What are the current "best" conduits for donations to the NRHS these days? Chapters? Direct to national?

If chapters are a significant donation conduit, then what do you expect to happen to your donation numbers if chapters defect to join another organization or just de-associate themselves with the national organization?

Also, with the allegedly aged membership, do you expect that donations will trail off over time?

Did the NBM committee anticipate that there would be a decrease in donations as a backlash to the changes of the administrative structure of the NRHS?

What basis did the NBM have for projecting that donations would actually increase over time?

If the new role of the NRHS is to basically be a donation and funding conduit, how do continuing the publications fit into this model/mission statement? Is it basically going to be a propaganda tool for those in charge to say "Look how awesome we are!" or will they fill a more legitimate purpose?

$450,000 in donations and major giving per year is an appreciable amount of money.

Is this money better gambled on a national organization that is, by its own admission, attempting a last-ditch reorganization, or would this preservation funding be better spent on the many rail-preservation organizations who are already operating with sound business practices and producing results?

Two of the cornerstone programs mentioned in the business plan are largely redundant in an age where the marketplace for rail artifact information is much closer to being perfect than it was ten years ago. The first, the At-Risk List, does not measurably increase the information available regarding such artifacts. The two items touted as indicators of the impact of this list, the Lion Gardiner and ACL 1504, were well known in preservation and their declining condition had been much discussed in many forums for a long time prior to the NRHS' publication of their list. As an example, a search on this board for “Lion Gardiner” results in two and a half pages of summaries of posts discussing this artifact dated prior to 4-24-13 when the At-Risk List came out. There are three pages of similar posts for the Atlantic Coast Line Locomotive No. 1504. So to say that the list appreciably contributed to an awareness of these artifacts is a stretch.

The Heritage Grant program merely reroutes donor money through the national and then back to local programs. Again, given the wide availability of information available to donors regarding worthwhile efforts, is it necessary or efficient to launder the funds though a national organization? As Mr. Cook stated, "I believe that donors would much rather write their checks directly to groups whose preservation projects can be seen and appreciated, than to some agency that claims they will distribute the money wisely.”

As for Dave’s comment, that he has “no dog in this fight”, I do not know if that is entirely accurate for anyone who believes in the importance of rail preservation. I stopped paying dues to the national a while back but became interested again when I saw that change was in the works. After reading the back and forth for a little bit with basically the same approach Dave had, I realized that anyone interested in rail preservation has a “dog in this fight” in that any preservation money that is spent on keeping the national running, in either its current form or in some altered state, is preservation money that might be better spent elsewhere.

My purpose is to explore this by looking at the resources currently available to rail preservationists and to assess if there were any unmet or partially met needs that a national organization, such as the NRHS or the “new NRHS” could meet in a manner that justified the continued expense or if those needs could be best backfilled by some other currently existing resource.

Having now read the details of NRHS' reorganization plan, as well as many of the informed and thoughtful posts in this thread, I am leaning towards Mr. Wilkins' position that, "... there are other organizations that will take up the slack if the NRHS suddenly disappeared overnight. The strong local chapters would likely continue to be strong, locally-focused organizations without the national organization."

I am suspicious of any plan that is basically "We have to burn this village in order to save it."

Most donations come from individual members. Chapters are free to go off on their own and pursue their own interests and we wish them well. The new business model is not for everyone.

The donations projection is actually fairly conservative. We anticipate the pool of donations is much, much bigger but we don't blame organizations and individuals for taking a wait and see position. So, yes, the anticipated donations anticipates a lot of folks will sit on the sidelines the first year. Part of our anticipated revenue growth is encouraging those sideline-sitters to come back on board once the new organization proves itself.

The NRHS Bulletin will be reworked to promote rail preservation, highlighting both accomplishments and needs. It will be available through subscription and in regular magazine outlets so, yes, it's part informational and part promotional.

The bottom line is the New Business Model committee has looked at the pool of potential donors who are interested in historic preservation and rail preservation in particular. After crunching the numbers, it is apparent that there is a huge pool of untapped donors out there who simply need to be made aware and actually asked to donate. Rail preservation has largely been inward looking -- a national organization that promotes rail preservation can tap into that huge market, as well as generating enthusiasm for local projects simply by making people aware that rail preservation is worthwhile.

Steve Barry
NRHS New Business Model Committee

There is no denying, though, that both the Lion Gardiner and the 1504 received a real boost from grant money in the aftermath of the NRHS At Risk List. Awareness on a national level is a real asset.

As for routing money through a national organization, with almost no asking there are already enough people who route $100,000 a year in donations over and above dues through NRHS to aid the cause. Those people chose not to give that money locally -- they support the mission of rail preservation on a more global level.

Steve Barry
NRHS New Business Model Committee

Thank you, Scranton. I wasn't even thinking about money.

I think we are considering different fights. I refer to the fight to change NRHS or to shut it down, or to simply pass it along to chapters, or whatever other plan arises. I think that ultimately has less to do with the industry in the long run than other entities out there.....many of which are new, growing and evolving in ways that aren't even possible for a large, bureaucratic and complex mature (or overly mature) organization. If NRHS as a national voice dies, we lose a national voice that was only pretty much preaching to the choir anyhow.......at least, from my perspective this seems the case.

So, becoming relevant to people who don't even know they are interested in railway preservation is what interests me. I know us already. I'm not sure a national voice is going to be effective, and think a hundred thousand local means of attracting interest, and better yet involvement, will. The time may come for a national organization to raise to prominence again in the future, but it won't be structurally like the old way - it will be like something we haven't even discovered yet.

All politics are local.

Think globally, act locally.

Get off my lawn!

Add you own favorites here if you like.

dave

To add to what Steve said donations to NRHS come in via several conduits:

1) Donations from at large members who send them in when they pay their dues.

2) Donations from members who belong to chapters who do the same only they send them to the chapters which pass them through to the National.

3) Donations that come in directly to the National as a result of donations drives, or bequests from the estates of deceased members. Note that some of these bequests have exceeded 100,000.

4) Donations that come in from Federal Employees via the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC), a program that is similar to the United Fund. To be eligible for this program, an organization is required to submit a written application that shows they have had significant program service activity in at least 15 states the past three years and under go an audit by a CPA firm. In recent years, NRHS has received over 100,000 as a result of this program.

5) Donations from outside organizations and individuals.

NRHS chapter are separate corporate entities that typically do not donate to NRHS, though NRHS has received some RailCamp scholarship donations from its chapters and organizations such as RPCA.

Note that under the new bylaws, NRHS would no longer have members making it impossible to send in donations with dues payments.

Bob H

This comment regarding the At-Risk List raises the question of what type of donor these funds come from. Both artifacts and their respective plights were well-known globally (as evidenced by the cited board postings) to anyone who utilizes the internet (i.e. world wide web) as a source of preservation information prior to the NRHS' release of the list.

1. Were these donors aware that these artifacts were "going back to nature" prior to the publication of the list and only chose to contribute after being convinced of their intrinsic worth by the release of NRHS' list? or,
2. Were these donors largely unaware of these pieces of equipment and their plight prior to the release of the list because they do not use the internet to gather information?

If the answer is the latter, then it appears that the NRHS is building a business model to move forward that is somewhat based on a donor demographic that is rapidly shrinking.

The comment regarding the Heritage Grant program can be viewed in the same light. With the information regarding preservation efforts throughout the world easily available to anyone utilizing the internet, the choice is not (and has not been for about a decade) only to "give locally" or to give to a national organization that will then redistribute the funds to a non-national program that may or may not be local to the donor. Again, are those participating in this redistribution of funds funneled through the national largely doing so because they are not participating in the information age and so is the NRHS continuing to rely on a disappearing demographic in its revised business model?

In the case of the 1504 the major donors were Trains Magazine and CSX, if I recall correctly. I believe both use the internet extensively.

As for giving globally, the National Trust For Historic Preservation does quite well in gathering funds and redistributing them. A lot of the New Business Model thinking went into looking at the model of the National Trust. So perhaps "giving locally exclusively" is simply yet another symptom of rail preservation's general refusal to look beyond its own community.

Steve Barry
NRHS New Business Model Committee

I've got way more than I can digest here with my current workload and need for sleep, but let me point out something:

There are still people of means out there, in spite of what some media and activists may try to tell you, that will eagerly write you a check or leave you part of an estate, IF you are doing something that they can see is bringing tangible results and returns, AND is likely to endure. As much as we want to believe the prattle that it's everyone that contributes and becomes a part of it (listen to a PBS pledge break), "angels" play an outsized role.

I've personally been privy to the negotiations where someone of means says "go ahead and get that car; I'll guarantee the money, but don't tell them, fundraise as much as you can and I'll cover the rest" or "I'll match the donations up to 50% of the cost, and if you come up short we'll work something out--now go tell them you have a matching challenge grant."

The catch is that you have to show yourself worthy of those donations through your actions and deeds. No one's going to give you their library of books or collection of photos or collection of ephemera if it's just going to disappear into the "black hole" of an archive never to be seen again. And they're not going to write you into their will or send a check on Dec. 29th, either, unless you can demonstrate a return on that investment.

It is great that there is data for donor demographics for one artifact (1504) out of the eight items on the At-Risk list that indicates the NRHS' list positively influenced the behavior of donors who were most likely already aware of the locomotive or, at least, had the means or opportunity via the internet to be aware of it. Unfortunately, my question remains unanswered as to the other seven items on that list.

The second paragraph does not address my question about the Heritage Grant program at all. Anyone who uses the internet can easily identify worthy non-local preservation efforts throughout the world and, in most cases, can also use their mouse to donate with one or two clicks. So, besides donors who do not use the internet, what is the benefit to donors of going through the NRHS as opposed to, as Mr. Cook put it so well, "donors [who] would much rather write their checks directly to groups whose preservation projects can be seen and appreciated, than to some agency that claims they will distribute the money wisely."?

Is the perceived benefit of the Heritage Grant program so incrementally substantial that it will be able to gain an appreciable enough amount of donor market share to help pull the NRHS out of its financial morass?

More importantly, and more on topic for this thread, is the money spent on reviving the national and the money that will be diverted from a worthy project in overhead costs to continue to run the national worth, to the donor and to the ultimate recipient of the funds, this incremental benefit?

Does the anyone have any data on this "giving locally exclusively" phenomena Mr. Barry mentions? What is the percentage of rail preservation donors who utilize the internet for preservation information and who only give to local efforts, and how is "local" defined?

Historically, NRHS has seen a difference in donations that come in from dues from at large members and members who belong to chapters that have significant restoration projects (such as the Washington DC Chapter's Dover Harbor project) with the members that belong to chapters that have such projects not sending in as much in the way of donations to the National with their dues.

Bob H.

If I read it correctly, the intent is to morph the NRHS into basically "The National Trust for Historic Railway Preservation." Is this a correct reading?

Being a conduit for funding is only about 1/2 of the National Trust for Historic Preservation's mission. Does the "new" NRHS also plan on emulating the other half, such as training, providing resources in grant writing, case studies, etc?

Why can't the present NRHS structure still achieve this goal? Why not create a new organization or a subsuidiary of the NRHS to do this? Why must you burn the village in order to save it?

What is the average age of a NRHS donor?

As much as I'd like to continue answering questions, I have a magazine due out tomorrow night and need to focus on that. I'll let the New Business Model speak for itself.

Steve Barry
NRHS New Business Model Committee
now going back to
Editor, Railfan & Railroad

"We worked the numbers several different ways on expected income for 2015 and came to around the same number every time. "

What methods did you use? Are they projections or forecasts? Did you retain working papers illustrating "the several different ways" you "worked the numbers", for review and inspection by those voting on the matter, if requested?

What general economic conditions were in your assumptions?

What are your allowable variances?

How will you enforce the attainment of these plans, being as you've made them PRIOR to hiring the incumbent for the Operations Manager who is responsible for them?

I'm really interested in this, being as I am presently employed in that very activity. I'm expected to be within 1.5% plan vs. actual, unless there is some major weather event or similar circumstance. Have you identified significant risks and uncertainties that could impact your plans?

How will you avoid a "good old boy" network and a monoculture, when new directors are selected by existing members?

Do you think posting documents publicly FIVE DAYS before the vote is adequate time for reflection and debate, including having the voters hear from interested parties?

Finally, as to the matter of the value of a "most endangered list", it's a fine idea and I'm glad to to attribute credit to the list for 1504's continued existence.

However, how did THESE engines not make the list when their fate was under the control of one of your committee members?

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=36450

Couldn't they haven't at least been "stuffed and mounted"?

Post Script:

"Oversee execution of annual budget and general fiscal oversight in accordance with generally
accepted accounting standards (GAAP)."

This duty of the op mgr position is nonsense. FINANCIAL STATEMENTS are prepared in accordance with GAAP. There are no standards governing the preparation of budgets, and although effective fiscal oversight is a part of F/S preparation, the prevailing standards that are most often used are COSO's "Integrated Framework" for internal controls.

http://www.coso.org/guidance.htm

In short, if you interview somebody for this job, and they accept this duty as written without requesting clarification and revision, they have identified themselves as unqualified. Of course, if you read the COSO Guidannce, you will see that the responsibility for effective fiscal oversight, inheres to the BoD. Remember the old saw? Authority can be delegated, responsibility cannot.