What would you fund?

As we end the semester, @kenfinkel has posed us a biiiiiiig question. This is in addition to the lingering question of where exactly we want our grant to go, but might offer us a way to think about that issue.

“How and where would you dispense $10,000; $100,000; $1,000,000; and $10,000,000 to have maximum impact for public history?”

David Rose is going to join me on this adventure

I'm not really sure whether to tackle this question beginning with the smallest amount or the largest. Since our class grant is on the smaller end, I guess I will start with the big stuff and hope I gain some insights by the time I get to the end.

$10,000,000

10 million dollars seems like an unbelievably big amount of money to ever disburse, but in systematic terms it is a fleeting sum; many cultural organizations in Philadelphia could find ways to spend that sum in no time. The Philadelphia Museum of Art, for example, is about to embark on a $196m remodel and seeking over $300m more in fundraising.

Don't worry, David, we're not aiming that high.

Yet $10m could prove to be a seed for a healthy endowment. The PMA might be setting more lofty fundraising targets now, but just two years ago they also accepted a $10m gift for an endowment.

$10m could also leverage other funds, both through matching grants but also by being put toward advocacy for public funds such as those from National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, both programs which are currently under threat.

Alternatively, $10m could be put toward commemorative efforts of communities of color in Philadelphia as a minuscule step toward racial equity in the public history field. Efforts to mark the spot of the MOVE bombing and preserve/restore the house where John Coltrane lived on 33rd Street require funding to get off the ground and stay there.

$1,000,000

One million dollars comes down a bit from the heady heights, but is still a pile of money. What if it was put toward streamlining already existent institutions and projects, specifically in the area of technology?

Rather than every non-profit institution in the city employing different IT staff and contracting web designers, what if all of those needs were pooled in one non-profit tech shop? This exists in a small form in Madison, Wisconsin. What if there was a million dollars of capital to realign the current tech infrastructure of Philadelphia's history and cultural organizations? How could that cut costs, provide full-time jobs, and foster collaboration between organizations?

$100,000

I think $100,000 could be an opportunity to do a series of exhibits across Philadelphia's history system on a common theme. Since racial equity is a big concern of my classmates and I, it could be an opportunity for the voices of communities of color past and present to take over these museums and archives. I'm thinking perhaps a “Mining the Museum” for 2018.

I would love to see, for instance, what Ismael Jimenez's students would do with the collections of the Philadelphia History Museum, the Union League Archives, or Temple University's Special Collections Research Center.

Thanks, David! It means a lot!

Some portion of the funds would go to employing an exhibits coordinator and the rest would go towards logistics and marketing.

$10,000

It is a little bizarre to arrive at $10,000 and see it as a pitiful sum, but having worked my way down, it's tough to imagine what this amount could buy.

I considered this question two months ago and proposed a Row Home Museum. While I'm still interested in that idea, it is very clear that $10,000 would only fund a feasibility study or something similar.

David is very tired of hearing about the Row Home Museum.

With an amount of money this small, it is not really feasible to strike out into new territory: the overhead of any new venture is high and there would be no money left for wages. Rather this should probably go to a vulnerable program at an existing institution, such as a bus fund.

Conclusions?

I feel like my head aches from considering so much money that I'll never have!

This is just my first time considering these big questions and I am sure I will revisit this in the months and years to come.

What would you do with these sums of money to foster the cultural economy?

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