If the purpose is to preserve the buildings, start from that - if your purpose is to interpret history, start from there. Don't assume a museum will preserve buildings, or that preserved buildings will interpret history - the two might not be economically viable tied together. Whatever way you choose to proceed, a good mission statement and business development and operating plan will be necessary to attract the political and financial resources necessary to build a museum or preserve industrial structures, or both. Given the current recession, I'd be looking at how whatever the plan is would tie in to economic development or a public works tie-in, and certainly a self-supporting plan would be most likely to be supported.

Build your board of people with political and financial clout - you can always hire nuts and bolts professionals.

dave

John,

I worked on obtaining non-for profit status for an existing railroad group several years ago. If you are going for Federal tax exemption it will take you up to 6 months or more to obtain. Also be sure to get the proper state / local approvals.

And I too reiterate what Dave stated. Make sure you have a sound financial plan not just for the formation of the group, but for continued annual revenue. You also need to have a disposition plan for assets (feds require this for tax exemption) in case things don't work out.

I wish you luck. If you are in New Jersey the State has plenty of web pages to explain the process. All the forms are available for download too.

Chris

The Association of Railway Museums offers its Recommended Practices. This is a useful tool for planning and running a railway museum.

http://www.railwaymuseum.org/arm/RP.htm

Wesley

Hi John:

We formed our museum in early 2005 as a spin-off of an existing Transportation museum. But we still had to start from scratch like you do. I have our documents (MS Word) that you'll need to become "legal," e.g., the IRS Form 1023, by-laws, etc. These might be helpful to you at least as a jumping off point--no sense trying to reinvent the wheel here.

Something that might be helpful to you is a detailed check list of the things that we had to do to become organized and functional that I put together.

I'll be happy to share these documents with you. E-mail me at jvaitkunas@msn.com

Thanks!

It would be an excellent idea to develop a feasibility/strategic business plan study. I wold recommend getting help from outside of your group for this task. The right consultants should be able to look at the big picture and give you a clear-eyed view of whether what you are doing will be sustainable.

Depending upon your location and the potential impact of your project, you may qualify for a grant from the Economic Development Administration http://www.eda.gov/.

Although I wasn't one of the founding fathers of my "home" museum, I got into railway preservation over 45 years ago, and have heard many of the "oral traditions" from the early days, and have read accounts of other museums that started before 1960. The above comments certainly prove that it's a "whole 'nuther world" today. Most of the pioneer museum groups were long on energy and short on money. They didn't hire consultants because A) there weren't any, and B) they couldn't have afforded one. They constructed carbarns that would cause 21st Century building inspector to "have a cow". One writer, after visiting some of the early "trolley farms", commented that "the harried, first-things-first aspect of a trolley museum gives it the look of an oddly specialized dump." Terms like "provenance" and "accession" might as well have been Greek; "mission statements" would have been thought to concern early California religious structures. All we can do now is look back upon those days and marvel at how far we've come.

What Dave said is so true- build your board with people that have political and financial clout.

Ideally, try to get at least 2 politicos- one from each party. That will a) Give you a voice no matter which party in power, b) Make it easier to attract bipartisan support for grants, etc..

Matt Bumgarner

As someone who runs a house museum I get asked this question at least 6 times a year…Ask three hard questions…. (there is some cross over)

1) Why are you doing this?

2) What value does it have to your community?

3) What is your business model?

So, to expand…

For question 1, why….

“It’s the oldest building in town and it would be a shame to loose it” probably isn’t a good reason...

“It’s the last…. (fill in the blank)” is not in itself a good reason, but may be if the other questions are positive…

“This represents a significant piece of local history… “ Now we are getting somewhere

“This tells a story…” This is getting good….

“ We can use this space for….” Again, good…

For question 2, value…

“We can use this space…” I told you there would be cross over….

“This tells a story…” Again, good….

“We will fix it up and they will come…. “ May not be good

For question 3, business model…

We expect X number of visitors at $X each which will provide funds too… (be realistic…)

“We have identified the following funding sources…”

:”We expect the project to cost…” it’s a long list, longer than you want it to be…

Most of us are too passionate to answer the questions as well as we should… Get outsiders involved… (their willingness to be involved is a good bench mark)

This makes we want to add several comments.

1) Become involved in the local community in ways other than just going to the council meetings when you want something or oppose the development across the street.

2) Do things to help and support the community: become a venue for community activities, support the developments that will benefit it and your group.

3) It is helpful if members, staff, etc. join the civic, service and community groups (Rotary, CofC, etc.) and help spread the word about your group and its support.

4) Museums should support the community and its leaders, but cannot come out in favor of anyone candidate for office. This can be a fine line.

Completely apart from the museum community, I recall hearing an attorney tell that his law firm would regularly make equal contributions to both candidates that would be running for a public office. That way they did not favor any one, but had always made a contribution to the winner.

I have been questioning a lot of my conclusions and perceptions lately - mostly those having to do with any marketing or public relations situation that I have held so long as to have been not reexamined for a long time. I probably ought to put it on my calendar to do so every couple years. The mechanical stuff and a lot of the management stuff seems to have held up to the tests of time and practicality, but few moreso than this one.

It's about power. Power can be gained by force (not likely for us), a universal emotional and intellectual appeal to a large segment of the international population (again unlikely), having the resources to make your issue be popularly percieved as such (less than unlikely) or by borrowing it from those who lend it to us - in other words, credibility. Grab those with either real or perceived power and don't let them go.

You then use this power to accumulate the resources you need to make things happen, or to remove political and regulatory obstacles to making them happen, probably both.

Passionate hobbyists don't matter. Finding powerful people who like our passions do. It's a shrinking world of opportunities out there, that will only be partially modified through technological and sociological innovation, and we're probably not the guys leading the innovative effort.

dave

I will only offer you one piece of advice I have stated to many people before. Remember, not-for-profit is a tax status, not a business model. I wish you well.

Scott Cessna

Just an update and progress report:
First let me thank everyone who has offered advice....and good advise at that. We have been able to use much of the information to bolster our own ideas.

The Name of our group is: ALCO HISTORICAL & TECHNICAL SOCIETY
We have most of our board members in place. Our By-laws and Constitution have been typed (draft)as well as other documents and we may also have a lawyer who will set up our Articles Of Corporation and related paperwork in order to get our Non-profit 501(c)(3) status pro-bono.
We also now have a mailing address. We plan to have a open forum board meeting very soon to go over all the details of our required paperwork in order to finalize it.

As soon as we get a treasurer and a bank account, we will start accepting applications.

In case anyone was wondering how we progressed so far. I am working on this full time(retired) and the group agrees that time is of essence. Our mission is to acquire one or more buildings within the Alco plant site and start a museum there.

We already have a few leads on Alco locomotives to be displayed. Any thoughts on this subject is always welcome.
Thank you

John Mech
President
Alco Historical & Technical Society

Who owns the property? I pass by it every so often, and it looks like there is still a little activity of some sort buzzing around.

How can I find out more about the group you are forming?

--
Will

The property is owned by the City of Schenectady(metroplex) and there is one industrial user plus some office space that is leased out.

We are not quite ready to accept membership yet. I hope to have more defined info about who we are and what we plan to do soon. Hopefully in February.
Our basic goal at this point is to start an ALCO Museum.

Our group is planning to have 2nd organizational meeting in a few weeks.This is for officers and BOD members only.
A General meeting will follow in either February or March. This will be announced and open to all interested persons.

More to come soon....
John