Pioneers Museum plans for nonprofit future

Nearly a year after stark city budget cuts almost closed the 114-year-old Pioneers Museum, an ambitious new plan for keeping the doors open is now in motion.

“There is certainly a philosophical obligation to the collection,” said director Matt Mayberry, who announced the details in a press conference Monday. The museum, which manages more than 75,000 artifacts of El Paso County history and is free to the public, sees an average of 56,000 visitors annually. “It needs to be preserved. And as the people charged to protect the collection, we have to do this.”

At the center of it all is the shift of governance from a city advisory board to the museum, which will become a 501(c)3 nonprofit and appoint a board of trustees. The museum would then be freer to raise money, create new partnerships and grow programming without being constrained by the decisions of a money-strapped city government.

The upside: If the 11-member steering committee’s scheme works, they project a budget of $1.34 million by 2016.

The downside: The city would continue to provide financial support — at least at current levels. Not exactly the city’s strong suit lately.

In fact, city funding for the institution fell precipitously this year — from about $900,000 in 2009 to $365,000 — leading to reduced hours and layoffs of more than half of the small full-time staff of 10 1/2. The remainder of the 2010 operating budget, about 63 percent, was found in the coffers of the Friends of the Pioneers Museum, the Pioneers Museum Foundation and an endowment held for the museum by the city. But even that $1.68 million cache of auxillary funds can’t last for forever.

“We’re are intent on diversifying our sources of funding,” said Mayberry, adding that they’ve identified local individuals and foundations interested in helping, but only if the city pulls its weight as well. “The city must step up.”

A $30,000-study by specialists in “museums in transition,”  which was commissioned in April, takes a three-pronged approach.

• More earned revenue. That’s from sales as well as fees, rentals and leases of the facility, including weddings, parties, special exhibitions and the possible use of a small courtroom on the second floor as a mediation room for the legal community.

• Contributed revenue from a new development program. That means government and foundation grants, membership and individual contributions and corporate sponsorships and grants. To accomplish it, Mayberry is in the process finding someone for development director, an 18-month position already paid for by a separate grant. (Whether it’s a permanent position may depend, Mayberry said, on how effective the staffer is.) The goal for the first 18 months is to raise $350,000, and by 2016, $450,000 annually.

• Partnership support. That’s in the form of reduced expenses or increased revenue. Although nothing is nailed down, Mayberry ticked off a list of possibilities, including the Pikes Peak Library District, the Colorado Historical Society and the Children’s Museum. The plan projects $50,000 raised in 18 months and $200,000 by the end of the five-year strategy.

But you don’t need a five-figure study to anticipate potential problems.

“You know this is going to require partnership with the city, which owns the building, owns the collection and owns the grounds,” said Jan Martin, a member of the study’s steering committee as well as city council member. “The city finances are uncertain in the coming years and these are difficult times for nonprofits all over the city. Raising the necessary funds will be a challenge.”

 The finalized city budget for 2011 won’t likely surface until the end of the year. And Mayberry said that if funding were significantly reduced or withdrawn completely, sunny visions for the future will begin to look quite different.

Even so, this machine for change grinds on.

“There are many way of moving forward with the plan,” he said, smiling tiredly. “These are things we have to do anyway.

“This institution is too great to fail,” he went on. “Not too big to fail, too great.”