Week Five: Filling in the Blanks

As my last post indicated, our plan has begun to solidify. Dr. Beiler sent out my drafted email to our prospective contributors and we have begun to receive responses. Right now, we will have Drs. Lindsay, Murphree, Long, and Clark from the UCF History Department. Regulars at the museum will also be attending, including myself (of course), Dr. Beiler, Cyndi, Regina, and Betty Sample. Andrew Sandall, the Executive Director of the Daytona Beach Museum of Arts and Sciences will also help. The group is diverse and I am optimistic that the group tour will be of much value. Once we have settled on a handful of core themes, I will be able to make some headway on writing the main narrative of the grant proposal.

In the meantime, I have been filling in the blanks of the grant proposal that need no astute analysis of our collections and purpose. My last blog post detailed the most exciting aspect of last week: planning the group tour and planning session. But make no mistake – that is not all I did last week. Indeed, if my only accomplishment in two 8-hour days at the museum was drafting one email, well, that would quite underwhelming, wouldn’t it?



The work station: where the magic happens.

Besides reaching out to our initial planning group, I also synthesized the existing promotional and marketing strategies for the Public History Center. Not surprisingly, the NEH wants to see that the applicants for their Planning Grant have a thoughtful and articulated marketing strategy to expand community awareness and get visitors through their doors. It wouldn’t do the NEH much good giving a grant to an institution that has no visitors and no plan to find visitors, right? In the process, I was encouraged to find that the Public History Center has held many workshops and community events in the last year to establish a presence in Sanford. We have also printed some promotional materials, including postcards, bookmarks, and posters. In the future, finances permitting, it would be great to advertise our events via radio and, dare I say, television.

I also filled out the section for evaluation methods, something contributors to the museum have already developed. Like marketing strategies, the NEH wants to know how institutions plan to evaluate their proposed and/or implemented changes. How will they improve their plans and exhibits based on visitor feedback? As it turns out, the museum has identified (if not fully implemented) evaluative methods based on visitor surveys and other means.

The grant is slowly starting to take shape.