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Fundraising for - and with - The History Project
Meet with potential sponsors to build interest in your local history project. |
Your organization can participate in The History Project and earn revenue to support your local history activity or other group projects. Such revenue can offset your publishing expenses and even generate a surplus.
Each history site has a periodic (normally monthly) fee. When your group agrees to develop multiple sites, you'll share in the revenue to The History Project.
You can also develop relationships with local sponsors, who can sponsor either your local history project itself or individual sites. A major local firm might underwrite your entire effort. It costs nothing to ask!
You can sell "history buff" merchandise through an online or local outlet. Your supporters will be interested in CD-ROM or printed versions of your local history "book" and perhaps in logo merchandise like hats, t-shirts and mugs. We're not in that business, but surely a local provider can suggest ways to increase income.
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Revenue and Expenses
Here's a sample budget (these figures are presented only as an example and should not be interpreted as indicative of the actual revenue or expenses you might experience).
| LOCAL HISTORY PROJECT: REVENUE AND EXPENSE EXAMPLE |
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| Item |
Quantity |
Unit |
Term |
Total/Year |
| Revenue |
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| Sites1 |
1,000 |
$10 |
M |
$120,000 |
| Sponsorships2 |
100 |
$1,000 |
Y |
$100,000 |
| Misc.3 |
|
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Y |
$50,000 |
| Total |
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Y |
$270,000 |
| Expenses |
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| Publishing (THP)4 |
1,000 |
$5 |
Y |
$60,000 |
| Mentors5 |
7 |
$1,000 |
M |
$84,000 |
| Writer Stipends |
? |
? |
? |
? |
| Marketing |
|
|
Y |
$12,000 |
| Total |
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Y |
$156,000 |
| Net Income |
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Y |
$114,000 |
Analysis and Planning
Naturally the policies you set for the amount of donations requested, for paying the student participants or for using volunteer labor or for doing the sites as part of a school curriculum will change the nature of your business plan. Our point is simply to demonstrate that a combination of individual and community donations should suffice to pay the relatively small cost of publishing the sites through The History Project.
Questions? Use the Contacts form to initiate a dialog.
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Notes
- Each site includes multiple pages, article manager, image gallery..., plus editing suite.
- Sponsors might be local businesses, social and fraternal organizations.
- Miscellaneous income might be received for ancillary services like Internet access or products like printed books and logo paraphernalia for your project.
- Assumes sites are purchased at a discount in increments of 100.
- Each mentor works with five to ten teams. Each team supports ten to twenty sites during original construction which some sites will be maintained by teams and others by the subjects themselves. The work requirement for each mentor is approximately ten hours per week. Appropriate mentors are teachers or college students or history buffs with some experience building history sites in the system.
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