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 Posted on September 13, 2006
"Green" Money: The Funding Landscape for Museums Thinking About Going Greenby Sarah S. Brophy
Nonprofit organizations are natural laboratories for learning, testing new ways to serve constituents, and modeling new approaches to existing problems. This is especially true of museums. As places of preservation and active learning, they are particularly well-suited to modeling "green" behavior and design for the public. In a series of four articles, Elizabeth Wylie of HKT Architects, Inc., and I will explore some of the implications and considerations for museums thinking about going green. While other columns in the Sustainable Nonprofit series have addressed the value add and cost savings of going green, this series will look at museum-specific issues related to:
In a March 2006 interview on NPR's Fresh Air program, New York Times columnist Tom Freidman told host Terri Gross that "green technology — green design, green building, green manufacturing, green consulting — is going to be the industry of the 21st century." He might have added green education. And why shouldn't museums — already established as places of learning, exploration, and community-minded behavior — be at the forefront of such a movement? As Betty Arenth, senior vice president at the Senator John Heinz History Center, says: "[Green] fits our mission. We're a history organization. Think about it: It's preservation of the environment for the future." Green design is not just for science museums. Green is clearly aligned with the missions and stewardship responsibilities of natural history, environmental, technology, and children's museums, not to mention aquaria, botanical gardens, and zoos. And because green design saves organizations money in the long run and costs only marginally more to implement than does traditional building design — as other articles in the Sustainable Nonprofit series have shown — what reason is there for not going green? Most people assume funding will be a problem. Well, it isn't harder to fund green than it is to fund any other museum project. Patrick Kociolek, executive director of the California Academy of Sciences' Natural History Museum, agrees that there's not a lot of designated funding for museum-initiated green projects, but he believes the funding landscape is changing and that state and local government support for green initiatives, among other funding sources, is growing. Kociolek is $300 million into a $392 million capital campaign for a new Renzo Piano building in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, and while donors to CAS increasingly expect new capital projects to include green design components, Kociolek says no funder has stepped in to underwrite the green parts of the project. Of course that hasn't mattered, he says, because "'green,' when done right, is about design, education, mission, and sustainability." That's where you have to focus your argument — sustainable building and operational practices are sustainable institutional practices. If you limit your requests to "green" funders, you'll limit your success. Look, too, for funders interested in supporting grantees' ability to fulfill their missions and develop financial sustainability. Thinking "green" does that for museums. Finding Funders Funding for your green projects will come from the usual types of prospects:
Let's start with private funding. Most private funders are not yet focused on green funding, so they're harder to identify. The search terms "green" and "sustainable" rarely appear in the program descriptions in most funding database products. And when they do use the word "sustainable," it's often related to organizational or community sustainability, not environmental sustainability. This makes prospecting for "green" funding just like searching for funding for any other project — start with your mission and work from there. Your method for sorting donors whose interests match yours — in terms of mission, program focus, audience, location, and/or outcomes — is important here. The model below, adapted from Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs satisfaction, is one tool for assessing the probability of a match between your organization, your project, and a funder's interests, thereby increasing your organization's chances of an award. Start at the bottom of the pyramid and work your way up. Sarah's Hierarchy of Funder Needs (adapted from Maslow)
Edge Quality Impact/Effect Location & Audience Organizational Mission The bottom three tiers represent the minimum criteria for an applicant organization: Organizational Mission — Does your institution's mission substantially mirror the funder's mission statement? If you match up with a funder's interests in those three areas, you're a promising applicant and can think about the top two tiers of the pyramid, which is where your organization will distinguish itself from other applicants: Quality — Can you demonstrate a level of quality in both your planning and performance that sets you apart from other applicants? When it's time to sit down and actually write the proposal, you'll find that making the case for a sustainable energy or building project is relatively easy. Environmental sustainability is a component of organizational sustainability. Any green project or program that saves your organization money is good for its bottom line and, therefore, contributes to its organizational sustainability. Be sure to include the math in your proposal and/or budget to demonstrate the improvement to your bottom line. For museums, a green project can be designed to preserve art and artifacts by reducing harmful gasses released by everyday construction materials; by controlling ultraviolet light and other damaging climate factors; and/or by preserving or enhancing the environment, whether it's the construction of a new sculpture garden or preserving historic structures in the community. In other words, your case statement is not just about green; it's about fulfilling your mission and being an effective steward of financial and cultural resources. Potential Funding Sources Private Foundations. That said, a handful of private foundations are already funding green. The Kresge Foundation has become a leading funder of green building initiatives nationwide and encourages museums to apply. Kresge and the Pittsburgh-based Heinz Endowments made gifts to the Senator John Heinz History Pittsburgh Regional History Center's recent capital campaign and tied the awards to the building's green aspects: The Heinz Endowments funded the costs of documenting and obtaining LEED certification, while Kresge, which had already supported the planning process for the building, awarded a bonus grant when the center achieved LEED status. (See the Sustainable Nonprofit article "Sustainable Design for Nonprofit Organizations: The Value of a Collaborative LEED Design Methodology" for more about LEED certification.) In 2004 the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago was awarded $1.2 million for its new building, as well as $100,000 for green education programs, by the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation (ICECF), a private independent foundation established by Commonwealth Edison. ICECF chair Pete Peters says, "It was the unanimous consensus of our board that this project exemplified our mission and was worthy of a grant of this amount. There is no question that this building will serve as a model for future green buildings to come." And in 2004, ICECF awarded $100,000 in design and commissioning funds for the Art Institute of Chicago's planned North Wing addition (scheduled to open in 2009). Among other energy-efficient features, the building includes a "flying carpet" architectural sun screen, an automatic interior daylighting system, and a double-layer envelop of glass to help with critical temperature and humidity issues in gallery spaces. As more examples of sustainable building spread, so will support for green projects. Your job is to stay current with who is funding what. There are enough green funders, whether in the museum field or not, to support a whole conference on green design and building. The Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities, for example, sponsored a 2005 event in Cleveland that was supported by Grantmakers in Health, the Neighborhood Funders Group, the Environmental Grantmakers Association, the Consultative Group on Biological Diversity and its Climate & Energy Funders Group, and the Health and Environment Funders Network. And that's far from a complete list of all the groups working to mainstream green design and building practices. The Web sites of these groups are also excellent sources of information and often provide links to potential funders. Federal Support. Right now, you're better off as a museum in Australia or the United Kingdom if you're looking for public support of green design and building projects. In the United States, where the federal government supports research at the national level and funds the implementation of green projects through state-based initiatives (see below), the story, unfortunately, is different. However, for museums with experience pursuing federal earmarks, there's hope. ECHO at the Leahy Center for Lake Champlain (formerly the Lake Champlain Basin Science Center) was a green project in a very green state, but that doesn't mean the funds for the project just presented themselves. The organization's leaders were ambitious in their efforts to attract earmark funding for an innovative new building on the site of an old lakeside warehouse and succeeded in attracting awards, based substantially on the green aspects of the new building, from three federal agencies: the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). State and Municipal Support. Check to find out whether your state is one of the fourteen with a Clean Energy fund. These funds were created to expand markets for clean energy, so their focus is on energy infrastructure, not green practices generally. But, again, there are always exceptions. In New York, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority gave the Adirondack Museum $118,000 for a photovoltaic system on the roof of its Special Exhibits Gallery, while in Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative's Renewable Energy Trust offers a mix of grants and incentives. In 2006, for example, MTC awarded a $700,000 Green Buildings and Infrastructures program grant to MASS MoCA for a new 50-kilowatt solar installation, energy-efficiency equipment, and an interactive display to educate visitors about the benefits of clean energy. On a much smaller scale, the MTC's Small Renewables Initiative encourages building owners to to generate their own energy and share any excess with others connected to the power grid. The Massachusetts rebate is capped at $50,000. Other states might have lower caps and may also limit the amount that can be rebated in a year. In Illinois, nonprofits are eligible to apply to that state's renewable energy program, which offers rebates of up to $10,000. And California has programs at the county level that reduce or waive permit fees or expedite the permitting process to encourage renewable energy. When looking for state funding, however, be sure to read the fine print: Most states gear their rebates to commercial and residential programs. For more information about renewable energy incentives, visit the DSIRE database. Museums in urban locations may find that their city has a green fund that is open to nonprofits. In 2001, for example, Chicago's Field Museum implemented a solar-energy project with the support of the City of Chicago's Energy Reliability program and a partnership involving the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs (DCCA), the City of Chicago Department of Environment, Commonwealth Edison, and Spire Solar Chicago. Similarly, Burlington, Vermont's Electric Department awarded $56,340 to ECHO for planning and assistance with the LEED process. Corporations. Corporate support for green projects tends to be limited to sponsorhips, but there are exceptions. Carrier, a United Technologies Corporation company, makes awards in the areas of the environment and sustainability, and supports "organizations that promote the use of green building practices and environmental sustainability in urban centers." Among its recent awards, Carrier gave the National Trust for Historic Preservation a grant of $55,000 "for a pilot project to help apply green building principles to historic preservation" at the President Lincoln and Soldiers' Home in Washington, D.C. Again, if your match with a corporate funder if in the past wasn't strong enough to attract its support, a green project just might make the difference the next time you approach them. Individual Donors. It's harder, of course, to track the motivations of individual donors. None of the museum staff interviewed for this article could quantify the relationship between sustainability and generalized individual giving, but one museum, ECHO, was able to tie sustainability to a major individual gift. In fact, its third-largest private gift came from a donor motivated by the green aspects of the project. As with any project, the more donors understand what you're doing and why you're doing it, the more they're likely to be engaged with and want to contribute to the project. And, these days, sustainability and green design are definitely ways to motivate and engage donors. So get on the train before it leaves the station and start making your case for sustainability now. Conclusion In our next article, we will discuss integrating green design and practices into museum education, collections, and operations. We'll also look at how museums are modeling responsible environmental practices in capital construction, how green design can save your institution money in annual operating and life-cycle costs, why green design is a good fit for collecting institutions, and how green practices can be extended to other areas of your institution. Until then, think green!
Sarah Brophy is a Maryland-based independent museum professional specializing in grant writing for museums, historical societies, arts and cultural groups, and conservation organizations. She is the author of Is Your Museum Grant-Ready?: Assessing Your Organization's Potential for Funding, published in 2005 by AltaMira Press as part of the AASLH History Book Series (American Association for State and Local History), and is a regular contributor to Charity Channel's Grants & Foundation Review. Brophy earned her master’s degree in American history from the College of William & Mary, Virginia, and a Certificate in History Administration from the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. |
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