Re: Western RR Museum
Author: Robert MacDowell
Date: 12-15-2009 - 21:58
>BAERA is very reluctant to pay the necessary money, even with it's million dollar windfall
This particular "windfall" is an endowment. This is a concept largely alien to railway museums but common to other types of museums. It assures that the institution has a future.
BAERA's endowment is now sufficient that it could keep the lights on in seriously lean times. That means BAERA is unlikely to fail as an institution. And that matters a lot to donors. Which makes fundraising much easier to get done. $2 million for Carhouse 3 was raised because of this.
The same could be done with the feeder/substation -- to the extent that project *can* be solved with money. In many cases it is volunteers/expert managers which are the scarce component. And if you are a volunteer or expert manager, you know what to do about that!
I am president of BAERA, and I also created an endowment for SMRS, a railway museum in Michigan.