NAI Blog » Budgets and Fundraising

16Sep

Where to Place Your Interpretive Gift Shop?

Back in April of 2010 I wrote in this blog about Post Marketing Icons (PMIs), Polar Bears and Post Marketing Junk. If asked why you should have a gift shop at an interpretive site, I might answer several different ways. If you are going to sell junk, do not bother with a shop. It damages your credibility. If you are going to sell PMIs, then a great gift shop is a need. PMIs include all those kinds of memorabilia that recall the rich experience at your interpretive site. Souvenirs remind people of wonderful places and events. Some resources extend the experience, such as books, videos, and other resources about your site and content areas.

About 25 years ago I was taught a valued lesson about gift shop placement and visitor flow. I was Executive Director of a nature center and we put on a temporary Dinamation exhibit, using animatronic dinosaurs. That company went out of business in 2001, but many museums, zoos and nature centers used their exhibit as a fundraising program in the 80s and 90s. Tens of thousands of people would pay to go through the exhibit in a month. We rented a Colorado State Fairgrounds exhibit building and built temporary walls to guide people through the exhibit. We placed the gift shop off to one side at the exit so people could choose to go through it on their way out of the building.

Dinamation employed a former Neiman Marcus marketing and sales specialist to advise their clients on creation of a temporary museum store. She gave us good advice we ignored about making exhibit visitors exit through the store. She advised us to visit a working Dinamation exhibit before opening ours and we did do that. In Amarillo, Texas, we went through an exhibit before ours was completed and they admitted they changed the routing to go through the store with no other options to exit the building. We asked why.

They explained exactly what the sales specialist had already told us. Museums at that time had found that average sales per visitor were about $1.50. If 10,000 people go through the store you would sell $15,000 in merchandise and with 100,000 going through the store, you would sell about $150,000 in merchandise. If your profit margin was 20%, then you would earn a $30,000 profit on the $150,000 sales volume and only $3,000 on the smaller sales volume. We changed the traffic flow in the exhibit before it opened so that all would pass through the gift store before exiting. Our store sold dinosaur related dinosaur memorabilia only. Expert advice at the time indicated that only one in ten go through the gift store if it is off to the side, even if very visible. We had excellent attendance at the exhibit and sales volumes matched the average sales amount of $1.50 almost exactly.

If your gift store items are truly a part of the total experience, you should feel good about directing people through the store. Your customers spend money at shopping malls, car races, circuses, fairs and other events. If we believe in the value of the experience we create, we can reasonably encourage their purchases of appropriate memorabilia and educational items. Placement matters and yet we still see new facilities that open that do not place the gift store in the exit pathway. These days average sales are considerably higher at about $3.42 per visitor at art museums and slightly higher or lower at similar interpretive sites. The difference in profits can be considerable if you choose to give the visitor a chance to avoid your gift store.

One problem with gift stores is that management of them can be very separated from visitor experience design. The buyer may be buying items to resell that do not support the total experience. It is important to have the interpretive staff and store management working together to see that gift store sales are thematically linked to the entire experience. It is never too late to go back and improve the store and even remodel to move how people flow through it. It can be very profitable to make it all work together in a thoughtful holistic experience.

-Tim Merriman

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16Aug

Inspiration In Small Packages

Several years ago I was interviewing a prospective docent and this gentleman asked me, “What gives you hope?” I was taken aback for a minute. Then I replied that the words and actions of the young people I see every day are an important source of inspiration. Today was another reminder of that phenomenon.

In today’s mail we received a check for $136 from an 8-year-old girl. The attached letter explained how much she loved octopus, and she wanted to do something to help them. She asked for money in lieu of gifts for her 8^th birthday, and received $136 from friends and relatives. This young lady loved to visit our Pacific giant octopus exhibit and she wanted to donate her birthday money to the aquarium to help octopus. I’m looking forward to writing this thank-you letter!

Through the years we have received similar donations from children, I’ve seen kids organize beach cleanups, build websites about conservation, organize conservation education activities at their schools and many more efforts to make a difference. One of our current teen volunteers started blogging about marine conservation when she was 9, and has been organizing monthly beach cleanups since she was 12. I have no doubt this young lady will be a force for conservation in a big way as an adult.

In our interpretive training we always caution adults about the ecophobia phenomenon, and how we need to avoid scaring younger children with doom and gloom conservation messages. It’s a double whammy—children can build up serious anxiety about their future survival in a deteriorating world, and at the same time they don’t have much power as a child to change things. So we focus on inspiring these young audiences and helping them build a fun and positive relationship with nature. There’s plenty of time as they grow up to learn about all the threats and issues with the natural world.

While most interpreters are clear on the importance of inspiring our audiences, I would also bet that many of us have been surprised at how much our audiences inspire us—and that’s particularly true of our young audiences. I bet I’m not the only interpreter that has kept a file of some favorite thank-you letters from school groups through the years. That file of thank-you letters is next to my budget file, so on those days when I’m mired in budgets all day I see those letters and remember why the budget and administrative tasks are so important—they keep us in the inspiration business for the benefit of those kids.

So that inspiration that’s so basic to what we interpreters do really flows both ways, but you have to be open to it. Look for the opportunities to find inspiration in your audiences. Let people tell you their stories. Build long-term relationships with audience members so they can send you notes, photos, letters to tell you what they’re doing. You’ll wind up with some fans, some pen pals and a cadre of people that can reflect back the value of what you do as an interpreter. You can’t ever hear that often enough, and it means a lot when it comes from those children that have a whole lifetime to put your inspiration to use.

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19Apr

Parks as Political Pawns

Like many of you, I was following the headlines recently about the threatened shutdown of the federal government. No matter what news service or television station I was paying attention to, I noticed one very consistent feature—they all mentioned the closure of national parks and historic sites prominently in the story “Looming government shutdown would close national parks, museums.” It was a good illustration of the way our parks are viewed by the public as one of the most treasured public goods our government provides—and treated by some politicians as important leverage on public opinion.

The same thing is going on currently in California. The state budget is experiencing a serious shortfall and the governor and legislature are battling over taxes and budget cuts. The governor has directed the state parks to develop a list of facilities that may be closed under various levels of budget reduction. However, the governor is trying to pressure the legislature to approve a special election regarding proposed tax increases. So the park closure list is not being released—keeping the public guessing about closures and building pressure on legislators to resolve budget issues. I expect parks, museums, historic sites and others are being used in similar ways as political pawns in many states across the country.

This takes a tremendous toll on the morale and dedication of the talented staff members that work in these sites—including interpreters. It has always been difficult to plan programs and facilities if you don’t know what level of resources you may have allocated to support that effort. Now we have to figure out what to do with programs and facilities if the front gate is closed and there are no visitors or staff to serve them. Living in limbo, as many interpreters are these days, is no way to effectively serve the public that supports us.

At the same time, the Hatch Act and other legislation or policy, restricts many employees from talking about these political situations with their audiences. That’s why I feel it’s essential for publically funded parks, museums, historic sites and interpretive centers to organize auxiliary groups or friend’s groups. These non-profit partners have long been used to generate revenue for program support by operating gift shops, selling firewood or through other operations. However, there may be an even more valuable role for these groups in functioning as political advocates for our parks and programs. An excellent example is the California State Parks Foundation that is aggressively working to advocate for support of the state park system and generate political and economic support. You might want to look at their “/Call for Excellence in California’s State Parks” and the accompanying action plan: http://www.calparks.org/ .

In this era of budget battles, we should take heart that our heritage sites, and the interpretive programs that connect audiences to these sites, are highly regarded by the public. Closing these sites is one of the largest threats that politicians can wield in leveraging political support. However, when that support is gained, it is often directed toward other causes and our parks and programs continue to struggle. As interpreters, it may no longer be enough to provide great programs for our audiences. We need to also focus on developing the advocacy skills of our volunteers and cooperating associations to keep the pressure on legislators and policy-makers to follow through with their pledges to support our places, people and programs. Many statewide industry associations and non-profits (perhaps even your state’s park and recreation association) sponsor legislative advocacy days in each state. You might want to sign on to participate in one of these events to gain some first-hand experience in approaching legislators to advocate for a particular cause. That may be important training in developing strategies and partnerships to advocate for interpretive programs.

—Jim Covel

Permalink Filed under: Budgets and Fundraising, From the President, Management 2 Comments
01Apr

Malawi Revisited – Mary’s Story

Ms. Mary Banda giving her HIV+ testimony a day after being introduced to ARTs at NKhwazi Primary school in Mchinji District.

In 2007 at the International Conference in Canada, we learned about the amazing interpretive programs at Museums of Malawi by Michael Gondwe and Aaron Maluwa. I wrote about them in this blog in 2009 when we visited the program during a personal vacation. Many NAI members have contributed monthly or on occasion to support their work in building understanding in rural Malawi of HIV and malaria. Nothing we say about it tells the story as well as this report about Ms. Mary Banda written by Aaron Maluwa.

PERSONAL STORY OF MS. MARY BANDA OF KAMWENDO VILLAGE IN MCHINJI DISTRICT

Ms.Mary Banda comes from Kamwendo Village in Mchinji District in Central Malawi. She is 29 and has five children. She lost her husband three years ago and she never established what caused his death. All she saw was that he was suffering from multiple diseases. She is a farmer in the central region District of Mchinji. Her village is about 588km from Blantyre where the Museums of Malawi operates from.

She had some knowledge about HIV/AIDS through health workers of Kamwendo Health Center where she was attending ante-natal and post natal services for her last born girl who is now five years old. Women were encouraged to be tested but she never dared because of fear, stigma and discrimination and mainly because she thought it was an issue mainly for prostitutes, not her. Even when her husband died, she never related his death to HIV/AIDS for it was treated as a natural death, though he was just 35.

On 12^th July 2009, she left very early to fetch firewood. Just after walking about 900m, she heard a screaming crying sound of a baby in a big pit where the owner of the house nearby had dug to mould bricks for his house. The place is within Kamwendo, a small town also known as Trading Center in our language. She stopped and came very close and found a one day old baby crying her lungs out. The baby was well covered in a piece of cloth, but the baby was very cold as July is a winter month.

She immediately picked the baby up and woke up the owner of the nearby house to ask including everyone around but no body claimed ownership of the baby. She first thought of sending the baby to the Village of Hope Orphan Care Center where Madonna adopted David Banda but it was to far to walk as she had no transport money. She returned home and never proceeded to the bush for firewood collection as the trip was now transformed with the baby issue.

She took the baby to the chief in her village and the chief told her to go to police which she did. Mary willingly asked the police if she could look after the baby and she was given permission. She was assured that once the mother is found, she will be informed. Alas, to date there is no one coming forth and the baby is 2 years old and she is a very healthy.

Now the dilemma was, she had 5 children already but no father and no job to help her find all the facilities but God gave her the youngest who needed even milk to begin with. She registered the baby for post natal care and gave her story to the health workers. They started giving her the BABY FORMULA since she could not breast feed her, hence the baby has good health. Mind you, she has 6 children now in total.

One day she was looking at the mirror and she observed that her health was dwindling but she talked to nobody. She became a victim of several ailments but thought that was normal. Then she heard Chief Kamwendo announcing that there will be visitors from the Museums of Malawi in Blantyre with HIV/AIDS programs for students in the morning and adults in the afternoon at Kamwendo Model School. And there will be some traditional dances and film screening on HIV/AIDS messages. She heard the same message from her children who got it from the Head teacher of Kamwendo Model school where 4 of her children are learning. She thought she would GO JUST TO WATCH THE FILMS ON HIV/AIDS and know more about this.

After attending the program, she says her life changed completely. She now knew ways HIV/Aids was transmitted and that AIDS is not for prostitutes alone. Everyone is at risk as long as there is an exchange of blood, mainly through unprotected sex. She realized it was possible that her husband died of AIDS after looking at the signs of an AIDS patient and the presentations by the Museum officials. She realized that she too might be infected and decided to be tested for her HIV status right away.

She was indeed tested and tested HIV Positive and her condition was at an advanced stage. She was referred to Mchinji District Hospital the following day and she was recommended to start the treatment the same day with full counseling by both the Museum and the Hospital Counselors.

The first thing she says was acceptance that HIV is in her blood and is with her for life. She treated this as her first success in her life. She asked the Museum team if she could be allowed to give her testimony during the program at Nkhwazi school, which she did with all her energies. Some of us were dropping tears because her situation was or is too grave to consider. On a third day, she followed the Museum team at Nkhwazi school where we had another program. She told us her story from the hospital and we encouraged her that being HIV+ is not or never the end of life, but the beginning of another one.

She really thanks the Museum of Malawi very for the life saving program according to her words yesterday on a phone call. She conveys her unfathomable amount of appreciation to NAI for the support that made the program possible. Because she now knew, she has been registered with several Community Based Organizations that are also helping her with some food supplements and some care for the baby. The Museum team also helped her with some money and bought some clothes for the baby and other children which she appreciated very much. To the Museum of Malawi and NAI, we say, we have done our part and God bless her and many more others.

The Museum is really grateful to NAI for the financial support, otherwise Mary Banda would have been in the dark and many not be alive by now. THANK YOU NAI.

- Aaron Maluwa

———-

We send about $300 monthly to the Museums in support of this work, all donations from NAI members. In January they provided programs for 23,000 people in rural areas. A little money goes a very long way in this east African nation of 12 million people. If you wish to learn more about Museums of Malawi click here and if you wish to donate click here.

- Tim Merriman

Permalink Filed under: Budgets and Fundraising, Communication, Cultural Interpretation, From the Executive Director, NAI blog Tags: AIDS, HIV, malaria, Malawi, museums of malawi 1 Comment
22Mar

Enos Mills Helps NAI in a Pinch

NAI finances may not be the most exciting subject, but it’s a topic to which the Board devotes a significant amount of time. Like most enterprises, paying attention to cash flow and overall assets and liabilities is the key to staying in business. Our Treasurer and Audit Committee work with the staff to track business transactions in detail, we have a monthly financial update with the Executive Committee, and the Board takes a close look at financial indicators at each Board meeting.

Through the years, one challenge has surfaced regularly—the irregularity of cash flow over the course of the year. During the late summer and fall NAI brings tends to have a positive cash flow as membership renewals pick up and registration for the fall workshop starts coming in. During the winter and spring our expenditures exceed the inflow of cash. It all comes in at or below budget over the course of the year, but it’s those times with negative cash flow that we would like to eliminate. This is a typical pattern with many retail businesses—you operate in the red for much of the year, and make most of your income in the last couple months of the year with holiday sales. Most businesses operate on a line of credit during those lean months, and pay it back when the dollars roll in at the end of the year. NAI has functioned in a similar manner—operating off a line of credit during the lean months, and paying it down in the fall.

Just as many businesses, and many of us as individuals, have been trying to reduce our reliance on credit, NAI has been trying to do the same thing. The Board had a very simple, yet creative solution to this challenge a couple of years ago: Let’s create a special fund that would be designated to cover those months when we operate in the red. In essence, we would have an internal pool of funds that we would borrow from rather than borrow on our line of credit. We would pay back the funds we borrowed from ourselves when cash flow turned positive, just as we would pay back our line of credit from the bank. It’s a great idea, but where do we get the money?

That’s where the Enos Mills Trailblazers come in. The Board set up this special opportunity, with an initial target of 200 donors, to establish the revolving fund that keeps NAI operating during the lean months each year. I’m happy to report that this concept is, indeed, working as planned. About half the Trailblazer donations have come in, and that has reduced our borrowing by about half. The Enos Mills Fund is helping NAI each year during those financial pinch points. At this rate, we may be able to eliminate borrowing overall in the next couple of years as the rest of the Trailblazer donor slots are filled.

I want to thank all of you that have donated to the Enos Mills Fund, or to our Legacy Trust Fund (that has invested in purchasing our main office building in Ft. Collins). These special funds, along with enterprise activities (i.e. book sales, workshop income and certification course fees) that generate revenue, help augment membership revenue to make up the total cost of operating NAI. The way I look at it is when I can find a few dollars to donate to the Enos Mills Fund, that helps keep membership rates lower for interpreters that may already be stretching their budget to cover their membership dues.

Just like NAI, you may find there are lean times during your financial year, and some times when your cash flow is a little more to the positive. March and April may be one of those positive times if you’re fortunate enough to get some of your income tax back as a tax refund. If that is the case, I’d encourage you to consider reducing your personal debt with some of that “gift from the government” and also to consider helping NAI to reduce our reliance on credit with a donation to the Enos Mills Fund. You can donate any amount, and all donations cumulate toward higher levels. You can also spread out payments if you want to secure one of those 200 Trailblazer spots sooner rather than later. And if you’re one of those folks that is stretching their budget to the max already (and we’ve all been there at some point in our lives) we appreciate you maintaining your membership in NAI and we’ll always work to keep those membership dues as reasonable as possible.

Permalink Filed under: Budgets and Fundraising, NAI Administration 1 Comment
11Feb

Safety Interpretation – An Opportunity

Young black bear, photo by Mickael Brangeon.

I just flew back from a meeting in Washington, D.C. that included a discussion of “safety interpretation.” On the flight home the flight attendant repeated the required safety messages about seatbelts, oxygen masks, flotation devices and exits. Their video was not working for some reason. I always hope the plane is being maintained at a standard well above that of the video equipment. But the video is easy to ignore in any case. The presentation by flight attendants was predictably dull. I have seen the presentation hundreds of times and few were memorable. No airline presentation on safety I have seen used interpretive approaches. They are meeting the letter of FAA law by doing the talk, but very little effort goes into making it interesting or important.

I have seen programs on personal flotation devices (life jackets) that were engaging and interpretive. Some rafting companies do a great job of interpreting the importance of safety and caution on a whitewater river. They see the results of people not listening or understanding instructions pretty quickly on class 4 or 5 whitewater. A fall from a raft can be deadly, so good safety messaging is vital.

The Bear Aware program at Yosemite National Park is another good example of safety interpretation working with resource management in a very effective manner. They have reduced property damage substantially and reduced the need to put down problem bears dramatically through a variety of good interpretive strategies. When you have to walk into a crowded campground to remove a problem bear physically and then destroy it, it is a losing proposition all the way around. The need at Yosemite was evident and they made changes that have been effective.

Sometimes the opportunity to do safety interpretation is overlooked. When I worked at Land Between the Lakes in the early 1990′s, our Operations Manager mentioned that there could be two million additional dollars available for interpretation and education. How could that be? He explained that the emergency fund ran about two million each year paying for overtime for firefighters, dive teams searching for people who drowned and helicopter overflights when someone was lost. He asked if interpretive programming could reduce those expenses? I believe the answer is YES, but could not say that I saw that focus in our programming.

We teach Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in interpretation and safety and security are low on the pyramid, just above food, water and shelter. Safety is important to all of us, but safety education is often perfunctory. Powerful safety interpretation is not common and usually happens when the need is critical.

If I had to defend the budget for the interpretive program at a lake, forest, natural area, recreation area or other site with potential danger, I would like to be able to say, “We reduced accidental drownings by three a year, fires by 500 acres a year and emergency expenses by $750,000.” Saving lives is a compelling argument for keeping effective safety programming. Often we are in competition for funds that get split between maintenance, law enforcement, research and interpretation. Superintendents, directors or operations managers make the decisions so our budget defense needs to be about things they care about and safety is very high on the priority list.

I am not suggesting we give up nature awareness, cultural programming and become safety interpretation experts. Safety messages could be an important part of the program mix that ties into specific safety objectives at the agency or site. Interpreters and interpretive managers in some organizations are excluded from management meetings where these issues are discussed. That still does not limit our abilities to ask questions, read management documents and plan our programming to help achieve management and safety objectives. And if all else fails, buy doughnuts and show up at the management meeting. They rarely throw out the person who buys doughnuts.

-Tim Merriman

Permalink Filed under: Budgets and Fundraising, Communication, Cultural Interpretation, From the Executive Director, Management, NAI blog, Nature Interpretation 1 Comment
31Dec

NAI Membership Structure is Changing

Word cloud by WORDLE.NET.

Change is in the future for NAI with our desire to operate more sustainably, while keeping the cost of memberships affordable and easy to maintain. NAI has ended 2010 with about 4,854 members, up from 4331 a year ago. Membership is still lower than the 5,331 at the time of the 2008 National Workshop in Portland, Oregon. We are rising out of the membership slump, likely caused by the economic downturn.

At a time when everything costs more, we have continued to look at how to save money and operate in a more “green” way. The costs of printing and postage have been two rapidly growing expense areas. Digital delivery has created options that also save on expenditure of fuel and forest products for hard copy distribution. These dramatically affect how membership structure will change in March.

A new association management software package for NAI is a key piece of this. We begin installing it in January and it is expected to be fully functional by March. The new pricing structure will not apply until the software is up and running. This software will offer members easy access to information, ability to update your contact information and the ability to pay for membership on a quarterly, monthly or annual basis, as you prefer.

The new simplified membership will be revealed on January 5 in NAINOW, our biweekly publication that goes to all members. I can give you some insights into the changes. Regular membership is going to cost $69. You will receive Legacy Magazine, Journal of Interpretation Research (digital), NAINOW, NAIJOBS, discounts for all workshops and training, and you may choose to belong to as many regions, sections and chapters as you wish to select for the one price. Seniors will pay $49 annually and students pay only $25.

The biggest changes apply to institutional and commercial memberships. If you buy an institutional membership for your site, you will receive an individual membership as the contact person for $125 annually. You can add as many staff members as you wish who work at the same address for $50 per year additional and each will receive full member benefits, including the right to go through certification with member discounts.

Commercial membership is similar but the cost is $150 for the membership, which also includes one individual membership for the contact person. Additional staff can be added as individual members for $50 each if working at the same address. All receive full member benefits as well. The commercial business receives a free listing in the Green Pages on NAI’s website and in the annual printed version as well as discounts on all other advertising.

Member services cost NAI about $780,000 a year to deliver and membership dues income is about $300,000 annually. The additional funds that support NAI services come from training, speaking engagements, book sales, donations, workshop profits and certification.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, but not a member, we welcome you to join us. The NAI International Conference is approaching soon from May 4 to 7, 2011, at Gamboa Rainforest Resort in Panama. We hope to see many of you there for a great program and a very interesting visit with Panama’s endemic cultures and unique rainforest.

All the best to all of you in the New Year.

- Tim Merriman

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10Dec

Holiday Events and Interpretive Opportunities

Trick-or-treaters at a Halloween event called "Treatsylvania" at a city park in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Happy Thanksgiving – a couple of weeks later! It is an American holiday that reminds us of the good people and circumstances in our lives, especially if we face tough times. In the United States this fourth Thursday of every year holiday also marks the beginning of a month long season of commercialism with shopping promotions. Holidays mean different things to each of us but usually they are important in our lives in some way. They are traditions, usually valued traditions.

Thirty years ago I was a nature center director in Pueblo, Colorado. The center was a year old and suddenly lost all of its federal funding from revenue sharing, the only financial support for the new facility. Special events seemed one of several ways to bring in funds to support staff and through the years it proved to be very reliable producers of revenue. Holidays offer a great opportunity for special event development. Some of our most successful events through the years turned the nature center into the “place to be” on holidays.

On Fourth of July we created a raft race for boats made of recycled materials to emphasize the growing industry of reuse and recycling. I expected ten or fifteen entries and had more than thirty the first year. About 3,000 people showed up to watch these interesting races on the Arkansas River. We gave out trophies and cash prizes. Most winners donated back the cash prizes. The local NBC Television affiliate aired a one hour special after each year’s event, which was great publicity. By year five we had more than 100 boat entries with everything under the sun being recycled into a boat. Teams of two to five people raced in heats with a grand runoff of the winners from each division. I saw a Cessna aircraft body, casket liner (concrete), car bodies and every imaginable approach to taping styrofoam waste from boxes together. The rule was that the boat body had to have a previous or other use that was not related to water transportation. Local dive teams kept watch along the 3.5 mile course for safety and we had no serious accidents in the thirteen years I worked there. By year five we had as many as 10,000 people attending the event with 3,000 plus at a dance in the evening. The race event was free but profit from concessions and dance entry was $20,000 or more each year. Radio, TV, newspaper, bank and beverage sponsors gave us sponsorship funds at the beginning of each year to be allowed to be partners in the event. Despite this holiday noted for fireworks, they were a minor annoyance at our Fourth of July event.

We had heard of a Halloween Trail at Fontanelle Forest in Nebraska, so we tried our own. We wanted it to be an interpretive event so we created two trails through the Arkansas River bottoms. One was the Spooky trail for young children and the other was Superspooky for everyone else. The spooky trail had a Kachina dancer, Merlin the magician with a living owl, Johnny Appleseed with a live goat and other characters from fairy tales. The Superspooky included many of the traditional Halloween characters from literature, including the Wolfman and Frankenstein. Part of the charm of the event included 300 real JackOLanterns with votive candles inside. Girl scouts carved these a week in advance of the event. I expected 500 people at our first annual event and had 5,000. The next year we expanded to two nights and finally to four nights before Halloween. We had 13,600 people our best year and each paid $1.25 to go on the trail. It was a great fundraiser and brought many parents and children out to the center that would later return for nature day camp or other programming.

Not every holiday event we tried was successful. We also held a 12-day Christmas Trail event with living Christmas scenes from four different cultural communities in Pueblo. Pueblo was settled by people from many different nations due to the steel mills providing good paying jobs. This, like other events, took dozens of volunteers and people enjoyed participating. We hoped to tell the varied stories of Christmas that families celebrated in the community. It turned 10 below zero the first day of the event and stayed that way for all twelve days. It made no money, but was an interesting idea and might have worked in a building at the state fairgrounds nearby, a thought we did not consider at the time.

We also tried an Easter Egg Trail and it was successful but cold and snowy weather is so common in April in Colorado that we abandoned this one after several years. Thousands showed up for the event, but children in nice Easter clothes trying to find hidden eggs and prizes in a snowstorm turned out not to be great fun.

Nonprofit nature centers, zoos, museums, aquariums and historic sites can become an important part of the holiday season’s activities with the right special event. If you make it interpretive in some manner it matches your mission and helps people connect with your place and mission. They will come back for other activities and memberships can be sold at these events. Members should get a discount on entry.

I admire all of you who do these kinds of events today. I know how much work it is. I asked a senior citizen couple who came to our Halloween Spook Trail each year why they returned. “We love seeing all the JackOLanterns in the darkened woods and hearing the delighted laughter of children.” Holidays are a chance to enjoy our families and special places. I hope your HOLIDAY season this year is very special with you and your family.

-Tim Merriman

Permalink Filed under: Budgets and Fundraising, Cultural Interpretation, From the Executive Director, Management, NAI blog, Nature Interpretation Tags: Halloween Spook Trail, holiday, traditions 2 Comments
24Sep

NAI Accounting and Accountability

I know this may not be the most interesting blog posting I have made or will make, but it may be one of the more important ones. It is always good to let members, partners and interested parties know that our reputation as managers of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit are taken seriously. It matters to the IRS and it matters to us. And this reorganization plan includes change that will bring NAI into greater compliance with industry and IRS standards.

Reorganization and change are upsetting to some and encouraging to others. Some changes we face are mandated and encouraged by the growing requirements of accountability. Remember the collapse of Enron in 2001, one of the fasting growing corporations in the world. The managers who deceived regulators and misled investors have gone to jail or even died, possibly from the stress brought on by investigations. Post-Enron has become a statement in the business world about increasing accountability. The Enron debacle brought down the corporation, damaged the reputation of their consulting accountants and destroyed the investments of their employees who had bought corporate stock in the belief they were building their own future nest eggs.

NAI and other 501(c)(3) organizations are working in a continually tightening environment of accountability and that is not bad. We operate with the trust of members and in the public trust that all nonprofits enjoy, doing good in exchange for not paying taxes. Members rarely ask but we like to explain how we respond to the scrutiny that goes with nonprofit management.

I was hired in 1995 and soon discovered we had no external audit process so I requested Board approval and sought bids. We have had an audit each year since and the reports are posted on our website. External auditors are clear with staff that their report is for the Board of Directors but about our management. Each year they write a “Management Letter” along with the audited report that identifies areas in which we could be doing better. We take the letter very seriously and make corrections quickly in response.

Post-Enron, as they say, has led to a new wave of tighter controls every single year since 2001. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) are the standards in the professional accounting community that suggest how our accounting procedures and accountability should improve and change each year.

During our first audit in 1996, the auditors explained that we could not reasonably have the 25 to 30 private bank accounts held by regions and sections all over the U.S. without paying an extraordinary fee for having the auditors visit each and every city where those accounts were held. According to the auditors, those accounts were out of our span of control as the organization’s business center. The Internal Revenue Service views NAI as one entity, not as a group of affiliates (regions, sections, and chapters). They know we have affiliates but only our national business center is accountable for the practices of all affiliates. Each year the standards are more rigorous.

In 2003, the IRS audited NAI. That was uncommon before the Enron collapse – small nonprofits (and we are small by IRS standards) were not often audited prior to that event. Our auditor was hired to represent us in conversations with the IRS. They speak the same language and that helped. We owed no funds at the end of the process but learned that our scholarship practices and other business practices of affiliates were not tight enough. Our procedures and record keeping among our affiliates (regions, sections, and chapters) varied from diverse to non-existent. We had to get better and have worked steadily on that.

During each IRS Form 990 preparation by external auditors we answer four pages of detailed questions about our nonprofit practices. This has increased from having to answer just a very few general questions just two or three years ago. The IRS is now very interested in specifics about how we achieve the NAI mission.

Many elements of change being discussed by the Reorganization Task Force will bring NAI into complete compliance with IRS and GAAP standards and that is good. Our accountability and credibility as an organization is protected only if we continue to change and comply with tightening standards. Current practices of accountability include:

• Monthly reports of finances to the Board of Directors, available to all members

• Monthly staff report on interpnet.com, available to all members

• Quarterly review of all checks written, accounts receivable aging, balance sheet, and profit/loss statement by the Internal Audit Committee under supervision of the NAI Treasurer

• Annual external audit by a professional CPA firm, currently Brock and Co.

• Annual submission and public posting of IRS990 and 990-T forms (the latter reports on income from unrelated business income such as office rentals and ads in magazines – those by law are unrelated to our purpose no matter who rents or the content of the ads – tax case law identifies these)

• Accounting is done in-house by Beth Bartholomew, CPA, with segregation of handling of income by Jamie King and Carrie Koch Miller. Quickbooks Pro Enhanced Nonprofit software is used on a PC for tracking all data.

• Minutes of all corporate meetings at the national level posted on website along with all 990s, 990-Ts, audits and annual reports

• Annual Report delivered at National Workshop in November with summary of data for previous year

• All meetings of the Board of Directors are open and members or guests are welcome to attend

We believe in transparency and accountability in all we do. I really like that because my explanations of our changing financial picture are backed by internal auditors, our treasurer, and external auditors. We would always rather answer specific questions about how we manage NAI funds and accounts than have members wonder if it is well handled or assume it is not. Call or write us any time you have a question or concern. We like to give clear, direct answers.

- Tim Merriman

Permalink Filed under: Budgets and Fundraising, Communication, From the Executive Director, Management, NAI Administration, NAI blog 5 Comments
17Sep

Change at NAI

I know some of our regular blog readers are not NAI members and that is fine. We enjoy having conversations with all who are interested in natural and cultural heritage interpretation. This post is about NAI business specifically so please read on as you wish or come back to our blog on another day. On occasion we must use this forum to discuss important changes at NAI.

In 2010, following an all-day planning session by the board of directors, NAI President Jim Covel charged the NAI Reorganization Task Force (RTF) with the challenging task of studying what works and what does not work at NAI in support of members and the profession. This was not a sudden move, but the result of several years of discussion on the part of the board, staff, region/section leadership, and input from member surveys. A part of the charge for the task force is suggesting change that will make the organization more agile and responsive to members and the changing marketplace for the profession. The RTF includes Vice President for Administration Amy Lethbridge, Regional Leadership Council Chair/Region 7 Director Linda Strand and Section Leadership Council Chair/Nature Center Directors and Administrators Director Travis Williams. NAI Associate Director Lisa Brochu has assisted as liaison with the NAI staff through the process and I have been a participant at many of the meetings.

The RTF members started with reviewing data gathered from previous surveys conducted by email and in region/section meetings at last year’s national workshop, as well as the collective thoughts of the board during the planning session. They continued to collect ideas and comments through surveys and direct conversations by conference call with focus groups of members that really allowed in-depth discussions and listening. The conversations about the current organization’s strengths and weaknesses identified the need to make some positive changes, both for the support of members and the profession and for support of the organization from a business standpoint to keep in compliance with recent rulings of the IRS and Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).

The first need is a Bylaws change that radically streamlines this important document. NAI’s bylaws were written in 1988 when the Association of Interpretive Naturalists (AIN) and Western Interpreters Association (WIA) merged and many procedures were put in then and have since been added that sometimes hamper thoughtful and responsive change in NAI. Over time, some regions and sections have created local policies that are sometimes in conflict with the bylaws or operate business activities that may not be in compliance with IRS or GAAP. For these reasons, our professional staff supports the Bylaws simplification and the related changes being proposed by the Task Force. The changes make sense and have been developed along guidelines of the Colorado Nonprofit Association’s Principles and Practices for Nonprofit Excellence in Colorado.

The NAI Board of Directors and professional staff work as a team to achieve strategic goals and measured objectives. At each step of the way in this reorganization study, the RTF has checked in with staff, heard our ideas, and invited our comments on what is under consideration to ensure that all financial and legal implications have been considered and filtered through IRS and GAAP requirements. This has been the most positive collaboration I have seen in my fifteen years as Executive Director of NAI.

As an organization, we must change and adapt to the changing marketplace or slowly fade away. This is a great opportunity to grow stronger and more capable of meeting the needs of the profession in this second decade of the new millennium.

NAI members will soon receive a special edition of NAINOW that explains the Reorganization proposal in great detail. A Bylaws vote will follow shortly and we hope that members will vote YES to approve the streamlined bylaws. You should also feel free to call or email the task force members or executive staff and express opinions and ask questions. We look forward to the conversations.

Change is never easy but it is vitally important.

-Tim Merriman

Amy Lethbridge – lethbridgeathome@aol.com – 310-858-7272

Travis Williams – travis@outdoordiscovery.org – 616-393-9453

Linda Strand – vortexarts@comcast.net – 303-745-2026

Tim Merriman – tmerriman@interpnet.com – 888-900-8283

Lisa Brochu – lbrochu@interpnet.com – 888-900-8283

Permalink Filed under: Budgets and Fundraising, Communication, From the Executive Director, Leadership, Management, NAI Administration, NAI blog Tags: Links, reorganization 10 Comments

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