> BlackRiver, did you by any chance save a
> copy of that post offline? If so, would you
> copy and paste it?
Here you go...
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Doom and Gloom, or, Where We're At
Posted By: Erik Ledbetter
Date: Wednesday, 17 December 2003, at 9:08 a.m.
I've been thinking for a few days about the "Tip of the Iceberg" thread Bob started below. Here's my take.
There is no doubt that these are tough times financially--AAM reports that for the first time ever, operating income, fundraising/endowment income, and government support were all down simultaneously for museums nationwide. But in the grander scheme of things, this is nothing new. The economy will always have business cycles; we've wethered them before and we will face them again.
What's of more interest to me are some other trends and changes that I think are fundamentally reshaping the environment in which we work. Among the major trends I see:
1. Mainline steam as we knew it from the 60s through the 80s is functionally dead, driven to extinctions by class 1 capacity limitations, insurance, and a host of other factors too numerous to mention
2. The tourist railroad industry is facing a major shakeout. Equiptment acquired in the 1960s in relatively operable shape is now thoroughly depreciated. Lines which cannot earn enough to reinvest in renewing their equipment will go to the wall. And, it's becoming harder to earn that money in the face of increasing competition for the recreational entertainment dollar.
3. Many museum operations face the same basic struggle as the tourist railroads--inability to bring in enough money to maintain their collections and physical plant in acceptable condition for the long haul.
4. We have an aging volunteer and donor base
5. NIMBYism can be a problem if allowed to take root and grow
OK, that's the doom and gloom. But any time of great change is also a time of great opportunity, and I see some advantages we now enjoy that we did not formerly:
1. With each passing decade America has grown more friendly to historic preservation. Years of advocacy by the National Trust and others have payed off. Just think how far we've come from the era of the demolition of Penn Station--every state now has a preservation office, there are preservation tax credits, TV shows on restorin gold houses rake in viewers, Civil War battle sites are preserved by trusts, and I could go on and on. We have a long way to go, but we have come a long way, too.
2. Heritage tourism is become more and more widely recognized as a vital economic and community redevelopment strategy. With this concept, we have a vocabulary that we can use to talk with politicaians, business leaders, civic planners, and other stakeholders in a language they can appreciate and understand--assuming we are smart enough to use it. We are not guys playing with trains, we are instead vital participants in the heritage-based recreation and tourism economy.
So what conclusions do I draw? Things are changing, and those changes create opportunities as well as threats. Models which were once very viable no longer work, and a new set of winners and losers will be created over the next 5-10 years.
Here are my predictions for who and what will thrive:
1. Organizations that pick one manageable, easy-to-understand mission and stick to it will do well. Good examples here are WK&S (as discussed below) and Ft. Collins (see my RyPN editorial) and WW&F. These groups have right-sized their physical plant and their collections to a size they can afford to maintain and operate in top-notch condition. They offer a quality experience at an affordable price, and the offer it consistently year-in and year-out.
2. Groups that forge alliances with local civic leaders will do well. Examples: someone noted to me me recently that WW&F officers take pains to attend every planning, zoning, and town leadership meeting in the area in which they operate. They have become known to the local powers that be, and have worked hard to assuage concerns and build alliances.
3. Groups that align themselve with larger heritage tourism/regional economic devleopment coalitions will do well. Look at what Mark Bassett is doing at Nevada Northern. Mark comes to NN from a background as a Main Street America community revitalization project manager. He speaks the lanaguage of heritage tourism and economic development, and he constantly advocates NN's historic value, but its present-day role in the economy of the community and the state it serves.
4. Groups that find creative ways to recruit and deploy human capital, especially volunteers, will do well. Gold star here to WW&F. This group has figured out a way for a small core group of local year-in and year-out volunteers to leverage periodic, intense labor contributions from a much larger national network of supporters to accomplish major capital projects in an amazingly short time. Read Wayne Laepelle's article on the WW&F tracklaying weekend if you haven't already. (Friends of Cumbres and Toltec also follows this model--maybe even pioneered it--but their larger situation is more complex. Friends of the EBT now follows it as well--but their larger situation is likewise more complex).
5. A handful of groups that have docked with major state or federal bureaucracies will be around for a long time to come. Embracing the government mothership is no panacea, it's not for everyone, and it carries its own risks, but nevertheless institutions which did not exist 30 years ago (CSRM, RRM of Pa, NCTM-Spencer) have carried off big projects and become a permanent and very welcome presence on the scene by embracing a "go big-go public" strategy. They will be leaders in our movement for some time to come.
That's the good news. Now, the bad news: here are my predicted losers in the new environment
1. Organizations which have functioned essentially as clubs with weak management and governance are not going to make it. Sooner or later, they will be eaten alive by the capital requirements of our business--sooner if the club members insist on hanging on to more stuff than they have any realistic hope of caring for. Note that I am not saying that volunteer governance doesn't work: it can work well, but only if it is backed up by a management and government structure which allows the group to function with a coherent mission, plan, and budget, and maintains accountability for results.
2. The NRHS chapter-mainline steam excusion plus montly meeting in the basement wing of our movement will soon be functionally extinct--gone, or evolved into something else.
3. The have-big-engine/will travel wing of our movement is going to be extinct, or winnowed to a handful of hyper-professional operations. A good example of who will survive is MSTRP/PM1223, which is fast morphing into a educational institution conducting outreach activities year-round out of a fixed base of operations, as opposed to a barnstorming locomotive operating group.
4. Any group that fails to actively recruit volunteers or new members, that makes it hard to join the in-group, that does not find ways to make use of a range of levels of skill levels and time availablity, or that tolerates hazing of the newbies (even mild) is on the road to extinction.
So, is your group a long-term survivor? If so, what positive trends are you relying on, and what are you doing to capitalize on them? How do you recruit and make use of new members? How are your relationships with civic and chamber of commerce and political and other leaders? Do you have a strategic plan? A collections plan that matches it? What are you doing that will ensure that you thrive? Tell us!
BlackRiver@nowhere.com
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