem streams data collection in Ohio, one of the largest databases of its kind, but little headwater stream monitoring.  Scientific monitoring of the change on the ground is vital to the process. The creative interpretive media being planned will engage local residents in using better practices in their yards that drain into the West Creek watershed.

We have many watersheds in the U.S. where people live close to landfills, mining tailings, and industrial grounds. Improving water quality with citizen participation is a learning process from all directions. Too often we clean up our problems with no citizen awareness that it has been done. Good interpretive planning in this setting will help the community understand their roles and responsibilities in watershed protection, improvement and management.

The reconstructed wetlands on West Creek already attract great blue herons.

The parks department, sewage district and city cooperating on a major stewardship and ecological restoration project is fairly unique and a great opportunity. The sewage department is already offering discounts on sewage bills for those who use BMPs to help improve water quality on West Creek. Careful monitoring of the change in West Creek by scientists will give an important check on the effectiveness of the BMPs and citizen participation. The park will provide recreation space for residents while engaging them in a very worthwhile community project of restoration.

I’m looking forward to going back for a visit in two years when the WaterShed building and grounds at West Creek Reservation are redeveloped and being used by the people of Parma and surrounding areas. I want to see the creative interpretive ideas on the ground and in the hands of local children and families.

A nineteenth century conservationist in Japan, Tanaka Shozo, said, “The care of rivers is not a question of rivers but of the human heart.” Interpretation helps people make the emotional connections with places and stories that lead to commitment. This is a great place to demonstrate the power of such efforts.

- Tim Merriman

There have been many models to predict decision-making behavior through the years. Our modern industry of marketing and advertising is based largely on decision-making models. After all, the goal of most advertising is to persuade you to engage in a particular behavior—namely purchasing a particular product or service. Whether we like to admit it or not, most interpreters are in a similar business. We’re trying to persuade our audience to engage in particular behaviors, such as resource conservation, protecting heritage sites, supporting the organizations that make our work possible. So there may be some merit in keeping up with current thought and practice in the marketing world.

I recently read some work by Dr. James March, Professor Emeritus in Political Science and Business at Stanford University. Dr. March developed a model based on two key dimensions in making decisions; 1) logical consequences of behavior and 2) the propensity for humans to be attracted to behaviors that reinforce our image or identity. Persuading someone to take a particular action in order to avoid dire consequences (threat appeal) can sometimes get short-term results, but seldom changes long-term behavior. Engaging in behavior that is consistent with some aspect of your identity (or who you aspire to be) is a far more attractive proposition, and one that is more likely to be reinforced by intrinsic rewards.

One of the challenges we face in conservation education is getting people to adopt conservation behaviors, and Dr. March’s model may help explain why we aren’t more effective in this endeavor. It seems like so much of the time we’re telling people about the consequences of inaction on environmental issues. If I keep burning fossil fuels, I’m adding to climate change. If I eat rock cod, I’m depleting a valuable fishery. In other words, the messaging around many conservation issues tends to focus on the bad outcomes that will result if we don’t change our ways. That may be true, but it’s not very motivating. If the messages reinforced our affinity for nature and painted a picture of a sustainable future that we could enjoy—we might be more willing to consider long-term changes in our behavior. Focusing on gains is going to be more popular that focusing on losses—so let’s frame things in terms of all the good we have to gain.

Some of the more successful conservation efforts in the past century have been based on a positive vision of the future. The nation’s national parks were initiated as a way to protect wildlife and timber from widespread poaching efforts. However, from the perspective of the American public, this was a program to protect the nation’s unique natural and cultural wonders for all time—and folks got behind it. Ducks Unlimited was founded to set aside wetlands and waterfowl habitat with the vision of maintaining waterfowl populations into the future—and both hunters and birdwatchers happily support the organization.

It’s also helpful to reinforce aspects of your audience’s identity that are consistent with the behavior or decision you want them to adopt. If you’re trying to nurture supporters for your nature center—let’s call it the Norman Marsh Nature Center, how about addressing you’re audience as “friends of the Norman Marsh Nature Center” or “wise students of nature” or some other complimentary term. Sam Ham refers to that technique as labeling, and it’s one of my favorites. Reinforcing desired aspects of identity helps to reinforce decisions that support that identity. So if I see myself as a friend of the nature center, I’m more likely to make choices that support the mission of that institution.

We interpreters tend to be passionate about the resources we’re protecting—we wouldn’t be as effective without that passion. However, that can lead us to using consequence-based arguments to help get our audience to act.  Just remember that using positive emotional connections and appealing to the positive aspects of your audience’s identity is going to inspire long-term commitment to positive choices.

—Jim Covel

Bob Hinkle introduces the planning class to the West Creek Reservation site for the new WaterShed project.

I’m not in the new sitcom, Hot in Cleveland. I’m in Cleveland and it’s not hot this week, temperature-wise. But it is really HOT in our business due to Cleveland Metroparks (CM). Bob Hinkle is the Chief of Outdoor Education and for 39 years he has been a member of NAI and AIN before that, one of our two parent organizations. His leadership in CM’s education and interpretive programs for 28 years has been amazing. Dr. Bob, as many affectionately call him, has encouraged professional development as a cultural norm in this old and revered park district.

This is our fourth interpretive planning course in Cleveland at his request and managers of nature centers and programs in this system are required to earn the Certified Interpretive Manager or Planner credential. CM’s planner, landscape architect and designers have had the planner course, helping them work together with site managers and interpreters, all using a common process and planning vocabulary.

Lisa Brochu explains logic models with an example.

This week’s course is working on the challenge of planning the interpretive elements on the WaterShed grounds that augment the services of the building in achieving site objectives. Participants are from all over the U.S. and Canada along with six staff members of CM, with varying levels of experience in interpretive planning and graphic design. During the course, participants are exposed to planning principles and processes, then apply what they’ve learned to the on-site project challenge.

The culture of professional development and interpretive planning encouraged by Bob Hinkle is important to the success of CM’s six nature centers and other outdoor programs. Large organizations with  policies, politics and bureaucracy can end up with a “can’t do it” emotional environment, but thoughtful training and planning keeps professionals open to personal growth and empowers them with an understanding of what they CAN DO cost effectively and efficiently. CM continues to invest in helping their dedicated professionals grow and become better planners – that’s HOT and is making a difference in Cleveland.

-Tim Merriman

Thimbleberry photo by Chris Diewald from flickr.com

I look forward to a particular tradition this time of the summer—harvesting some of nature’s bounty in the form of wild berries.  Over the past few weeks I’ve been observing the blossoms on the elderberries and huckleberries, then watching the fruit slowly forming and ripening.  The thimbleberries came first this year.  There are never enough to preserve, so I just eat them as I encounter them walking along some of the shaded canyon slopes where they thrive.  The sky blue bloom is forming on the elderberries, so they’ll be ready soon.  I’ll probably have to wait until late August to gather huckleberries in this part of the country, and it’s well worth the wait.

I inherited this taste for berries from my parents.  My father had his favorite berry-picking sites in the hills around Oakland and Berkeley.  Many a Saturday morning was spent picking blackberries, elderberries and huckleberries throughout the summer.  We’d bring the bounty home where my mother would create the most incredible jam, jelly, pies, muffins and other goodies with these berries.  Any extras would go in the freezer so we could enjoy some of these summer treats throughout the year.  To this day I would bet money that the absolute best PB&J sandwiches are made with elderberry jelly.

Of course I’m not the only one interested in the summer berry crop.  There are quite a few critters that are also watching to see when their favorite berries are ripe for the picking.  One of the elderberry bushes I used to frequent was on the edge of a thicket that was home to a covey of quail.  During the berry season, the quail were often in the upper branches eating the berries I couldn’t reach.  As long as I went about my business quietly, the quail were happy to stay put and share the berries with me.  Through the years I’ve run into foxes, raccoons, skunks, opossums and a wide variety of birds in berry patches.  Thus picking turned into a combination of ritual and summer celebration, sharing the best nature has to offer with my fellow berry fans.

From time to time I think about what it was like picking berries in the past when the California grizzly bear was common in many parts of the state.  These bears were also big berry eaters, and they weren’t as good about sharing the resource as the raccoons and foxes.  Accounts of some of the early settlers in California advised taking a rifle when going after berries and checking the brush and thickets thoroughly to avoid surprising a snacking bear.  Life is a little more safe and simple in the berry patch today.

When appropriate, I’ve included some berry tasting for the audience on a nature walk.  We’re always trying to make use of multiple senses in interpretation, and taste is perhaps the most challenging sense to use.  There just aren’t that many things that are safe or appropriate to taste in nature, compared to the sounds, sights, and feel of so many nature objects.  But berries combine some interesting taste sensations with great stories.

Here’s wishing you a berry happy summer!

- Jim Covel

Freeman Tilden’s Six Principles of Interpretation (Interpreting Our Heritage, 1957) have endured as wisdom about the profession for 53 years. In 1998 Ted Cable and Larry Beck updated them as the first six in their Fifteen Guiding Principles in their excellent book, Interpretation for the 21st Century. So I hereby propose the 7th or 16th Principle, depending on whether you cite Tilden or Cable and Beck. It is:

“Interpretation is management.”

For all my 40 years in the field I’ve heard, “Interpretation is a management tool.” The difference between that statement and the belief that interpretation is management is subtle, but important. A tool can be picked up or left in the toolshed. It may or may not be useful depending on how someone wants to solve a particular problem. If we believe that interpretation is management, then it becomes an integral part of every operation, not an option.

Hundreds of social science and communications studies document the ability of well-planned communication to influence attitudes, beliefs and behaviors. Using that knowledge, we can design thematic programs and media that help achieve our objectives.

I first heard Mike Watson, former Superintendent of Mather Training Center for National Park Service, say, “Interpretation is management” many years ago. The more I’ve thought about it over the years, the more convinced I am that this idea should be fundamental to how we think and teach in this profession. In 2007 we added the words “mission-based” to our definition of interpretation after deep discussions with other professionals in the Definitions Project that produced a new lexicon for the field.

To me this Sixteenth Principle is key because it suggests that what we do must be designed to make a difference in pursuit of our mission. Few managers will keep interpretive programs through thick and thin unless it has value as management. It’s the 7th or 16th Principle of interpretation in my view.

-Tim Merriman

Monterey Bay has been invaded by whales. Every few years the krill population explodes, and that means dinner’s on for a wide variety of birds, fishes, and marine mammals that gather for the feeding opportunity. The shoals of krill are 200-300 feet thick and may extend for a couple of miles in each direction. This is the stuff that baleen whales dream of.

In a good year we may see 10-12 blue whales on the central California coast. This year over 40 blues are concentrated in Monterey Bay. There are perhaps twice that number of humpback whales along with them. These whales are in serious feeding mode. They’ve been lounging in tropical waters off Central America all winter where food is relatively scarce. So they’ve hit town with an appetite, ready to make up for many months on slim rations. The blue whales alone are consuming as much as 160 tons of krill each day collectively. You can’t get that volume of food sucking up one krill at a time. The whales look for dense swarms of krill, and then they literally take bites out of the ocean, but those bites each contain tens of thousands of krill per bite. After filtering out the sea water, you’re left with a mouth full of bright red crustaceans for lunch. This strategy only works when the krill are very dense, and scientists think blue whales move from one krill swarm to the next up and down the coast.

The humpback whales have a slightly different strategy. Several whales work together, diving under a swarm of krill and pushing them up toward the surface. They may blow a bubble ring around the krill to force them more closely together. As the krill are trapped against the surface of the ocean, the humpbacks swim up through the swarm in sequence, mouths agape, scooping up hundreds of pounds of krill in each mouthful. As the first whale hits the surface it closes its mouth to trap krill and water inside. Some krill will spill out of the side of the whale’s mouth—right into the mouth of the whale coming up next to it, and so on until perhaps five or six whales have all hit the surface and gulped a big hole through the middle of the krill swarm. This “lunge feeding” can go on for hours, and not make a dent in the big shoals of krill.

I spent the afternoon parked on top of a shoal of krill with blue whales and humpbacks feeding all around. At one point I could look directly down into the red (with krill) waters below, and see the white flippers of humpbacks rising very close to our boat! But the whales are just part of the show; many other creatures come to capitalize on the abundance of food. Blue sharks and basking sharks appear to skim krill near the surface. Albatross, shearwaters and many other seabirds come from hundreds of miles away to feed on the krill and/or small fishes and squids that are drawn to the krill. In past years I’ve caught my share of salmon around the edges of these krill swarms.

These feeding frenzies are a spectacular example of nature’s abundance in a healthy ecosystem. What I find truly amazing is how these creatures of the open ocean find these concentrated feeding opportunities with so many thousands of square miles to search. As we learn more about the lives of whales and seabirds, we’re starting see how they follow sea surface temperature gradients, pressure systems and other subtle clues that may guide them to ideal conditions that concentrate food. Whales may able to communicate across miles of open ocean, so if one whale finds the groceries, it may be able to invite others to join in the meal.

We never know how long these conditions will persist and how long the whales will stick around. We’re just enjoying the scene while it lasts, and trying to learn as much as we can while we’re observing these magnificent creatures.

—Jim Covel

Tomo Hara of Japan, Rick Morales from Panama and Tim Merriman chat at the 2010 International Conference in Townsville, Australia.

More than 40 years ago my college roommate, Bernie, told me that his supervisor in the guidance counseling office at Southern Illinois University shared the secret of long relationships. It was simple – “Give 100%, expect nothing back. Don’t think you are in a 50/50 relationship with your spouse, friends, customers or anyone. You’ll begin to feel you’re giving 55? and they are only giving 45%. You turn a relationship into a contest. Then someone has to win and someone has to lose. It was a wise thought back then and one I need as a reminder every day or two.

If you care enough about thoughtful relationships to give 100% and just be surprised and pleased at anything shared back with you, you will do well with relationships. I was not surprised today to get a promotion from the Simple Truths website indicating they sell a book based on this idea as the 100/0 Principle. I know the notion is at least 40 years old, but perhaps it is thousands of years old, as old as relationships.

Interpreters meet people daily with an opportunity to create lasting relationships. The visitor or guest that seems to be with us for the day may return, tell a friend or not see us for decades. Just this past year a woman from Illinois contacted me by Facebook to ask if I am the same Tim Merriman who worked at Giant City State Park. Geri explained she is a Postmaster in a town near where I grew up. She visited the park and attended my snake program and I showed her family the behind the scenes animals during their visit. She said it made a great impression and she raised her children to be respectful of wildlife and snakes especially. I was pleased to learn more about her life, family and deep interest in nature and we continue as Facebook friends.

Our investment in others will come back in great ways if we do not expect it to be an equal exchange. We share all we can and should expect that an investment in honest, thoughtful communication will lead better places, even if we disagree at times. I am not suggesting we be doormats, just not turn relationships into contests with a winner and loser. We can and should have honest dialogues about real issues of importance.

Relationships with partners, donors, members, supporters and guests are easier if you take personal responsibility for communicating well. Honesty is important. But honesty can be a bludgeon or it can be helpful in a relationship. It depends on the kindness in the delivery. Helping a colleague perform better may require some honest advice from a friendly perspective. If it just sounds like criticism, it doesn’t work as well. It can also be opening an honest discussion rather than a heated disagreement. Either can be about the same issues, but the one with empathy is likely to help the relationship grow.

I claim no personal mastery of all of this. Every day is a challenge in finding the right words in each relationship. It is all worth the effort to do better in every circumstance. Complaints are especially an opportunity to work on relationships. The LAST method is often taught by trainers as a way of remembering the right reaction to complaints. LAST stands for Listen, Apologize, Soften and Thank.

In application it sounds something like. “Umm, OK (listen while they explain), I apologize for what happened. That would upset me as well. Let’s talk about how we might make this situation better for you. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We only get better if we know what is not working.” It’s easy to be defensive (I know, I’ve done that too often), throw someone under the bus (the blame game), or over react. Most folks just want a fair hearing and fixing a problem will often result in a better relationship, maybe a lasting one. Sometimes they know there is no real “fix.” They just want to vent and be heard to protect a future guest from whatever happened.

Relationships take honest effort on our part and listening skills. We cannot expect others to do their part. We only control ourselves. Every day we have new opportunities to create great new relationships that will enrich our lives and our organizations. It is not always easy, but it is worth the effort.

-Tim Merriman

I once heard a motivational speaker point out that the most innovative thing an older organization can do is to QUIT doing the WRONG things. That made great sense to me. Innovating with new initiatives may be fun and a future step for innovation. Stopping current waste requires no new great ideas. We just need a way to evaluate our existing activities.

Interpretive organizations have varied profit centers or programmatic activities. We may not think of them as business units, but they function that way. You can plot them on a mission-money matrix as an analytical process. If profit is the top of the vertical axis and loss at the bottom, then a positive mission orientation is on the right of a horizontal axis. The left end of the horizontal axis is unrelated to the mission of the organization.

You can write the name of your business or program activities on individual post-it notes and place them on the matrix to see visually how your overall business looks. This can be done with your staff or management team and you can discuss each item to determine if it indeed makes a profit or not. Volunteer hours are valued by the U.S. government at about $20 per hour and it’s good to use that value when assessing programs that rely on volunteer effort.

Sector I is where we place activities that make a profit and clearly are related to our mission. Those are keepers and they are somewhat hard to find. Nonprofits and governmental agencies often do mission-related activities that lose money. The profit-making sector would be doing the activity if it was easy to make a profit at it.

I used to manage a nature center that had 10,000 to 17,000 grade school children visiting each year and paying $3.50 per child for the 3 hour program. Our costs were about $30,000 a year to make $40,000 a year in fees. Interns were the field teachers and they received only free housing and a food stipend. The program made money and was mission-centric so we kept that.

Sector II is where you place activities that lose money but really support your mission. That’s why government or nonprofits exist. We take on community or public service roles that require donations or tax subsidies. These are usually keepers but you can have too many of them. Something must offset the losses such as donations, grants, government money, etc. If all of your post-its end up in Sector 2, your organization may not be sustainable. You lose a little each year and your organization is on a downward slide toward insolvency.

We held an annual Clean up the Rivers Day at the nature center and that cost us staff time, fuel for vehicles and food for volunteers. We did have some co-sponsorships from businesses but the event lost money. It was very mission-oriented, but not easy to turn into a profitable activity. However, it cleaned up the river corridors we used for programs, demonstrated to the community our commitment to resource conservation and made the river corridors more safe for all users. It was a keeper also.

Sector III is where you place activities or programs that make a profit but do not advance your mission. These can be anything from a car wash to an annual auction or gambling event. If they are profitable, we may need to keep doing them. These Sector III activities often can be pushed into Sector I by making them more mission related.

At the nature center we had a golf tournament sponsored by a radio station and local market that donated about $15,000 annually from the tournament. I had to play golf, which was not my hobby but certainly not an unpleasant day. I enjoyed it. We knew that the golfers were food and beverage vendor representatives. We discussed how to make the event more useful to the nature center. We started taking birds from our raptor center to the golf tournament finish line tent to share their stories with the golfers. This was a chance to increase event co-sponsorships and get donors or partners for other programs. An auction or a sales area that also makes money for you can be mission-related if you make the items sold match your mission and member interests.

Sector IV is where you place the activities that lose money and do not advance your mission. These wear out your volunteers and sponsors doing something that does not help your organization. A car wash, a bake sale, a candy sale and varied other activities might seem to make money at first look. After you deduct the volunteer time at $20 an hour, the event is often a loser. Quit doing it

At the nature center we had a rummage sale that involved hundreds of volunteer hours to make hundreds of dollars. It was clearly not advancing our cause and it wore out volunteers sorting old clothes and toasters. We gave it up.

It is not always easy to quit doing the wrong things. Sometimes you have a boss, board member, or influential volunteer who wants to stay in the WRONG business. You can document the costs behind doing something that does not advance your mission and present that information to that person or a decision maker who works with the budget. If they are reasonable, they will see that it is better to quit the activity than continuing to lose funds at it.

If your agency or organization does not sell things or handle money, you can plot attendance or staff time or some other key parameter on the vertical axis and compare your programs using this kind of matrix. It is just a management tool that helps you have meaningful discussions with staff and governance groups. It is really innovative to quit doing the WRONG stuff.

-Tim Merriman