Guys,

I'm not asking about being graded on this situation. Again I'm asking how for fund raising idea's. I now asking the moderators to lock the thread before this turns out to be the usual beat the horse until it dies 5 times.

Best Regards,

Steven M Harvey

We''re trying to help you by diverting your definition of your problem as one of borrowing a miraculous funding strategy out of thin air into other definitions which MIGHT actually stand a chance of helping you buy time to create a real workable plan for funding a move. You can't always get what you want, but you might get something else that could be useful....especially if what you want doesn't exist.

Climb out of the box.

dave

If any of us knew how to raise about $24k a month for a non-profit railroad or railway museum, I think we'd have a consultant company doing just that. In fact, I cannot think of a single successful example of this sort of massive, short term fundraising in the recent past (10-15 years) in railway preservation. I'm not saying you can't do it, or that it cannot be done at all, but you have a tough row to hoe.



Mr. Lathrop is right, we are trying to help you focus your idea and look at potential alternatives.

To be honest, you are looking probably for a big-money donor, whether an individual or an institution. The Monopoly Man isn't going to show up in his little car and drop off large cloth bags with dollar signs on them, filled with money. Any institutional (foundation) donor, and probably 99% of big money individual donors are going to ask questions like:

1. What is your business plan?
2. What fundraising success have you had in the past?
3. What's your track record of getting results?
4. How have you raised money in the past?
5. Can I see your IRS Form 990 for the past couple of years?
6. What is your budget?
7. Five year plan? Ten year plan?

If you cannot answer these questions, then you need to think seriously about your endeavor and its long-term chance of survival.

You ask, on this board, for the secret to the golden egg, and then you get frustrated when we tell you that the golden egg does not exist, but there are other potential viable options, at least in the short term to avert some sort of crisis that may occur if the 1352 isn't moved by 12/31/13.

Railway preservation is a tough "business" as we depend almost entirely on other people's money, while many of us put in sweat equity. As the economy has changed the past five years, some of us are only now starting to wake up to the fact that money doesn't grow on trees, and we are in competition with other museums and non-profits for money. The more you can do to make your organization look and act professional, the better chance you will have of getting any donations, courting foundations, corporate sponsors and the like. Failure to understand and comprehend these essential truths will ultimately lead to the failure of some of our organizations.

If you do not want to take our advice, fine. I do wish you luck in your endeavor and hope I do not see a post in December saying "Quick! Does anybody know a contact at G&W? We need to move the 1352 in THREE DAYS or she will be scrapped!"

I'm not trying to be mean here but the best answers on this thread so far that is producing results is the person who posted from the EL Dining Car Society about looking on guidestar and thank you for the good lead as I have found a few foundations who could donate to the over all cause and the post that asking 2000 people to donate $100.00 never works.

This should be a very easy post for groups who have tried X fundraising idea and it produced X results. This is what I'm looking for not wholy cow batman it 200K to move this thing cause in the end it part of the total rebuild fund so if you think about breaking it down in smaller chunks makes it more managable.

Best Regards,

Steven Harvey

Dave,

Let me sum it up for all of the questions you have given me.

1. We do have business plan for the locomotive and a funding plan and so far we have hit every mark from getting project to purchasing the locomotive and finding a restoration home.

So out of the 950K budget for restoration this is Phase 3 of the restoration part which is the relocation. Let face it 1352 is not a position to be restored in Taylorville.

What about a 5 year or 10 year plan. Well 5 to 7 years of that plan call for fundraising and restoring the locomotive as the sections are funded. So first is relocation then restoration.

Last but not least fundraising has been sucessful other wise would not own the locomotive. We started in 2009 and by 2011 owned the locomotive as paid in full.

Thanks!!

Steven H.

Reason for asking on the board it to see if I have hit all of the funding idea's out there other then apply for X foundation, go for this grant and this large donor who like trains might give you money.

Well, if you can answer those questions, you are ahead of the game. You have a decent looking website. Have you considered corporate donors?

Most people here are not trying to be mean or beat a dead horse. The cautionary advice comes from experience, usually the bad kind, when things go wrong. While you remain hopeful, things can go south very quickly. Having a Plan B or Plan C isn't a bad idea.

I have the corporation donors on here so that one is on the list so I'm on target with applying with a few in town here.

Thank you for that suggestion Dave.

Thanks!!

Steven Harvey

Hi Steven,

Here is a link to an article you might find interesting. It has all of the basics and includes details on how to get started.
http://www.thefundraisingauthority.com/ ... on-profit/
I don't know if anyone on here has tried crowd-funding, but I think it would be worth a try. I've heard of organizations raising large sums of money this way (think ~1 million). I think there are a lot of people out there in the general public who would find this project novel and interesting, it just has to be marketed in the right way.

Good luck,
Stephen Piwowarski

Wow! That was not the response that I expected!! Apparently Mr. Harvey has decades of experience moving large pieces of machinery and has explored every last avenue and nobody could possibly add one iota of knowledge to his vast locomotive moving wisdom.

When you come here asking a specific question and those of us who have been around a while sense a fallacy in that question, the worst thing you can do is berate us "old heads" who are just trying to help guide you in a better direction.

BTW do you really think that if we knew how to raise 24K per month for the next 8 months that we would tell you? I will not give up my foundation and large donor contacts! It also takes a great deal of time to cultivate a major donor.

Guidestar won't help much if you are looking for foundations. You want access to the Foundation Directory Online. Now you can buy your own subscription (VERY pricy) or go to your local library that has one. But remember you will only be the 10,000th rail related organization to consult the directory and you will find the same thing that the rest of us has found -- That if you aren't feeding the poor or healing the sick you won't find much money there.

Now, do you want to move that loco or not? Drop the attitude, climb out of your box and let us help you!

You are also going to need lots of print and electronic media attention (not the railfan sites), mostly in the Cleveland area to cast the klieg lights on your plight. That usually wakes up people and also puts the spotlight on G&W and their actions. Plus, its good publicity for your cause.

Where are you incorporated? If its in Ohio, that would be the first place to locate donors(think Jerry Jacobsen). Foundations will take too long (18-24 months) to get the money.

I must also take a page from Robert Macdowell's playbook and ask: How much has the officers of your corporation financially donated? Its not an item you wish to hear, but the reality is corporations usually will not donate on the basis of the sweat equity you put into the project. They want to see what cash the group has put into it personally before they give.

The only other item would be if one of your members works for a large company that has a community giving program. They usually match financially what the employee puts in (Coke, Anheuser Busch, etc.).

I tried crowdfunding to raise money to buy an historic rail car recently. We raised only $2,000 of our $10,000 goal. Nobody donated at the higher level, most were for $50 each. It is not the panacea we would like it to be. The successes are much touted but the failure rate is exceedingly high.

A group of people who would potentially be interested in this project may be Frisco fans. But of course this project will remove the locomotive far from its home turf. Would anyone in Ohio want to contribute to a "foreign" locomotive project? This is the biggest thing you have going against you. Its easier to make a case for bringing an historic locomotive back to home rails than it is for bringing in something that is completely unrelated, especially in this era of repatriation of historic equipment back to their home territories.

I am sure that Jerry Jacobson already knows of ASR as their President is a former Ohio Central executive.

Thank you for all of the great suggestions. We were starting to look at crowd funding so its good to see the results. Sorry to get a little snippy bu t these last posts have produced some areas in which I was not aware of.

I'm not expecting the problem to be solved in 8 months but need to put a very good effort to make a run at it. I would rather have to show good results and ask for extension then not have any at all.

Steven Harvey

Yes. You must understand you've walked right into a cliché. RyPN gets its monthly moron, rolling in here with huge feelings of "Gotta save X." Unfortunately given the location on the male body where such feelings generally reside, they don't want to learn, bristle at being schooled, and resent having their bubble burst since it's not a business but an ego exercise.

And along comes you, and we're not paying enough attention and we mistake you for yet another one. Our bad!

On the land thing, you bet. Look at that landlocked engine in Pittsburgh. I checked. There are two parcels of land adjacent to it that are probably worth about $10,000. Imagine if railfans owned the land directly behind the METRA yard when 5629 was about to get cut. In your case it's not a perfect solution but it buys you time - and it's land, you can get your money back out of it.

Dave Johnston is correct, that type of fundraising requires reputation and relationships. I'm thinking about who could pull that off. WRM could do it. IRM maybe not so much (hmmm that's a surprise.) I suspect Project 1225/SRI could get it done. That list is nowhere near exhaustive. It also matters what you're paying for. Some donors require bonded contractors because they want assurance that their money is used effectively. Others require maximum leverage of volunteers because they want their money used efficiently. These are incompatible!

Lastly this world is full of surprises. Naysayers can always be proven wrong. Here's one surprise I never saw coming: Kickstarter. If AND ONLY IF you are good at social media, you can raise sick money from large numbers of small donors on the internet. Though for a nonprofit, you will want to use IndieGoGo since they support the tax deductible thing and Kickstarter does not.

That explains where that nasty bump on my head came from.

Because of inflation, the $197,000 mentioned in the opening post is no longer such a large amount. Many trolley museums are trying with some success to raise 5 to 10 times that amount in about 2 years to build car barns. I have donated just for car barn appeals more than $25,000 to the Branford Electric Rwy. Association - Shore Line Trolley Museum and $12.50 to the Seashore Trolley Museum - New England Electric Railway Historical Society. Why the difference? At Branford, I get to run the cars, from Seashore, I never heard any kind of thanks.
You do have a geographic problem of trying to raise money in the St. Louis area to move the locomotive far away from those existing or potential donors. After the failure of Trolleyville, even with some of their cars running for a short time in Cleveland, I wonder about the quantity of potential financial support that you will find there.
Your most potent hooks for dollars are future cab rides and throttle time. Are you willing to give up any part of those privileges so that large donors can have some? I'm not even getting into if the locomotive will ever run!

Many charities dream of getting large donations with nothing given in return. I can't help you with how to do that method, because it doesn't work on me. Even when I give to the Church, I want in return to know what good my money is doing.