Greater Washington National Parks Strategy
Meeting with Greg Moore, Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy
February 5, 2004
Attendees: Cathie Barner; Bob Sutton, Greg Moore; Overman; Cucurullo; Noel; Hale; Hansen; Brandt; LeBel; Eugster
Cathie Barner:
Worked with Trust for Public Land on Weir Farm; Heritage Partners. Had design and build responsibility.
Doug Overman:
Fundraising background, community volunteer stewardship programs. Worked in Philadelphia and with travel and tourism interests.
Bob Sutton: Need to get GWNP logos protected.
LL Bean maps, seed money and NPS reps noted.
Mentioned Hike, Bike, Ride and Paddle trails effort
Sue Hansen: Cooperating Association noted. Mentioned plans to switch from Parks & History to Eastern National.
Sutton: Wants cooperating association to help with fundraising.
Greg Moore: He met with CA leadership early-on to discuss fundraising activities.
Revenue generation—from earned income, helps awareness that leads to volunteers, grant-making and donations.
This is the path of delayed gratification—you need some revenue to build capacity.
The first steps need to be agreed to. Images were done because parks were confusing. Bring family together, create and identity. Build a platform of awareness. When they were eight years old they did a regional survey to decide if the icons worked. Awareness, sense of park family. Need financial fuel to make images visible. Developed a marketing plan for images—interes tin your National Parks. The pitch was for people to give back to your National Parks.
Greg has a campaign write-up which is available.
Cathie
Contain your regions funds in the region. Create a local link to insure local ownership and accountability. Build on that loyalty.
Greg Moore
Friends groups that are sustainable have an operating income. Yosemite—license plates. Golden gate—bookstores, Alcatrz.
You can expect a downward spiral if the park staff support can’t be sustainaed.
Alcatraz—improved existing bookstores and saw an immediate impact.
1st five years—get the agenda clear, serve the visitor, publish, get revenue generators in place.
Up to their 89th year revenue was totally from bookstores.
Golden gate did a business plan for Alcatraz in the beginning. They developed a product-line for all tastes related to Alcatraz. Concession-free zone created. Blue & Gold Tours is their concessionarie.
Key ingredient—parks are a part of the quality of life.
Board needs to be from the community. Their volunteer network allows them to get anywhere in the region.
Initial Board—Formed around CA purpose. Expertise-based. These advisors are surrogate staff. President of CHron Books; Curator of the Historical Museum; Advertising and Marketing Exceuctive; etc.
Key question: How do we make our parks resonate with people? How do we create a network of friends?
Bill Line:
How did you communicate with the public?
Greg Moore:
Asked volunteers to take parks as our client. Worked was fueled by Trustees. They used artwork; ads, donated space. They relied on public service and space.
Transit advertising was used—got the corporate Board members to use their networks. Had the Deputy Publicist of the Chronicle on Board. Donated space. They stitched together a way to get the word out. They backed this up with a membership campaign.
2 year campaign to put the parks on the map—key message, without these parks your quality of life wouldn’t be as good as it is. You live in a National Park.
This work starts with a focus on places.
They did a membership organization after 6-7 years. Their approach is open door, grass-roots statement of philosophy. They got exposure through direct mail.
Small donors can surprise you ($15-550). They traded lists with organizations that have like minded members. This has produced a net return of $250,000.
They get one donor out of every 100 from direct mail. It is labort intensive; requires quality control; and requires a huge data bank. They currently have 13,000 members.
In the early years of this effort there was no-net gain, only investment. They have experienced a backlash against direct mail.
Yosemite, in contrast, has donors only. No promises of newsletter, etc. Individual donors are high. 70% and are key to sustainaing the organization.
Greg used Foundations to begin—short-term investment
Doug Overman
Associate members are key to a professional fundraiser.
Greg Moore:
Who are the regular users of the park? (i.e. Robin Williams at GOGA)
Stuffy boards versus Park boards with freshness. Their brand is the outdoor oriented civic cause.
John Hale:
What would you do if you started over again?
Greg Moore:
A bolder volunteer board recruiting. Initially they were hard working but insular. They would do more ambassador work
Cathie Barner:
They would spend more time communicating sites and organization. Look at newer park partners. In the Boston Harbor Islands Cathie helped to hire a firm to inventory all of the business opportunities for their alliance.
Doug Overman:
They would think more broadly, outside of the local area. Tap into people who care locally, regionally, and nationally.
Question: Have you used consultants?
Greg Moore:
Used management consultants as a pro-bono client. 4-6 people for 3 months to do business plans. Bridge Span group evaluated earned income opportunities.
They don’t use fundraising consultants—this is a bad approach. Expensive and not core to the team, can be disingenuous. They did a campaign feasibility study—they paid for it.
They have inhouse capaicyt for product development. Used Board and they have products on their website.
Your bookstores are the way to show the valley. Purchases are site specific.
They have a environmentally sustainable store. 80% of organic food sold. Two cafes, not a concession issue. Some concessions, ie. Muir Woods and Cliff House.
Greg contrasted the Warming Hut versus the Visitor Center for local outreach. They will share all best seller products.
The Warming Hut revenue goes into a Community Center.
JGE Question: What are some of the things that our 13 superintendents can do to create a synergy that would support our fundraising?
Greg Moore: Establish mutual priorities; staff ownership to support fundraising; long-term commitment for mutual benefitr. Otherwise a non-profit won’t get traction if the supers aren’t supportive.
The logos are a great signal.
Cathie Burner: It is important to have the same message.
Greg Moore: trails are a great choice. They modeled theirs after Acadia. It is a common asset.
They use targeted funds. For example, help grow Crissy Field, Edcuation Fund (Landmark and Habitat Funds). Make the funds broad enough to secure unrestricted funds.
Sue Hansen: How do we reach the users?
Greg Moore:
Most important assets are the icons. You have two audiences: outside visitors drawn to park assets; and local and regional audience—important part of the community, feels some ownership, opportunities for personal connections.
Many themes can be used (i.e. historic preservation, patriotic sentiment—right now, emblematic.
Sue Hansen:
Local visitation numbers are up outside of the beltway.
Greg Moore:
We have not created a national following for sites.
Doug Oberman:
National focus is the foundation with various themes (i.e. Pew-Youth, Civic Engagement; National Sceince Foundation (science-based education). Look at community foundation board.
Q: What about projects and quality control?
Greg Moore:
With your help we can hit a higher standard. You need to be known as a philanthrophic entity.
Greg Moore:
Early money: Earnerd income stream—critical piece for GOGA.
A predictable and durable income flow is required.
Don’t ask donors to pay for infrastructure
Community Foundation investments were used to help GOGA with start-ups.
Also used opportunity driven donors. These are worth considering because it could be important for establishing a relationship (i.e. a $15,000 donation turned into a $100,000 campaign for Civil War fortifications)
Cathie Barner:
You need a highly visible project within reach which demonstrates a partnership. Show-off the project, get it done, and establish a track-record.
Greg Moore:
Trails work is a great opportunity. It recognizes other partners and brings collective credit.
Park trails staff share accomplishments.
Recognize project as part of the campaign.
Cathie Barner:
The goals for the GOGA Trails Forever effort include: a volunteer program; good signage; picking one-site for construction and ribbon-cutting.
It is important to get the right team together. They recruited the right public and private people.
Greg Moore:
Ken Olsen at Acadia used a fee program to restore the trails and communicate to the users that we are sustainaing trails. What priority will you make the trails?
Cathie Barner:
Trails Forever at GOGA moved other trail projects
Greg Moore: It claimed credit for ongoing initiatives.
Sue Hansen:
What communications do you use to buy-in staff?
Greg Moore:
Initiative has a name; share credit; and show mutual benefit.
Cathie Barner:
Project managers and support staff form the core team from the key groups—look at disciplines needed. Extended team includes everybody. SWAT teams for specific tasks.
Use kick-off event (i.e. Trails Forever Tatoos). Don’t overwhelm yourselves. Keep it simple.
What are the engines that make the core team work. Bring in representatives for that engine. Communication representative needs a team to get work done—organize a workgroup.
Develop a logo for the initiative. A Rabbit was an alternative to trail user symbols. Use branding programs and iniatives. GOGA brought on three new people for this effort.
Bob Sutton:
Perhaps we could connect Ft. Circle plans?
Sue Hansen:
Perhaps we could re-direct YCC funds?
Greg Moore:
GOGA is doing innovative GIS work.
Bob Sutton:
What about Friends groups?
Moore
Many nonprofits called park-partners. Tentative relationships.
“When there are so many players and it gets confusing, I throw it i8n a bucket and call it a coalition”.
We are protective of our philantrophic indentity.
We need to communication, inform, give heads-up, before we engage in fundraising.
Small groups can help with volunteerism, small-scale fundraising.
SF is a highly coordinated philantrhophic community.
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