For some cultural nonprofits, one of the issues that annual budgets do not always adequately account for is facility maintenance and development. Some nonprofits are based out of historic buildings, others raise funds to further develop their spaces, and sometimes accidents happen, damaging collections or the building. There are examples within Philadelphia’s cultural sector of nonprofits needing funding to maintain, improve, or repair their facilities.
A photograph of the former Superintendent's mansion at the Pennhurst State School and Hospital property in Spring City, PA.
The Pennhurst Memorial and Preservation Alliance, when I worked for them as an intern several years ago, operated their archival work not from the former Pennhurst property in Spring City, Pennsylvania, but out of an office in Havertown, near Philadelphia. Since then, they acquired ownership of the historic former Superintendent’s Residence on the Pennhurst property and began working towards developing it into a museum and interpretive center. This does not include the maintenance of other buildings on the property, however, many of them have long since fallen into disrepair and may soon be demolished. The plans for the museum and interpretive center, to the best of my knowledge, remain in progress. This includes repairing and maintaining the former Superintendent’s Residence as well as the development of exhibits to be presented in the rooms on the building’s main floor.
A photograph of the William Way Community Center at 1315 Spruce Street in Philadelphia.
The William Way Community Center, on the other hand, presents an example of a cultural nonprofit further developing its spaces, as it recently expanded its archives’ reading room into a second room adjacent to the room holding the John J. Wilcox, Jr. Archives. In 2014 the archives received a $330,000 grant from the William Penn Foundation to be released over three years, all geared towards repurposing the extant space into what would become a fully realized research facility. One major reason for this repurposing was lack of space for researchers looking to use the archives’ materials. Insufficient space is an issue for cultural institutions housing vast materials but who cannot always afford to store it.
A photograph of the Second Bank of the United States, a part of the Independence National Historical Park which houses nearly 200 portraits and related artifacts.
Finally, disaster plans are a must for any repository if they want to be prepared to expediently protect their collections, but things happen. For example, in 2015 a small fire broke out in the portrait gallery in the Second Bank of the United States, an historic building in the Independence National Historical Park. The fire itself did minimal damage to the collection thanks to swift action from the fire department, but the smoke created impacted the paintings significantly enough to close the gallery for a full year while park curators and outside contractors cleaned each of the gallery’s nearly 200 paintings and other objects. Fortunately, the building itself was not damaged much by the fire either, though significant cleaning was required to remove the soot from the ventilation, walls, and carpets. This story serves as an example of how funding is necessary in conservation of collections and the buildings that house them.
Whether it’s to do with maintaining the building out of which your nonprofit operates, improving and expanding your space, or working to bounce back from an accident or natural disaster, funding that relates to the physical space within which cultural nonprofits operate is and will likely always be a point of need in the cultural sector. As long as nonprofits operate out of physical spaces, funding will always be needed to maintain, protect, restore, and even expand their physical capacities.
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Sources:
Pennhurst Memorial & Preservation Alliance, "PMPA Signs Memorandum of Agreement for Future Museum/Interpretive Center," Welcome to the Pennhurst Memorial & Preservation Alliance, 2015. http://www.preservepennhurst.org/. (Accessed 2/26/18).
Pennhurst Memorial & Preservation Alliance, "Six Year Draft Plan for New Interpretive Center," Welcome to the Pennhurst Memorial & Preservation Alliance, 2015. http://www.preservepennhurst.org/. (Accessed 2/26/18).
Erin Bernard, "Reanimating the Archives at William Way," Hidden City Philadelphia, December 17, 2014. https://hiddencityphila.org/2014/12/reanimating-the-archives-at-william-way/. (Accessed 2/26/18).
Jim Burnett, "Smoke From Fire Impacts Major Art Collection At Independence National Historical Park," National Parks Traveler, January 21, 2015. https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2015/01/smoke-fire-impacts-major-art-collection-independence-national-historical-park26177. (Accessed 2/26/18).
Peter Crimmins, "Historic Second Bank reopens with portraits of famous Philadelphians," WHYY: Arts & Entertainment, May 27, 2016. https://whyy.org/articles/historic-second-bank-reopens-with-portraits-of-famous-philadelphians-photos/. (Accessed 2/26/18).