AAT 3RD QUARTER 2022 REPORT TO THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS September 9-10, 2022 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Agenda II. Board Minutes III. Nomination to Steering Committee – Lindsay Harrell Bio IV. Strategic Priorities V. Vice Chair’s Report – David Madeira, Vice Chair VI. LeMay—America’s Car Museum Report—Paul Miller, VP Finance and Operations VII. America On Wheels Report –Linda Merkel, Executive Director VIII. The RPM Foundation—Nick Ellis, Executive Director
UNIFIED BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING September 10, 2022 AGENDA I. WELCOME AND REMARKS—Michael D. Towers, Chairman II. APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF JUNE 2022 BOARD MEETING III. GOVERNANCE –Nomination of Lindsey Harrell to the Steering Committee – David L. Madeira, Vice Chair IV. 2023 to 2027 STRATEGIC PRIORITIES—David L. Madeira, Vice Chairman V. AAT REPORT—David L. Madeira, Vice Chairman VI. LEMAY—AMERICA’s CAR MUSEUM REPORT—Paul E. Miller, Sr. VP Finance and Operations VII. AMERICA ON WHEELS REPORT—Linda Merkel, Executive Director VIII. RPM FOUNDATION REPORT—Nick Ellis, Executive Director IX. CLOSING OF MEETING—Michael D. Towers, Chairman X. CLOSING OF MEETING—Michael D. Towers, Chairman XI. EXECUTIVE SESSION—Michael D. Towers, Chairman
Nomination to the Steering Committee Lindsey Harrell
Staff attendees: Diane Flis-Schneider, Nina Ruchirat, Emily Cook, Diane Flis-Schneider, Nick Ellis, Linda Merkel
June 10, Allentown,2022PA
III. VICE CHAIRMAN REPORT – David Madeira
Action MichaelItemTowers: Motion made to approve the minutes for AAT/ACM/AOW/RPM. Moved – Corry McFarland Seconded by – Gary Gartner All approved. Motion carried.
AAT/ACM/AOW/RPM Board Meeting Minutes
Board Attendees Via Zoom: B. Corry McFarland, Jill Campbell, Jamie Will, Doug Clark, Nicolle Girard, Tom Nault, Bill Hall, Trevor Cobb, Brew Weyerhaeuser, John Barline, Brock Jenkins, Mike Holmes, Gina Zinn, John Carlson, Jason Altman, Blake Siebe, Paul Ianuario
Called meeting to order at 9:07 EST Board Attendees in Person: Paul Miller, David Madeira, Michael T, Phillips, Alan Granberg, Ike Eisenhart, Nancy LeMay, Doug LeMay, Gerald Greenfield, Keith Flickinger, TG Mittler, Gary Gartner
A. David reviewed the gala weekend agenda including the shortened Drive Home and our involvement in Detroit Auto Show. Concord Club dinner and award - Nicola Bulgari, Master Collector, and Master Craftsman awards will all take place at a separate dinner on Friday night,
I. CHAIRMAN’S WELCOME AND REMARKS – Michael Towers A. Michael Towers welcomed all II. APPROVAL OF MINUTES from January 29, 2022, Board Meeting
then Saturday night, the gala. Sunday morning will be the opening of the Wunderkar exhibit featuring the featuring BMW NW Club.
B. Pandemic restrictions and staffing challenges were discussed. David reviewed new hires including Jake Welk, Nina Ruchirat, and Emily Cook. David extended a thank you to existing staff for coming together during difficult times.
E. Staffing goals were discussed - Fundraising, hiring an Executive Assistant, rebuilding Institutional Advancement, Corporate Sponsorships and Fundraising and Grants.
IV. The Mayor of Allentown said a few words about the importance of car culture in Allentown PA.
V. AOW Development – Gary Gartner
G. A discussion on Al Ruozzi and his commitment to cars and AOW ensued.
VI. AOW Mid-Year Update – Linda Merkel
D. Concourse Club activity has been increasing. Gala fundraising has increased. David briefly reviewed Raise the Paddle commitments.
Action Item David Madeira: Motion to approve Christina Gaeta – pending acceptance
F. Board development and prospects were reviewed.
Action Item Alan G. – Motion to approve Al Ruozzi to Board of Directors
C. September planning for 2023 has started early, and been progressive, successful, and communicative, which has not happened the last couple years.
Seconded by – Keith Flickinger All approved. Motion carried.
A. Reviewed awarded grants
Seconded by – Gerald Greenfield All approved. Motion carried.
A. Gary discussed residential development – (NIZ) Neighborhood Improvement Zone rights. 2.3 million dollars in potential revenue to sell NIZ rights. Those funds would go into a slush fund for AOW. This project should take about two years to complete. Will increase foot traffic and hopefully increase membership.
F. Tacoma Creates grant was secured at 280,000, an increase from last year
B. Membership Development – Membership is lacking due to pandemic complications, staff vacancies, and lack of standard operating procedures for the last couple years. Membership needs to clean up our database. Members have had to reach out multiple times to get their issues fixed. Incorporating a new database (Acme and Razor’s Edge) has been discussed. A
D. Shop Hop’s are being turned over to partner entities so RPM can focus more on outreach
IX. AAT Mid-Year Updates
B. Children’s programs are able to continue into mid 2023 C. NIZ project reviewed D. EITC for educational program approvals were reviewed E. Linda indicated that tours have been very successful
C. Collections is increasing its running fleet D. The museum generated in excess of 2 million has been generated in structural support, federal grants, and direct money. We were able to refinance our Colombia Bank loan, and museum was also able to secure 3 million in financing E. The museum secured direct grant money from the state to assist with sales tax referral
B. Working on marketing strategy and social media presence
A. National Initiatives – The Drive Home – Sept. 8th – 19th. Kick Off Cruise In on Sept. 8th. Discussed Apex dinner and the possibility of having one in Allentown. Building Detroit presence with the invitation only Oldfield Society Dinner Sept. 19th. Partnership with the Gilmore Museum via virtual programing ex: If Cars Could Talk, and Virtual Tours. Second half of the year, they will be focusing on Scottsdale coming into 2023 to increase their presence. - Ashley Bice
B. Education has been hit and miss because of Covid. They are slowly starting to return in person
F. AOW has been working with Allentown police for Classic and Cruises – registration currently sits at 75 G. 23 leaks have been repaired on the roof
H. Thank you to RPM Foundation for intern grant I. Membership and exhibits touched on J. Road access has been improved for AOW VII. Inter-rim Report – Paul Miller
VIII. RPM Foundation Mid-Year Update – Nick Ellis
A. Applied for apprenticeship program funding through Dept. of Labor – 1.9 million in funding has been requested
C. In the process of launching the Endangered Skills program
A. ACM is currently open to the public five days a week. The two days we are closed to the public, museum spaces are rented for events.
AAT/ACM Executive Committee to act on behalf of LeMay Dome Parking Assoc., RPM Foundation, and AOW. Minutes reflect as AAT/ACM Board instead of Executive Committee
X. Education Committee Report – TG Mittler
Action
Miller - To correct Jan. 29th, 2022, Board Meeting Minutes – Correction as follows:
G. Paul Miller pointed out that the minutes call this as the ACM/AAT/RPM board meeting, but they are also the Lemay Dome Parking Association and the AOW board as well.
C. Marketing – Very little to no marketing activity for a year or more. Nina discussed Facebook and Instagram demographics. The website needs to be audited. Inventory of domains etc. A more formal proposal will be prepared for September. Suggestions were made to use TikTok and Snap Chat as marketing platforms. Newsletters have been re-instituted post Covid with favorable outcomes. Press, Media, and Public relations and advertising were discussed, as well as bringing back Signature Events and plans for the 10-year anniversary. VR technology was briefly touched on. - Nina Ruchirat
conversation on branding for membership was discussed. Renewal campaign in the months to follow. Expectations moving forward are that member inquiries and acknowledgements will be addressed/sent out in 24 hours. Honing messaging, creating templates, and auditing are priorities in the months to come as well as bringing back member events. - Emily Cook
B. Income statements were reviewed.
Seconded by – TG Mittler All approved. Motion carried.
A. Trevor reviewed balance sheets, pointing out that expenses and revenues are up. He reiterated we have been able to access government financing.
D. Trevor reviewed Balance Sheets and Income Statements. E. Trevor touched on the importance of endowments.
XI. Finance Committee Report – Trevor Cobb and Paul Miller
D. Club Auto – Tacoma’s Club Auto will be open a few days a week for member’s enjoyment. Blake Siebe mentioned Rallista App not being utilized. It is complimentary to us and he would like to see it integrated.
C. Paul Miller noted that board members are used to see these statements as comparative against budgets, but this year these are comparative against last year so they will look a little different, Once the budgets are adopted, they will again be compared to budgets.
F. Paul Miller reviewed budgets for ACM, AAT, RPM, and Dome Parking Association.
Motion:ItemByPaul
A. Education task force was discussed. Member organizations of the trust have been coming together to collaborate on education outreach. RPM received 16 applications and awarded 7 grants to 6 different organizations; for a total of $46,215 awarded to those entities.
Action MotionItembyPaul Miller to approve 2022 ACM Budget
Action MotionItembyPaul Miller to approve 2022 RPM Budget by the Executive Committee
Seconded: TG Mittler All approved. Motion carried. Action MotionItembyPaul Miller to approve Dome Parking Association Budget by the Executive Committee
Seconded: Corry McFarland All approved. Motion carried.
MotionItembyCorry
Seconded: David Madeira All approved. Motion carried. XII. Audit Committee Report – Alan Granberg A. Biggest change this year was the incorporation of AOW. This is the first year of the consolidation. Some of the larger changes are due to incorporating the balance sheet of AOW into our balance sheets. Recommendation is that the board adopts and approves the audit for 2022. Action McFarland to accept the audit
Seconded: Paul Ianuario All approved. Motion carried. Action MotionItembyPaul Miller to approve 2022 AAT Budget
____________________ Printed Name: _________________________________________________________________Title:____________________________________________
Approved by: Date:
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Seconded: Trevor Cobb All approved. Motion carried. XIII. Keith Flickinger - Brought up the possibility of giving out free memberships as a way to get people to use them, get them through the door, and encourage them to pay for renewal. A brief discussion ensued. Minutes prepared by Sarah Collins – Executive Assistant to the CEO
AMERICA’S AUTMOTIVE TRUST 3rd Quarter Report 2022 September 10, 2022 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. AAT REPORT A. VICE CHAIRMAN’S REPORT – David Madeira B. NATIONAL STRATEGIC INITIATIVES REPORT – Ashley Bice C. MARKETING REPORT – Nina Ruchirat D. CORPORATE FOUNDATION RELATIONS REPORT – Susan Scanlon E. MEMBERSHIP DEVELOPMENT REPORT – Emily Cook F. CLUB AUTO REPORT – Diane Flis-Schneider G. CONCOURS CLUB REPORT – David Madeira H. FINANCE AND OPERATIONS REPORT – Paul Miller
Build relationships with constituents—individual and corporate—who should be involved in the missions of the Trust and its member entities.
Strategic Priorities:
America’s Automotive Trust 2023-2027 Strategic Priorities
Engage constituents as volunteers, board members, members, sponsors and major donors to the Thisinstitution.focusonstrategic
Introduction
Communicate our vision, mission, and programs to appropriate local, regional, and national constituents.
I. Secure Immediate Operational Support for 2023 in the Amount of $5,000,000 or more. Our highest priority is to secure immediate operational pledges from major prospects through efforts of the CEO, Executive Directors of our member entities, Advancement staff, Chairman, Vice Chairman, Board Development Committee, and Board members to provide time for broader major gift donor development. An effort to secure multi-year pledges to support the Trust and its member entities would provide financial ‘breathing room’ to take on the strategic
The Board of Directors of America’s Automotive Trust recognizes that in order to fulfill the mandate of our Charter, we must create long-term Strategic Priorities and Annual Operating Plans which, in proper order and simultaneously:
positioning led to the creation of ‘America’s Automotive Trust’ as the umbrella corporation for LeMay—America’s Car Museum, the RPM Foundation, Club Auto and Concours Club efforts. It is the same strategic thinking that brought the America On Wheels Museum into the Trust in 2021. This strategic approach also led us to create formal affiliations with the NB Center for American Automotive Heritage, the Gilmore Car Museum, and The Great Race and leads us to collaborate with other entities to promote America’s automotive culture.
The reorganization under the Trust is producing operational efficiencies and enhanced opportunities in Marketing and Development. It is beginning to ease administrative cost burdens as we eliminate redundancies and develop synergies. With larger purpose than simply that of a traditional museum and with national promotional and development efforts underway broader philanthropic support has begun to materialize and should continue to do so.
C. Enhance Major and Planned Gift Development efforts through filling Major Gift development positions at AOW and at ACM and re-activation of our planned giving program.
II. Rebuild AAT’s Institutional Advancement Division and through it, enhance communications, marketing and development efforts to provide for ongoing operational and capital support of the Trust and its organizations. .
D. Continued activation of our national Club Auto program based out of Detroit and ‘officed’ with our partners at the Detroit Auto Dealers Association to demonstrate a ‘physical’ presence. It is important that Club Auto provide driving and auto related activities in Allentown, Detroit, Tacoma, and Scottsdale to encourage a broad membership of car enthusiasts who will be ambassadors for the Trust and a source of much needed funding. It is vitally important the Club Auto Tacoma at ACM be active again with Cruise-Ins, dedicated times for members, and particularly with promotion of member vehicle storage. Exploration of how to do the same at AOW must be a 2023 priority.
B. Filling vacant positions in Marketing related to communications and events’ management to effectively communicate and promote the mission of the Trust and to increase membership and attendance at the museums.
priorities of major gift development and a much-needed long-term endowment and capital campaign.
Institutional Advancement-- Marketing and Development-- have suffered greatly due to the dismantling of the Advancement Division in 2019, lack of a Vice President to lead the Division for 4 years; vacancies in the department; and the onset of the Corona virus pandemic. Core activities of a membership program, Club Auto and Concours Club were unable to function. Progress in rebuilding began in 2022 with the hiring of a Marketing Director, a Social Media Coordinator, a Membership and Annual Fund Manager, and a Corporate Foundation Relations Officer. Yet more work needs to be done to provide a solid Advancement effort:
A. Hiring an experienced Vice President for Institutional Advancement, one who has demonstrated significant success in major gift development, to lead the Division.
F. Effectively engage the Executive Directors of the Trust’s organizations, and our regional Advancement Officers in the process of major gift development and as a Development Strategy Group to promote collaborative fundraising.
E. Boost corporate, foundation and government support through the Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations through compilation of funding needs and opportunities list, aggressive efforts to identify, cultivate and solicit potential funding sources and through enhanced stewardship efforts.
G. Ten years after the completion of the ‘Drive for America’s Car Museum’ campaign which built LeMay—America’s Car Museum and provided several years of operational support, it is
III. Complete Operational Integration of America On Wheels into the Trust. Legal integration of America On Wheels into the Trust was accomplished in 2021 with appropriate Board action by both entities to do so. Though hindered by Covid and staff vacancies, integration of marketing, membership and development efforts were begun in 2022 with a staff planning retreat at AOW. Of highest priority is completion of financial integration into the Trust, hiring of appropriate Advancement staff at AOW, and bringing AOW leadership into the Trust’s annual planning and budgeting process. Club Auto and Concours Club membership must begin to be promoted in the AOW region. In addition, plans must continue to include direct Board activity at AOW on an annual basis.
The Board is the fiduciary body responsible for the well-being of the Trust and fulfillment of its mission. The Board is charged with hiring the Chief Executive Officer; adopting institutional Strategic Priorities, approving and providing oversight of annual plans and budgets; promoting the institutional mission, and providing for institutional funding.
C. Give of their financial resources on behalf of our mission including annual support of operations, support of endowment and capital campaigns, and inclusion in estate plans.
imperative that the Trust launch a capital and endowment campaign after the Advancement Division is rebuilt. The celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Grand Opening of ACM should help us begin to promote the message of the importance of such a campaign.
IV. Provide for continued Board Development. A national constituency is needed to sustain the mission of AMERICA’S AUTOMOTIVE TRUST. The most important factor in developing this constituency and in acquiring the necessary resources for the Trust is the existence of a committed and prominent Board of Directors supported by a similarly strong Steering Committee.
A. Share our vision and our passion.
B. Support us with their talents in their areas of expertise.
Membership of the Board must consist of those who are well-known among their peers as leaders in the auto and consumer-related industries, enthusiast and collector communities, and as members of the media and motor sports figures. In the case of the Museums, it is also important to acquire directors prominent in their regional communities. Our governance plan adopted in June 2019 waived the requirement limiting the Board to twenty-nine (29) members and currently our membership surpasses forty (40) members. As we examine Board membership, we should consider appropriate size and adopt a By-Law, if necessary, to re-state our membership limits. In addition, we will need to carefully consider replacement of members whose terms expire and must continue to seek to bring to our Board individuals who will add to our strength seeking those individuals who:
Sadly, the plans to engage new CEO of the Trust and new Executive Director of LeMay— America’s Car Museum have experienced setbacks and at the end of 2021 David Madeira resumed leadership of the Trust with charge to rebuild Marketing and Development efforts, provide for the integration of AOW into the Trust, lead strategic initiatives and work with the Board to engage new leadership. In late summer of 2022, a search for an Executive Director for LeMay-America’s Car Museum will begin. With that appointment Paul Miller will assume a part time role as VP Finance and be charged, among other things to continue to seek governmental funding for all Trust entities and to explore the opportunity to develop the remaining acre adjacent to America’s Car Museum before our option on that land is forfeited. At the same time a search for a new VP Finance will be initiated and when complete Paul will assume a part time role in support of the VP on a consulting basis rather than employee.
D. Use their influence to bring others into supportive relationships with the Trust, ACM and RPM Foundation. Board recruitment efforts will focus on leaders from areas of endeavor of strategic importance to us. Key geographic areas where we need to build board membership include Detroit, Scottsdale, and eastern Pennsylvania/New York.
In recognition of the importance of Board Development, the Chairman, Vice Chairman and CEO will work to provide a variety of Board development activities designed to educate Board Members about their responsibilities and to engage them actively in strategic planning. Board meetings or activities will be provided for at each of the Trust’s Museums as well as in key centers of our Advancement activities— Detroit and Scottsdale.
The transition began in October 2017 as David Madeira relinquished the CEO post and accepted appointment as Vice Chairman of the Trust Board for Strategic Initiatives and Board Ondevelopment.apositivenote,
V. Continue Implementation of Leadership Succession Plans for AAT. In the Board- approved 2015 leadership transition plan, the Museum Board created the Trust structure and prepared for the replacement of the CEO and ACM and RPM Presidents during a five year transition period. An orderly leadership transition ensures that searches for the positions of the Trust, Museum and Foundation are neither underway nor vacant at the same time. Further, it ensures that institutional knowledge is retained.
Nick Ellis assumed leadership of RPM Foundation and has brought renewed vigor to the program. Linda Merkel provides continuity of leadership at AOW ensuring stability as it is brought into the Trust.
The partnership with NAIAS in particular gives the Trust an incredible platform for such positioning. We should also continue to develop a strong partnership with the Detroit Athletic Club and engage its car club in our activities thereby developing relationships with influential members of the Detroit business community. We have long recognized that it is vital that we have a visible presence in Scottsdale, and we must act to establish that presence in 2023 through conduct of our annual Board activities in January, and implementation of meaningful and visible Club Auto initiatives. Planning must take into account the wonderful opportunities we have to do so, particularly with our partner Hagerty and through the presence of a number of Board members and friends with collector garages in that locality. It should be a high priority to hire an Advancement Officer in Scottsdale in 2023.
VII. Promote Aggressively to Drive Attendance, Membership, and Sponsorship of our Museums. We have firmly established LeMay–AMERICA’S CAR MUSEUM in the media and general public to great effect. The ACM brand has also encouraged membership from a wide geographical area and visitors have come from all 50 states and 42 foreign nations. Out of region visitors account for approximately 28% of our attendance. Out of county visitors number approximately 75% of our visitation. Our weakest attendance remains from the immediate county—largely military personnel or blue collar workers whose work schedules, hours, and income makes regular visitation more of a struggle for them.
A national presence, with strong partnerships, and a variety of offerings in support of our vision to promote automotive culture, is the key to distinguishing ourselves from traditional museums. Attainment of these goals is our best hope for developing broad and major gift support. The Chairman, Vice Chair for Strategic Initiatives and the CEO are responsible for pursuing these national initiatives. We have made significant moves in this regard with: the addition of America On Wheels to the Trust ‘family’ on the East Coast; the establishment of an active Detroit presence and partnership with the Detroit Auto Dealer’s Association/Motor Bella; the successful Drive Home Series; formal affiliations with The Gilmore Car Museum in Michigan and with the NB Center for American Automotive Heritage in Allentown. Collaborations with The Auburn Cord Duesenberg and other museums are piquing the interest of other organizations to affiliate with the Trust. It is important that we continue to demonstrate our collaboration with other organizations and to selectively formally affiliate with those institutions which demonstrate similar character and like-minded approach to mission.
By early 2023, a search for a new VP Advancement to lead Trust Marketing and Development efforts will also be initiated and with that completed all leadership positions will be filled and a search for a CEO replacement for David Madeira will begin.
VI. Continue to Develop National Strategic Presence for the Trust.
AAT must continue to develop its organizational capacities relative to human resources management, financial systems, and most importantly Institutional Advancement. Efforts must provide for staffing and systems to enable the Trust and its entities to successfully conduct operations at modest cost. In 2023 this must include increased attention to the role of AAT Senior Vice President for Finance and Operations and the implementation of integrated ‘shared’ services for the benefit of ACM, AOW, and RPM. These includes implementation of a new Constituent Relations Database system to enhance development, membership, and financial reporting. Capacity building also needs to focus on improvement in policies, procedures, systems, and technology.
On Wheels Museum faced similar circumstances as did LeMay—America’s Car Museum with the Covid pandemic shutting it down for considerable time. AOW also is located in an ‘industrial’ and has relatively small outdoor space for automotive events. However its relationship with The NB Center as well as proximity to the region’s amazing country roads provides spectacular opportunities for promotional activities through which to encourage membership, attendance and event participation. The partnership with the Ruozzi Brothers collection and their promotional efforts has provided a welcome boost. Significantly with the generosity of Nicola Bulgari and efforts of Gary Gartner, the prospect of the retail/dining/entertainment complex to be constructed adjacent to the Museum holds great promise for attendance and membership in late 2023 or early 2024.
Thus, while we have solid brand recognition and consistently win regional awards as the most popular museum or ‘family entertainment’, we have not yet attained the levels of visitation and membership that we desire. Worse, with the Corona pandemic, the Museum was closed much of 2020 and 2021 and was largely invisible to the public other than a few Drive in Movies and other activities. Membership, admissions, events, and other revenue suffered serious decline and in 2022 we have been struggling to regain lost audience and regain momentum. This has been made more difficult with staffing shortages and the extremely tight labor market post Ourpandemic.America
Accordingly, we must use the high visibility of Trust initiatives, such as ‘The Drive Home’ series, to generate international media and national public awareness. The Trust, including Museums, RPM, and Club Auto must produce regional events which are unique, fun, and educational in order to drive visitation and to promote membership. We must clearly communicate that all entities of the Trust are ‘engaged’ in automotive community and culture and that our museums are destinations worth visiting repeatedly. We must expand these efforts to promote our brand and to develop a strong social network around the world via direct and electronic means. A strong national brand at the center of the enthusiast culture has and will attract corporate sponsorship and major gift support.
VIII. Strengthen Institutional Capacities of AAT including its member organizations.
Our museums must develop flexible 3 to 5 year exhibition plans to enable development staff to seek advance funding necessary for exhibition renewal. Such plans should consider the needs of the OEMs in reaching specific audiences, in product launches and in calling attention to important milestones, thereby enhancing our ability to attracting corporate support for exhibits.
Similarly, America On Wheels, now some 20 years old, has had funding to only modestly refresh exhibits, modernize equipment and develop some of its wonderful spaces—such as the café— for maximum use and benefit.
While receipt of the Murdock, Cheney and Puget Sound Energy grants enabled us to secure $1,000,000 to open the ‘Alternative Propulsion’ Laboratory in 2018, America’s Car Museum has lacked adequate funds to regularly refresh exhibits, equipment and facilities since the Grand Opening in 2012. With little endowment, fundraising focus has necessarily been on operations and not sufficiently on capital needs.
IX. Enhance and “Re-Fresh” Museum Exhibits and Facilities
We must continue efforts to acquire capital and endowment funds to provide for further enhancements and for ongoing maintenance so that our museums continue to present a firstrate visitor experience and reputation. As part of such an effort, funds should be sought to enhance our landscaping and parking amenities—currently a weak point for presentation of the Museums. Helga Haub, original donor for Haub Family Field at ACM, has recently committed $30,000 for improvements to the show field so that we can make it an attractive venue for car club meets, car shows, cruise-ins, drive in movies, concerts, and special events which are so important to attract visitors. Refreshed and new exhibitions are of critical importance to maintaining a reputation for excellence and as museums worth repeat visitation. ‘Virtual’ exhibitions and openings must become a part of this mix not only to maintain public awareness during the current virus pandemic, but to reach an international audience creatively and effectively.
Critical to ensuring these strategic tasks will be the hiring of a Curator of Collections and Exhibitions reporting to the CEO and responsible to provide for curation at both America’s Car
Exhibition plans and funding must also include incremental funding so that current exhibits can be refreshed on an ongoing basis. Digital programming bringing context to specific vehicles and small exhibits can greatly improve the visitor experience and eliminate boring displays of cars with simple signs merely stating what they are.
We need to regularly examine and provide funding for periodic major changes and improvements of the exhibits, equipment and facilities for both museums, while more frequently offering new exhibitions at more modest cost which project the museums as venues consistently providing new experiences for visitors.
The RPM Foundation needs to refocus its efforts on providing full-time apprenticeships to provide immediate channel of potential employees for restoration shops nationally. So, too, RPM should focus funding on fewer educational institutions –such as Penn College of Technology and McPherson College— as key partners to attract and retain students through provision of scholarship, internship and apprenticeship opportunities. Further, we must find ways to develop partnerships with key restoration shops and master craftsmen to increase apprenticeship opportunities where students can obtain in-depth training to develop as young Importantly,professionals.the
Trust’s Apex Dinner series and similar events can, with proper attention and positioning, become educational tools which promote the Trust as a ‘thought-leader’ in the automotive culture as it enters this critical time of change to inclusion of driverless vehicles and transition to alternative fuels. Finally, there may be significant opportunity with the NB Center for American Automotive Heritage to develop a national, apprenticeship program which can have a significant impact in the preservation industry.
Through the foresight of Nicola Bulgari and the efforts of Gary Gartner, a residential/retail/dining and entertainment complex will soon be developed adjacent to America On Wheels Museum. The project includes provision of a significant, direct income stream to the Museum and, of course, the development will provide a source of visitors/members for AOW.
X. Land Development and Museum Revenue Opportunities
In the same manner, we have an option on 1 acre of land adjacent to the LeMay—America’s Car Museum. As long as we include a museum-related purpose we can secure the land from the City. As we transition leadership, Paul Miller should serve as our point person working with me to explore multi-use development with the purpose of creating a revenue stream and attendance enhancement for ACM. It is possible that such a development could include direct Museum facilities such as club space, vehicle storage or other facilities and be part of a campaign which could include endowment. The option expires in 9 years and given Paul Miller’s extensive local government relations we should make this a high priority XI. Enhance Education Programs.
The Trust, Museums and RPM Foundation are granted tax-exempt status as educational institutions and must fulfill their educational missions with service to collectors, enthusiast groups, and students of all ages. The completion of ‘Powering the Future’ provided the America’s Car Museum Education Program with a tremendous boost. The program must continue to be enhanced with revisions in the years ahead to promote awareness of our important service to the community and to attract families to membership. Additionally, the Museum should continue to explore partnership with the Industrial Design and Engineering Academy and potential for bringing it on to the Museum campus.
Museum and America On Wheels. The Curator should be supported by a Collections Manager and Exhibit Designer to conduct these functions.
XII. Enhance Museum Collection Management
As the foregoing actions proceed, the Collection Committee and Collection Management should work closely with Marketing and Development efforts to promote acquisition (through donation) of desired additions to the collection and of vehicles to be sold for revenue purposes. Additionally, the Committee and staff should develop plans for vehicle display, vehicle “exercise” plans, and for use of select vehicles in tours, in concours, etc.
In all areas of our educational efforts, significant attention must be paid to developing on-line and virtual program delivery. Again, this is not simply due to the current pandemic, but is important to remain relevant to a national audience and a younger audience.
We can be proud that America’s Automotive Trust is being recognized nationally for its efforts to preserve and promote America’s automotive heritage. The Trust’s mission is being ably carried out by our two dynamic Museums which promote ‘America’s love affair with the car’ and by the RPM Foundation as a leader in providing education of young people for careers in restoration and preservation. Our partnerships with the NB Center for American Automotive Heritage, the Detroit Auto
The LeMay, America On Wheels and RPM all have significant educational programs. With the integration of the Trust completed in 2021, our organizational leaders must make a serious effort to explore how each of our entities can collaborate to build on their combined strengths creating educational programs ranging from local to national in reach, serving youth and adult populations, and meeting the needs of the enthusiast to those pursuing careers in the automotive arena.
The Collection plays a central role in the ability of our museums to fulfill their missions as vehicles provide for on-site displays, off-site traveling exhibitions, and are used in vintage events and tours. In 2023 a Collection status review should continue to take place under the purview of the Collection Committee to determine: a. Which vehicles should be retained in the permanent Collection b. Which vehicles should be sold to reduce management costs and generate revenue c. What vehicles are still to be received from the LeMay Collection and over what timeframe d. Vehicle use and restoration plans e. A long-term plan to determine the desired scope, character and size of the permanent Collection.
Finally, administrative leadership should explore the potential for the curation of both Museums to be under a unified curation team which would not only provide cost and staffing efficiencies but might enhance the ability for the collections to collaborate in shared exhibits and those which might ‘travel’ promoting our interests more broadly than can occur simply in their traditional museum venues.
SUMMARY
Show, the Gilmore Museum, and The Great Race demonstrate that as we envisioned long ago, The Trust is a force for much-needed collaboration among like-minded institutions. The important work embodied in the foregoing Strategic Priorities is sustaining the financial viability of each member of the Trust in order to fulfill our vision for them and the Trust. The keys to our success are compelling vision, active communication, and proactive engagement with those who should support the cause. We have proven to have a compelling vision. We have expanded our national presence and are proving the concept that collaboration is a stronger model than competition and we are communicating actively on a national scale. Proper attention and dedicated commitment to the Strategic Priorities herein canassure tremendous success if we persevere together.
Resumption
Changes
My commitment to the Board of Directors when I assumed the CEO post in late December 2021 was to rebuild the Trust to return to a sound structure of AOW into that structure of leadership transition plans in personnel where needed to enhance performance and rebuild staff morale
B. Efforts have progressed in integration of membership and gift acknowledgment processes and we’re working toward full financial integration of AOW for the 2023 year. A new database system will help us in this regard.
VICE CHAIRMAN’S REPORT September 9-10, 2022
I. Structure
II. Leadership Transition Plans
A. Replacement of the Executive Director for ACM is our most urgent need. Currently, Paul Miller, who was supposed to transition to a part-time position as VP Finance and Operations in 2022, has been covering the Exec Director responsibility. The role is too important and large for this solution to continue. ACM needs a fulltime E.D. who will both oversee Museum and play an external (fundraising) role in doing so. I am in the process of engaging a firm and establishing a search committee to launch the process immediately after Board meeting.
A. We have paid attention to both the Board structure and organizational structure. I am pleased that we have added to the Board Al Ruozzi, Jonathan Shaw and Jeff Stumb bringing us new leadership from needed automotive partners and geographic areas. In addition, we are adding a new Steering Committee member, Lindsay Harrell, Director of The Hilton Head Concours d’ Elegance who also brings needed female leadership as well as key partnership with an important automotive event.
ensure: A
Integration
Invigoration of Advancement efforts
A Rebuilding Year
C. Our staff planning discussion at AOW in June was a good team building exercise and will prepare staff for operational planning together in September.
A. Sarah Collins as Executive Assistant to the CEO and Manager of the Concours Club
IV. Invigoration of Advancement Efforts
I. Have a search underway for a Membership Events Coordinator. Still, key vacancies remain at America’s Car Museum and because recruitment takes time and planning/budgeting for 2023 is fast upon us, I’m asking Paul Miller to put significant energy into hiring an Education Manager and Collection Manager at this time.
Fundamental to our success is rebuilding of Advancement efforts—Communication, Marketing, and Development. We have made slow progress in each of these areas as will be reported on in sections of this Report to follow. A few notes:
B. Sue Scanlon as Corporate Foundation Relations Officer
III. Staffing I can report that hiring of capable staff with positive attributes of collegiality that we seek has been the most difficult aspect of these efforts this year. As I reported in June, the dearth of such candidates in all areas and all levels of work is confounding. More so is the number of candidates in fields like development who feel they can work entirely remotely from our offices or even geographical areas of work. Work ethics are certainly changing as candidates apply, accept appointments, and fail to show.
C. Nina Ruchirat, as National Marketing Director
D. Emily Cook as Membership and Annual Giving Manager
A. Emily Cook is bringing needed organization and energy to Membership Development. Assisted by Tyler Anderson, the Department has spent an incredible amount of effort to correct and update database records; re-institute regular member renewal and lapsed donor recovery systems, provide for prompt gift acknowledgment and benefit fulfillment. It is our intent to reinstitute regular appeals process to boost annual giving and encourage members to attain
Nevertheless, we have made slow but steady progress and I remain cautiously optimistic that by year’s end we will have filled many vacant roles. I dismissed several staff in key positions do to lack of performance and/or attitudes which were not compatible with building a positive, collaborative team. During this process I am happy to report that we have hired the following individuals who are making positive contributions to our efforts:
F. Crystal Buxton as Guest Services Manager. In doing so we eliminated one manager position and combined Retail, Guest Services, and Café oversight.
G. Have authorized the hiring of an Office Coordinator at AOW.
H. Have searches underway for Major Gift Officers at AOW and ACM.
B. A Curator search will begin in October with intention to bring a new Curator on board to plan an oversee implementation of exhibitory plans for 2023. For the first time this position will report directly to the CEO and be responsible to provide Curation for both Museums.
E. Tyler Anderson as Constituent Relationship Database Manager
D. I am delighted that the area of Corporate Foundation Relations is now being led by Sue Scanlon. Sue brings us much-needed organization and initiative to this effort. In a short period, she has reviewed all corporate sponsors to ensure recognition and benefits; has prioritized prospects, begun visits and, importantly, successfully begun proposal development and solicitation efforts we have not had for several years. Sue is currently cataloging institutional funding needs for all our entities and working to identify appropriate sponsors and foundation grants to pursue.
higher levels of membership in 2023. Membership has brought back our long absent Cruise In program and in 2023 will take over and promote the Drive in Movie Series.
B. Club Auto has also been actively re-engaged as you will learn in Diane Flis-Schneider’s report herein. Club Auto now has an active webpage for its members and Diane has instituted regular communication with members and begun driving activities once more. Importantly at ACM, we have begun to promote Club Auto member car storage as a means of re-activating membership and gaining revenue.
C. Nina has worked tirelessly to help prepare overall marketing rejuvenation along with support of The Drive Home, Wheels and Heels Gala, Concours Cub Gathering, and creation of a 10 th anniversary film—a big effort! In the absence of a Curator, Nina and Jake have also been called upon to develop the Master Collector film and assist with our awards program—items not normally in their purview. We appreciate their hard efforts. Marketing is understaffed and we will take a close look at needs for 2023 as we engage in planning these efforts to support all our entities.
E. National Strategic Initiatives have been difficult to pursue during Covid—in particular The Drive Home Series was limited with inability of sponsors like State Farm, Hagerty or Shell to participate beyond funding and with cancellation of planned drives. Nevertheless, we have made significant progress with continued strong partnership of The Gilmore Car Museum, the NB Center, The Great Race, and others. Our partnership with NAIAS/Detroit Auto Show in this year’s TDH will provide incredible exposure for the Trust thanks to our involvement with Ford on ‘The Mustang Stampede’. The success of past TDHs made this of interest to Ford and have ‘proved’ the value of that initiative, but Ford’s involvement was engineered by Diane Flis Schneider’s cultivation of that relationship. Ashley Bice and I are working on plans to be developed for key initiatives at AOW and involving RPM for the coming winter and early 2023. The foregoing are highlights rather than in depth reports. Each department reports more detailed accounts of their work in the pages to follow. I am pleased at our progress in spite of current difficulties and look forward to shifting into high gear in 2023 with a lot of ‘restoration’ done. Thank you for your support of me and of our team.
2. The Oldfield Society Dinner. Related initiatives include:
NATIONAL STRATEGIC INITIATIVES REPORT
The summer began with planning for strategic initiatives centered around our long-standing partnership with the Detroit Auto Dealers and the North American International Detroit Auto Show and designed to promote the presence and mission of the Trust to international media and the automotive community. These co-sponsored initiatives include:
September 9-10, 2022
1. The Drive Home.
Ashley Bice
2. Collaboration with The Gilmore Car Museum at their annual Model A Club event and the Gilmore’s participation in TDH.
The Drive will begin with a Cruise In at ACM on September 6th and make a hard, 7 day run to Ford World headquarters in Dearborn. In the run, drawing public and media attention will be the camouflaged next
Plans were well underway when in mid-July we needed to ‘scramble’ as Ford approached us with the idea of converting The Drive Home to an all-Mustang event to promote their reveal of the next generation Mustang at the Auto Show this September. Diane Flis-Schneider worked closely with Ford executives to create the partnership and attain Ford’s sponsorship. Given Ford’s desire for secrecy and their own internal discussions as to the precise nature of the plan, we were ‘on hold’ for a number of critical weeks usually devoted to acquiring and prepping cars, planning routes, securing team, creating activations, etc. The ensuing ‘confusion’ and delays made it difficult to proceed with preparations and as of the time of this writing we are ‘all hands-on deck’ to finalize details of TDH. Hence this shorter than usual report. The result is a drive called ‘The Drive Home to the Mustang Stampede’ sponsored by Ford in addition to sponsors State Farm, NAIAS, Hagerty, Shell and Rallista. Ford’s media team is fully engaged with us, and Ford is providing cash, media support, trouble truck and trailer, advance vehicle and 3-person film crew. These are all generally costs we have to bear.
1. A presence at the Detroit Concours d’ Elegance owned by our friends at Hagerty.
generation Mustang. The Drive will loosely follow the old Pony Express route with planned activations in Salt Lake, Ft. Kearney, Joplin, Kansas City, at the ACD Museum, and more. We expect Mustang enthusiasts to be joining us along the way. On the morning of the 14th the Drive Home team will lead the Mustang Stampede to Detroit where 1,000 Mustangs will welcome us, and the new Mustang is revealed. The exposure for the Trust, which began with a Ford press announcement on August 19th will be outstanding. After the Mustang Reveal party, the TDH gang will drive to our affiliate, The Gilmore Car Museum, for participation in their Model A days and return to the Auto Show with cars joining us from the Gilmore. Once back in Detroit, TDH cars will provide ‘Take A Spin’ opportunities shuttling guests between the Auto Show and the Concours on Saturday. We’ll participate with a display at the Concours and then the vehicles will be on display at the Show throughout the week. In addition to the Auto Show and Concours activities, Rod Alberts and David Madeira will co-host the first Oldfield Society Dinner—an invitation only, black tie event designed to celebrate the climax of the Show and the partnership between the Trust and the Show and strengthen ties with regional members of the automotive community important to both organizations. As we go to press, our ‘phones are ringing off the hooks’ with excitement for The Drive Home. Mustang owners from California, Utah, Washington, and other states are clamoring to join the drive—some for its entirety! As a result, we are already establishing relationships with Mustang owners across America and adding many of them to our database and ‘mailing’ lists. We anticipate that The Drive Home to the Mustang Stampede and related activities in Detroit will surpass all media coverage for the Trust and its sponsors than we ever-imagined back in 2015.
10-Year Anniversary retrospective (intended to be screened during the Sept. 6 Cruise-In at ACM/The Drive Home to The Mustang Stampede kickoff, and the Annual
September 2022 By Nina Ruchirat
A. One of the campaigns kicked off in the last quarter was the 2022 10-Year Anniversary “Rolling Thunder.” It was initiated because no Marketing leadership was in place prior to May 2022, so thus there were no formal plans to provide any sort of campaign for the anniversary. The Marketing Department had to do what was feasible and quick to implement, so we kicked off a weekly social campaign on June 2, 2022 (exactly 10 years from when ACM first opened its doors), that has been rolling out weekly every Thursday since, and will continue to do so until the last Thursday of the year. This campaign is intended to encourage nostalgia, momentum, and excitement for the future of not only ACM but for the Trust and its additional entities and affiliates. It has been intended to highlight the retrospective story from pre-groundbreaking until now as part of a glorified “Throwback Thursday (#TBT)” series. Each story ties to a rotating set of primary CTAs as well as encourages re-sharing and user-generated content via hashtag strategy. So far, this campaign has seen some success -- #ACM10Years #TBT posts have popped up as some of the most popular in the @LeMayACM Facebook and Instagram handles since its launch. We have also expanded this campaign and awareness of the 10-Year Anniversary beyond social to be featured as content in our monthly AAT Newsletters, emails, and advertising.
I.Contents:MARKETING INITIATIVES I. STAFFING RECOMMENDATIONS III. MARKETING CHANNELS ASSESSMENT IV. APPENDIX – GEOFENCE DATA I. MARKETING
NATIONAL MARKETING REPORT
Here are status updates of new and existing 2022 marketing initiatives, and proposals for 2023.
B. Rich video content. Here are some medium to high-production value video projects we have worked on and plan to share this fall:
This report is based on the continued findings, assessment, recommendations, and initiatives of the America’s Automotive Trust National Marketing department since the June Board meetings. INITIATIVES
A Tucker car video is also intended to be produced to complement a particular car related to this exhibit.
Master Collector Bruce Wanta (to be part of the 2022 Master Collector exhibit and uploaded to YouTube and shared broadly)
Possible mini-documentary project in the future might also be produced since we have great interview footage with Nancy and Doug LeMay as well.
Raise the Paddle (during the Gala auction on Sept. 10). This will be a truncated version of the 10-Year video with an emphasis on development and fundraising.
results of these paid efforts and continue to “test and learn” to see how we can optimize our strategy and spend for future campaigns.
In addition to these methods, we are testing a partnership with the social influencer profile Launch Mode, which happens to have a heavy presence on TikTok (a channel we have not yet tapped into), YouTube, and Instagram, to hopefully boost this The Drive Home initiative to younger audiences. Depending on results, we may engage with them on future initiatives as well. The face of this team is Adam Faris, who speaks knowledgeably about cars and car culture from a point of view that skews younger than our traditional ACM/AAT audiences:
Reach/Performance: o TikTok – ~6M views per month; each feature video averaging 450K+ views o Instagram – ~1M+ views per month o YouTube – ~11M+ views per month
Gathering of the Concours Club dinner on Sept. 9 and then uploaded to YouTube and shared broadly)
We are starting to branch into this paid social territory starting with boosted posts and the like this fall, and stretching into America’s Automotive Trust handles beyond just @LeMayACM. Our first effort is to support the National Strategic Initiative, The Drive Home – starting with the Cruise-In at ACM on Sept. 6 kicking off The Drive Home to the Mustang Stampede – this year’s special event in partnership with Ford Motor Company, as well as the Detroit Auto Show as per We’llusual.monitor
Demographic - 90% Male, 10% Female (TikTok doesn’t give age ranges, but Instagram is ~65% are between 18-34)
Building a Legacy: Harold and Nancy LeMay – visuals accompanying the exhibit featuring the cars, the LeMay family, other collectible memorabilia, and more.
“Charlie” Haub video featuring an exhibit of two Ford Model A vehicles donated to ACM posthumously by Charlie’s wife Katrin, to be placed in the area of “This Car’s My Baby” and “This Car’s My Favorite” C. Paid social media. Prior to this quarter, the current marketing department had not launched any paid social media campaigns, with the primary focus being on organic content in social media, and mostly until now only on LeMay – America’s Car Museum profiles.
D. The Marketing Department has soft-launched an internal Marketing Request Intake Form, to track a backlog of marketing needs more efficiently (than email or word of mouth alone). It is ideally intended to be open to all AAT and Entity leads, however current domain connections or
E. To ensure the websites of AAT and its entities can be trusted resources for necessary and current communications to promote events, features, and development opportunities, a thorough audit and strategic plan forward for all the Trust’s Web properties needs to be conducted soon – if not by the end of 2022, then definitely 2023, primarily in these areas: Information architecture – site map CSS and layout template options – likely REDESIGNS Accessibility and GDPR compliance SEO/SEM II.
The National Marketing department is now expected to not only maintain and grow efforts for America’s Car Museum, but also expand to a level that can adequately support all of AAT’s strategic priorities and guide/produce marketing efforts for the additional individual Trust entities: RPM Foundation (Chicago, IL), America on Wheels Museum (Allentown, PA), Club Auto (Detroit, MI), Concours Club, as well as affiliated institutions across the country such as The NB Center for American Automotive Heritage (Allentown, PA), The RB Collection (Allentown, PA), and the Gilmore Car Museum (Hickory Corners, MI) – and any future expansions.
Currently, the AAT National Marketing department consists of:
STAFFING RECOMMENDATIONS
• Part-time consultant Graphic Designer This current crew of 2.5 is extremely lean, especially when compared to prior to the pandemic when the department operated with a team of 4 to support the marketing and communications efforts of merely one AAT entity, LeMay – America’s Car Museum. Also, with several additional open headcounts in the organization for other departments such as ACM Exhibit Curation, Marketing has been called to help support those efforts in 2022 as well.
To sufficiently staff for the exponential increase in scope for AAT national initiatives and all the entities and affiliates for the remainder of 2022 and upcoming 2023, and be well-positioned to grow and succeed, this is the minimum recommended additional full-time staffing for the National Marketing department:
lack thereof with America On Wheels and other affiliates that do not have ACM or AAT domains restrict the ability for those partners to access the queue. The form has been successfully adopted by a few department leads however, and the Marketing Department is trying to develop a rhythm of the business to expand to further internal stakeholders, as well as establish service-level agreements for the queue of requests.
With a fairly new dedicated National Marketing team in place for 2022, after an extended duration the past prior years due to pandemic halt and revolving/temporary/vacant staffing, a fresh energy has been instilled to boost promotions, communications, and awareness and to re-establish a functioning and ever-optimizing rhythm of the business now that in-person events development revitalization efforts can happen again.
• Digital and Social Media Coordinator (Jake Welk) – in role since January 2022
• National Marketing Director (Nina Ruchirat) – in role since May 2022
Marketing Coordinator – to be in or near Allentown, PA to support entities/affiliates in the region
Marketing Coordinator – to be in or near Chicago, IL to support RPM Foundation and possibly also Club Auto and other AAT initiatives operations on the East Coast
It is unrealistic to expect each Marketing Coordinator candidate to possess every one of these skills, but it is our hope to find multi-faceted talent such as the ones that are currently in place with strengths in various areas to balance the team’s holistic capabilities. There may be times where we will need to supplement with additional consultant assistance for certain projects/initiatives.
Marketing Coordinator – to be in or near Tacoma, WA to support AAT National Strategic Initiatives and provide additional LeMay – ACM support
Graphic Designer – in addition to the part-time consultant until fully transitioned –approximately six to nine months after hire. However, we might discover it may be necessary to eventually have two full-time designers or keep the part-time consultant on retainer indefinitely.
o One full-time designer has been previously approved for hire in 2022, so we would like to open this head count immediately if possible.
Marketing Data Analyst Coordinator – to be in or near Tacoma, WA to monitor, report, and flag marketing channel efforts for engagement and effectiveness, as well as conduct external industry benchmark research to provide recommended future optimizations and tests. As mentioned in the June 2022 Marketing Board Report, the National Marketing team is intended to be the Trust’s centralized department for marketing and communications guidance as well as creative content development to support all marketing channels for the Trust and its entities/affiliates. To achieve a level of quality and effectiveness to help reach growth goals for fundraising, development, membership, and education, the department must have at least these honed skills/resources/partner services to be successful:
• Creative Direction • Writing/editing/storytelling • Graphic Design • Print Production • Social Media • Web Design and Production • Email Marketing • Photography • Videography • Audio Services • Content Strategy • Brand Strategy • Public Relations/Brand Ambassador • Content Program Management • Digital and Print Asset Management • Analytics • Research • Public Relations • Thought Leadership positioning • Sponsor relationship management and acknowledgements • More …
III. MARKETING CHANNELS ASSESSMENT
This section in this September report will mostly illustrate progress from the June baselines for ACM with some AAT items shared when available. We hope to have the beginnings of more established Trust/entities/affiliates reporting available in 2023.
As mentioned above, we will be trying some paid social efforts this quarter and stretching into the America’s Automotive Trust handles, starting with campaigns dedicated to the strategic national initiative, The Drive Home – with the Cruise-In at ACM kicking off The Drive Home to the Mustang Stampede. We will also be engaging with the social influencer profile Launch Mode, which happens to have a heavy presence on TikTok (a channel we have not yet tapped into), YouTube, and Instagram to boost this initiative as well to younger audiences. Here are some ACM social media highlights prior to all that – which shows decent uptick overall:
The baseline findings as reported in June were primarily ACM-centric because that has been the primary rhythm established for the past 10 years. Because expansion of marketing efforts for the Trust as a whole and the additional entities/affiliates has only just begun, we do not yet have sufficient data to report for them at this time, but we can highlight certain efforts that are being adopted now.
NOTE: A Signature Events Coordinator was also previously approved to be hired for the Marketing department in October 2022, but in August 2022 AAT leadership has shifted that role to report to the Membership Department. This is considered a sound decision, so that Membership is better enabled to coordinate the support needed for its development and related events, and the National Marketing department can better focus on promotion and communication—particularly to boost museum(s)/event attendance and membership, and other Trust program development initiatives.
A. Social Primary focus and efforts this last quarter have been to continue the organic momentum on the ACM handles for Facebook, Instagram, and to a somewhat lesser extent, Twitter. We started programming content calendars for America’s Automotive Trust in August and will continue to do so, as well as plugging into assisting or guiding social for the various entities as soon as feasible.
1. Facebook - @LeMayACM @LemayACM on Facebook seemed to have tremendous growth over the last quarter. Even though the number of published posts was about 18% less than the previous period, impressions and engagement are markedly upticked:
The top two posts in the last period mentioned the 60th anniversary of the historically popular Studebaker Avanti, and the third happened to be about inclusivity, featuring a brightly colored grid of car and the messages: “We at LeMay – America’s Car Museum welcome people as diverse and eclectic as the cars in our collection.”
Page Fan Demographics remain very similar to June’s report in that on Facebook, in that men between the ages of 45–54 have a higher potential see this content and visit the page.
2. Instagram - @LeMayACM
The June report revealed tremendous growth in 2022 from the previous year’s last quarter that could be primarily attributed to the enhanced publishing cadence with Jake Welk’s official addition to the Marketing Department in January 2022, over what was very minimal efforts prior. But for the last quarter, even though Instagram enjoyed continued follower growth from May through August, impressions and engagements seemed to lessen. Although the momentum remained about
status quo (only 3.5% fewer published posts), changing algorithms could have been a factor, and/or the fact more “stories” were shared in the past quarter on this profile, engagement behaviors might be counted differently than with traditional posts. The Marketing department will continue to investigate and monitor progress to understand what may have caused the apparent dip in those metrics.
However, the profile actions on Instagram increased 192.6%!
The top two posts on Instagram in the last quarter included two of the #ACM10Years #TBT social campaign posts commemorating ACM’s 10-Year Anniversary, one featuring the Bullitt Mustang that was in ACM in 2018, and the other on the groundbreaking ceremony for ACM in 2010. The third most popular post highlighted the private annual Couture & Cars Fashion Show.
Audience demographics remain very similar to June’s report in that on Instagram, men between the ages of 25-34 (about 20 years younger than Facebook) have a higher potential see this content and visit the page.
3. Twitter ACM on Twitter (https://twitter.com/lemayacm) is somewhat less active than Facebook and Instagram and of course is limited on what can be communicated due to its limited character count per post, but it has shown incremental increases in activity over the last quarter period.
ACM https://www.linkedin.com/company/lemay-americas-car-museum increased from 304 to 318 followers
5. YouTube
AAT https://www.linkedin.com/company/americasautomotivetrust went up from 201 to 210
There is still opportunity to grow presence in this space not only from an employment perspective, but also as channels for thought leadership. Progress and proposals to be defined by January.
Due to the myriad of marketing priorities this past quarter, LinkedIn was an area that we did not get to pursue much activity with yet, however still there was incremental growth:
4. LinkedIn
RPM Foundation https://www.linkedin.com/company/rpm-foundation) had the most growth from 177 to 212
ACM on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/c/LeMayAmericasCarMuseum) also had minimal activity this quarter, but subscribers still went up to 367 from 361, featuring 134 (up from 131) videos dating back 12 years. There is tremendous opportunity for future engagement with YouTube, but it would require thoughtful curation of programming and subsequent amplification to encourage more followers.
Marketing has sourced this channel’s videos to include as supplemental archive footage and b-roll for its 10-year anniversary retrospective video of ACM this year. Said video is intended to be uploaded soon, as well as a new video about 2022 Master Collector Bruce Wanta, other upcoming exhibit videos, and If Cars Could Talk programming. Reiterated from the June report: There is a significant amount of user-generated content about ACM on YouTube – as there are fans worldwide posting videos of their visits to the museum. There is opportunity to engage with these posters; a more thoughtful strategy of how to do this should be outlined for 2023 or sooner. 6. Web As mentioned in June, there needs to be an audit of the Trust’s current owned (and partner) web sites, the information architecture, site design, and domain ownership (GoDaddy, Network Solutions, etc.). This is a large undertaking and should be a focus for 2023. Some discovery and observances have occurred this past quarter.
7. America’s Car Museum – https://www.americascarmuseum.org/ This site has a black background, which is not ideal for accessibility. The biggest user-experience problem with a dark background is readability, and a general practice in web design is to not use black whenever any significant amount of text is intended – which this site needs to include on occasion CSS templates are limited – it would be nice to have a design that has more built-in flexibility for content layouts.
8. America’s Automotive Trust – https://www.americasautomotivetrust.org/ This site is even more limited in its templates than ACM – it was originally built as just a single landing page, with no navigation bar or menu, or search. Since then, additional pages have been built to convey AAT events and priorities, with the only way to drive traffic to those pages as direct links and/or adding a link from the home page. The information architecture and UI is convoluted at best and the whole site desperately needs a content audit and redesign before it gets too unwieldy.
10. America on Wheels – https://americaonwheels.org/ Not enough observation has been conducted to propose recommendations at this time. B. Email
9. RPM Foundation – https://rpm.foundation/ Not enough observation has been conducted to propose recommendations at this time.
1. Mailchimp in general
Overall, we need to do an audit on how our Mailchimp service has been used in this organization in general and optimize for the future and growth of the organization. Many of these practices and processes that were in place before the current Marketing team should be audited, revised, and/or
2. AAT Newsletter.
Title: August NewsletterAAT July NewsletterAAT June En NewsletterRoute May En NewsletterRoute April En NewsletterRoute Subject Line: Wheels & Heels Gala is Just Around the TrustAutomotiveAmerica'sAroundNewsEventsCorner!andFrom Summer Has Arrived! Events and TrustAutomotiveAmerica'sAroundMore Celebrating 10 Years at LeMay - America's Car Museum Spring Events and News AutomotiveAmerica'sAroundfromTrust
Date/Time:Delivery Wed, Aug 10, 2022 10:00 am Tue, Jul 12, 2022 10:00 am Tue, Jun 7, 2022 10:30 am Wed, May 11, 2022, 1:00 pm Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 5:15 pm Overall Stats Recipients:Total 43742 43955 44073 44,225 44,348 Deliveries:Successful 43312 43521 43685 43,918 44,080 Bounces: 430 (1.0%) 434 (1.0%) 388 (0.9%) 307 (0.7%) 268 (0.6%) Forwarded:Times 0 0 0 0 0 Opens:Forwarded 0 0 0 0 0 WhoRecipientsOpened: 12,902 (29.8%) 12,590 (28.9%) 11,531 (26.4%) 11,269 (25.7%) 10,417 (23.6%) Total Opens: 17252 16804 16038 15,045 14,220 C. Print
Formerly known as “En Route,” we changed the focus of this newsletter in July to be more about America’s Automotive Trust to be more inclusive of all the entities and affiliates, however it has remained primarily ACM-centric the past few months because of the available content that has come in from each monthly call.
America'sAppreciationVolunteerMonthatLeMay-CarMuseum
resolved: Shared passwords by multiple stakeholders, outdated lists, inflated list counts that increase monthly subscription dues whenever there is a new upload, lack of quality control processes for messaging, brand, grammar/punctuation mechanics, etc. before emails get sent.
AAT is casting a wider net this latter half of 2022 to hopefully engage more with media, most immediately around efforts for the second Cruise-In on Sept. 6 as it will be the kickoff for The Drive Home, and The Drive Home in general from Sept. 6 through Sept. 25. This year’s theme for TDH is a partnership with Ford Motor Company called “The Drive Home to The Mustang Stampede” – in addition to its existing partnership with the Detroit Auto Show. The Detroit Free Press has already published a preview article about AAT and The Drive Home on July 10
Volume 19 of Open Road was published in May 2022. Print distribution of ~200 was sent to Gold Members and above plus Board/Steering Committee and some prospects; Digital distribution of ~500 was sent to the above group plus Silver members. Public availability of this issue will be available soon.
No plans currently for another issue to be published in 2022, but decisions are intended to be made early fall for any future issues and cadence of publishing going forward in 2023.
1. Open Road
Media outreach, at least for regional media events calendars, has started up again with the re-launching of Motors & Movies outdoor drive-in series as well as in-person Cruise-Ins at ACM. Both initial series events had very successful turnouts, which we hope to be able to attribute to marketing outreach.
D. Press/Media/Public Relations
As of August 2022, The Marketing department has fulfilled advertising arrangements made prior to the arrival of the current National Marketing Director – most of which were solely focused on LeMay –America’s Car Museum. Bearing in mind the remaining limited budget of 2022 and prospective advertising spends for 2023, the NMD plans to be strategic with a new advertising plan that spans national initiatives as well, and makes the best sense for reach and target audiences for automotive preservation, heritage, and education, in addition to what may regionally increase visits and/or engagement for ACM and the other individual entities in America’s Automotive Trust.
E. Advertising
Here is an AAT ad that we had placed in the Pebble Beach Concours program in August 2022. A similar ad was also submitted for the Detroit Concours program in Sept. 2022, and one was also included as a house ad in the 2022 Wheels & Heels Gala program as well.
Ad examples:
Here is a house ad for RPM Foundation:
And a house ad for America On Wheels:
And another ad for LeMay – America’s Car Museum:
IV. APPENDIX: GEO-FENCE DATA FOR LEMAY – AMERICA’S CAR MUSEUM
Supplemental to what we do in Marketing is continued research to observe and study audience behaviors and trends that can help determine decisions we make through outreach and advertising.
2019 was a hallmark year for visitors to the Pierce County and Tacoma areas. However, 2020 and 2021 were obviously hit by the pandemic and other factors that affected all businesses and organizations. 2022 is considered a “rebuilding resilience” state as people become more comfortable to in-person destinations and events again.
Source of this data comes from algorithm reports tied to the mobile advertiser ids attached to cell phones, as mined by Matt Wakefield, Chief of Data at Travel Tacoma. All data is opt-in and GDPR compliant. Prior to March 2022, data was more accurate/comprehensive because it was before operating system updates that enabled more information sharing filtering preferences and several users have opted out of that sharing. Still, there is data to monitor even after March 2022, just not as much. Also to note: Visitor data to ACM is sometimes a bit skewed because of parking sales periodically due to Tacoma Dome events.
Through our Tacoma Museum District partners, we were able to access some very interesting Geo-fence activity data about visitors from outside of a 50-mile radius to LeMay – America’s Car Museum and/or the Tacoma/Pierce County regions in general.
Parameters:
2018
Visitor Volume to ACM by quarter (all visitors; visitors from 50+ miles in parentheses) Overview, All states, 0+(50+) miles, Cluster: ACM, POI: ACM (Feb-December) ACM visitor volume: 34,626 (50+ 24,606) ACM visitor volume: 33,832 (50+ 26,345)
2019
2020 Q1 ACM visitor volume: 15,939 (50+ 6,626) 2020 Q2 ACM visitor volume: 3,152 (50+ 878) 2020 Q3 ACM visitor volume: 3,638 (50+ 1,477) 2020 Q4 ACM visitor volume: 5,005 (50+ 1,904) 2021 Q1 ACM visitor volume 3,839 (50+ 845) 2021 Q2 ACM visitor volume: 9,422 (50+ 4,371)
Top 8 Most Correlated Points of Interest (2019-2022)
Parameters: POI Correlation, All states, 1/1/19-5/1/22, 0+ miles, Reference Level: Polygon, Reference: ACM, Comparison Level: Polygon, Comparison: -some, Number: 8, Rolling Average: 7-day
2021 Q3 ACM visitor volume: 14,955 (50+ 7,972) 2021 Q4 ACM visitor volume: 11,854 (50+ 6,002) 2022 Q1 ACM visitor volume: 13,803 (50+ 5,146)
This report shows other points of interest that visitors tend to also visit in addition to ACM: Tacoma Dome Foss Waterway Downtown Tacoma Ruston Way Waterfront Point Defiance Park Lakewood Area Downtown Puyallup Downtown Sumner Demographics by Cluster Age 45-64 majority at 36.5%, followed by 25-44 at 28.1% Income under $50k at 26%; $100-$150k at 23%; over $150k at 15.4% Households of 1-2 make up 49%; 3-5 at 43% 79.4% Caucasian No college degree at 58%; bachelor’s degree 38% Top ACM Visitor Source Markets (2018-2022)
Parameters: In/Out of State: All, Distance: 0+ miles, Date Range: 2/1/18-7/6/22, Detail: POI, Cluster: ACM, POI: ACM
This report shows a staggering increase of 90% with local visitors between 2018 to 2022, which is great! However, there has been a drop of visitors since 2018 from outside the 50-mile radius, which indicates more marketing can be done on a broader regional and national level.
Visitor Origins Report
Corporate Proposals Delivered Heritage Bank ($5,000 Gala Sponsorship) Showcase Magazine ($10,000 Gala Sponsorship) Sports Car Magazine ($3,000 – General Fund)
By Sue Scanon (Early) Results
The systematic approach is seeing some early results in proposals submitted, foundation grant submissions, and revenues.
CORPORATE FOUNDATION RELATIONS REPORT
Foundation(s) Grant Submission Cheney $100,000 Purpose: Security, Technology, CRM Expected Decision – October 2022 Shell $20,000 Purpose: Drive Home Expected Decision: Already approved Community Engagement Indian Motorcycle Riders Group/Indian Riders WA Regular Monthly Meetings and Events Largest Indian Motorcycle Riders Group in Puget Sound 30+ new visitors to LeMay-America’s Car Museum every other month Wigged Out 8th Annual Charity Motorcycle Ride raising funds for a local Breast Cancer Clinic will leave from LeMay-America’s Car Museum this year. Expected attendance 70+ Motorcycles and 150+ attendees on The Plaza, Sunday October 9th, 2022 Event Space (Revenue) World Vision National Business Meeting (Sept 2022) Revenue = $2000. 40+ attendees on site. 30+ joining remotely
MEMBERSHIP DEVELOPMENT BOARD REPORT
streamlining (elimination of key club) and calls to action on membership sign up page on AAT and ACM websites.
Database Recommendations committee and proposal V1 completed.
As outlined at our June board meeting in Allentown, the Membership Development program was in a state of mechanical failure. A combination of pandemic complications and staff vacancies had left no member appeals, renewal efforts, programming, communication, or strategy in place specific to membership from June 2021 to early June 2022.
April 18 – May 18: That New Car Smell Ah, that new car smell. First month as Membership Manager of America’s Automotive Trust was productive with no signs of buyer’s remorse. Difficulties in volunteer relations and resistance arose from database manager as accountability came into play from new leadership in marketing and membership development departments. Initial outreach to neighboring major employers such as Brown and Haley and Tacoma Dome leveraging existing relationships for partnership opportunities. A few key first month accomplishments:Membership
Submitted by: Emily Cook, Membership Development Manager
Assisted marketing with mailchimp audience creation for gala and concours club dinner digital Compilationinvitations.offirst board report draft V1. May 19 – June 19: Pit Stop; Blown Manifold The highlight of this time was a fantastic board meeting and the beginnings of genuine working relationships in Allentown. Membership department wise, staffing went from 3 to 0 people that were
Prepared August 22, 2022
Driver training completion and sponsor/car presence & social media membership giveaway for Best of South Sound event.
FOUR MONTHS – A PEEK IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR
Members’ Lane activation-signage, red carpet visual & enhanced member concierge service.
Troubleshooting broken queries, URLs and ticket sales links.
Finalized meetings and collective findings of database committee and submitted proposal.
June 20-July 20: New Engine; Cylinders Refiring
Created dynamic content for direct mail appeal for lapsed member retrieval – letterhead, timeline, mail house, printer arrangements spearheaded by database coordinator.
10YEARS promo code for appeal and efforts through anniversary celebrations. July 14-21 Stay Classy, San Diego. (Out of office for pre-employment arranged trip.)
While yours truly was feverishly recovering our deleted membership database during his HR onboarding, June 20th marked the start date of new CRM Database Coordinator Tyler Anderson, who brought to AAT direct mail marketing expertise to match his database background and skills. Two months in, it was time to fully onboard a new employee while we figured out the membership fulfillment, gift and donor acknowledgement, and severe database challenges together. Also imperative was to quickly figure out what exactly was a “Cruise-In”, as July 6th it became clear they needed to return in August. Abbreviated month three data for Membership Cards, Tax Acknowledgement Letters with regular cadence. Streamlined acknowledgements with variable data messaging.
Father’s Day in-person membership presence with table and sign ups.
CRM database coordinator challenges & departure. Dove in to figure it out and cover the vacancy and started recruiting. Interviewed & hired. Board Meeting at AOW, RB Collection and NB Center for Automotive Heritage.
July 21- Aug 21: Back on the Road Always one up for a challenge, the second day back in the office after a trip, July 25 th started out with a bang! Unfortunately, it was my head on a windowsill, which turned out to be a concussion. No rest for the weary, we’ve got an event to figure out how to invite people to and produce and lots of memberships from the successful direct mail appeal to process. Connected with Club Auto Director to determine and establish acknowledgements and card fulfillment. Secured new dates for member preview events for Building a Legacy and Reclaimed Rust exhibits on master event calendar. Second month of working near daily with finance to process all ticket sales, pledges, donations, payments and online orders for database record keeping to keep from overloading new database manager facing scrubbing over 127,000 records for transition post-gala. Support for RPM foundation donor query and
actively cross-training on, volunteering or knew how to utilize the non-user-friendly database on June 3rd. Lack of any documentation of membership processes made this especially challenging. Department was down to the frame with no restoration manual. Time to get under the hood, figure it out with trial and error and rebuild. Some second month notables:
Figure out Finance / Donor, Pledge, Gift, In-Kind Logging and Tracking for financial audits, acknowledgement processes and mapping to GL Codes on back end of database. Outreach for cost analysis for mail house direct mail campaigns for appeals.
Backlog of membership card requests fulfilled; member card printer functional again. Revised content for acknowledgement and membership letters & renewal efforts.
Figuredaccomplishments:processofextracting
worked with Executive Director Nick Ellis to create a process around RPM donors and extending membership levels. Spoke for education department’s call for managers to engage vocation kids.
Cruise-In Member Event with 80 registered and 100 attended cars 8/11. In-kind sponsorships towards 9/6 “The Drive Home” Audio Visual needs secured at Club Auto level.
Direct Mail successful lift campaign – return of membership renewals on the check log.
Sponsor meetings with existing relationships like Propel, meetings with State Farm for local activation at August Cruise-In and, alongside Corporate Relations and Foundations Officer Sue Scanlon, connection was re-established for an updated partnership with Griot’s Garage.
Printing costs and direct mail processing turnaround time cut by 50% by switching vendor to PMA/Immedia exclusively instead of a Johnson-Cox and PMA/Immedia combination.
AOW Membership meeting to discuss fulfillment processes and integration of membership levels and benefits. Compiled web edits for current AOW volunteer or myself to implement with username/password access.
Month Four on the floor notables:
Finalized contracting with three vendors (ACME, Omatics (connector) and Raiser’s Edge) for new database implementation post-gala. Assisted marketing with mailchimp audience updates
Email Communication access and template creation. Content creation and distribution for Cruise-In event to over 800 car club contacts and entire membership email base.
REPORT ON GIVING 1377748.22; $1 ACM, 365871.01, $365,871 RPM, 156213.01 $156,213 Cash & In-Kind Development 2022 YTD (Aug 16) by Entity AAT ACM AOW RPM $1,400,000$1,200,000$1,000,000$800,000$600,000$400,000$200,000$0 $1,288,092 $285,534 $0 $89,656$120,603 $80,337 $0 $35,610 2022 Development Cash & In-Kind Gifts YTD - August 16, 2022 Cash Gifts In-Kind Gifts AAT ACM AOW RPM Total Funds Largest Gift Number of Gifts Cash Gifts $1,288,092 $285,534 $0 $120,603 $1,694,229 $250,000 321
Account
Cash
Corporation
Grand
Account
Board
Cash
Grand
76 MEMBERSHIP
Individual $14,324 $17,000 $25,639 $56,963 $17,000 76 Board $482,000 $100 $199 $482,299 $250,000 13 Corporation $215,555 $0 $35 $215,590 $100,000 16 Foundation $904 $2,350 $60,000 $63,254 $60,000 7
THE NUMBERS Total Membership by Level 2021Q1-4
Individual
In-Kind Gifts $89,656 $80,337 $0 $35,610 $128,933 $78,942 25 Grand Total Gifts $1,377,748 $365,871 $0 $156,213 $1,823,162 346 Categories Q1 AAT ACM AOW RPM Total Funds Largest Gift Number of Gifts
Cash Gifts Total $712,783 $19,450 $85,873 $818,106 112 In-Kind $350 $76,320 $0 $0 $69,336 6 Grand Total Gifts $713,133 $95,770 $85,873 $818,106 118 Categories Q2 AAT ACM AOW RPM Total Funds Largest Gift Number of Gifts
% Change Individual 846 -42%
Account
Individual $21,953 $6,200 $29,540 $57,693 $7,500 114 Board $12,550 $150 $300 $13,000 $10,000 13 Corporation $38,520 $30,000 $20 $68,540 $30,000 8 Foundation $2 $2,500 $2,500 $5,002 $2,500 3 Gifts Total $73,025 $38,850 $32,360 $144,235 138 In-Kind $81,058 $3,066 $29,000 $113,124 $78,942 14 Total Gifts $154,083 $41,916 $61,360 $257,359 152 Categories Q3 to 8/16 AAT ACM AOW RPM Total Funds Largest Gift Number of Gifts $124,434 $10,000 $1,770 $136,204 $90,000 59 $200,850 $100,050 $100 $301,000 $200,000 6 $25,000 $0 $500 $25,500 $25,000 2 Foundation $152,000 $117,184 $0 $269,184 $150,000 4 Gifts Total $502,284 $227,234 $2,370 $731,888 71 In-Kind $8,248 $951 $6,610 $15,809 $6,610 5 Total Gifts $510,532 $228,185 $8,980 $747,697 BY 2022 Q3 (to 8/16) 2022Q1 ChangeAnnual
2022Q2
866 505 649 361 Family (Bronze) 1,493 942 1,173 1,486 551 -37% Gold 22 16 15 23 6 -27% Silver 158 104 122 141 54 -34% Club Auto & Founder 89 53 65 72 36 -40% Concours Club / Chairman / Director 92 92 91 92 0% Total 2,290 1,712 2,115 2,660 578 -25% Membership Movements 2021Q1-4 2022 Q3 (to 8/16) 2022Q2 2022Q1 2022 Q3 PROJECTED Renewals & Rejoins 828 108 116 162 114 Lapsed / Expired / Dropped 1448 188 670 499 727 Upgrades to Higher Level 220 7 3 4 7 Downgrades to Lower Level 45 17 18 25 17 New Memberships 1462 58 96 133 59 Net Gain (Loss) 1107 2 -437 -175 -530 *DIRECT MAIL CAMPAIGN LANDED LATE JULY
FounderClubIndividualGoldAuto& - 200 400 600 800 1,000 1,200 1,400 1,600 866 1,493 22 158 8992 505 942 16 104 53 92 Total Membership Counts by Level Individual; 505; 0 Family (Bronze); 942; Gold;116; 0 Silver; 104; 0 Club Auto & Founder; 53; 0 Concours Club / Chairman / Director; 92; 0 Total Membership by Level 2022 KEY PRIORITIES HEADING INTO STRATEGIC PLANNING A. After a tumultuous start inheriting a department in full mechanical failure and a CRM database manager now over two months in place, donor acknowledgement, membership card fulfillment, data entry processes for financial audit purposes, lapsed member retrieval, annual appeal
planning, and membership renewal efforts are established. Plans and processes are implemented to rebuild the membership and annual fund program for the Trust. Membership Renewals have started reappearing on the check log following a massive direct mail retrieval campaign. Imperative to lapsed retrieval efforts are continual direct mail marketing efforts a minimum of once per month. Chart below shows membership from post June meeting and the spike attributed to our direct mail appeal in late July.
B. Continue audit of membership levels, now established across AOW and AAT for congruence, and work with partners to deepen and enhance member benefits. Upon implementation of new points of sale and database systems, provide documentation to effected parties including leadership of ACM, AOW, and RPM, guest services, marketing, and development personnel to ensure that membership policies, including critical procedures for data entry, are understood, communicated, and enacted.
F. Continue and develop a series of membership promotional and retention events. Such activities will include Cars and Cigars, Drive the Blues Away, Cruise-Ins, Drive In Movie Nights, car club promotions and exhibit previews. Signature events coordinator position has been moved from marketing to membership and recruitment has begun. Membership events kicked off with a successful 100 car attended Cruise-In August 11th, breathing life back into Haub Family Field and re-energizing ACM volunteers. September 6 th Cruise-In kickoff for The Drive Home, October 8th and November 19th are scheduled dates for Member Exhibit Events.
C. Now evaluated, hone constituent relationship management systems and processes to ensure prompt, accurate gift acknowledgment, membership benefit fulfillment, donor recognition and reports. All processes based on output of data will encounter change with database changeover, slated to build and take place October-December. IT support will be needed for implementation. Continue working with Club Auto Director for Club Auto, Executive Assistant for Concours Club, facilities, guest services team and Database Coordinator to ensure fulfillment of access key cards, membership cards, gift acknowledgement tax receipt letters and membership packets.
E. Annual Fund year end appeal planning has begun and is critical to keep pace on timeline to execute.
D. Continue working with marketing to audit and request membership and annual fund communication tools including updates to websites, digital/ print brochures, direct mail postcards and unit one mailers, etc. to ensure all membership programs have proper promotional materials. Shortage of an onsite graphic designer has put significant pressure on the marketing department, which is currently reliant on third-party designers. This shortage is resulting in strain on resources and budget to produce membership collateral and materials. Membership department has been relying on their own marketing and desktop publishing skills combined with aid from digital and social media coordinator to edit and create updated materials, including email templates, to move member communication and appeal efforts forward.
Mail house drop dates have been set, and creative is needed from outside design. With over 20 years of direct mail experience on staff in our new CRM database coordinator, strategy is in place to land in mailboxes prior to other nonprofits’ year-end appeals. Special appeals related to exhibits and special events, renewal, and lapsed member recovery efforts continue. 10 Year promo to remain active throughout the Building a Legacy/Tucker and Reclaimed Rust Member Events, slated for October and November, respectively. Develop targeted appeals for ACM, AOW, and RPM as well as broad appeals which donors select which entity or programs are of interest to them.
G. Continue review of membership sales processes online and at AOW and ACM reception areas and establish a system by which Guest Services are trained to promote memberships sales as part of the admissions process. Monthly membership sales contest for guest services team members kicked off August 1, 2022. Updated membership form created for July direct mail appeal provided to guest services to give them updated tools to work with.
-Signage created for August Cruise-In was created in mind for multi-use as non-specific branded.
1.Use of videos and other story driven tactics on our websites, through social media and throughout our facilities at both museums.
H. Identify, engage with, and create events around special audiences both to attract those audiences for visitation and membership purposes but also to provide events which attract members of the general public as well. Such audiences include military bases/personnel, police, fire, EMTs, nurses and other 'first-responder' communities. Engagement with local audience leaders and communities to be prioritized and extended offers such as those offered to major employers. Major Employers have company specific promo codes for their employees such as Hermanson, currently working with City of I.Tacoma.Develop partnerships with sponsors, associations, and publications to offer membership enhancements through partner offerings and to offer membership discounts from the Trust to such partners. Meetings with State Farm, Hagerty, neighboring major employers, Griot's Garage have occurred, and relationships begun to establish. AAA, military, police and fire organizations, Hemmings, Sports Car Market, and other entities to be prioritized as well as continuing aiding veteran sales support to Corporate Relations and Foundations Officer.
-As more content becomes available and marketing has more support staff to produce materials, video will be prioritized. Story-driven tactics are essential to appeal efforts.
J. Collaborate with affiliate organizations of the Trust, specifically the NB Center for Automotive Heritage and The Gilmore Car Museum to promote attendance, event participation and membership for each other. Gilmore relationships beginning to be established and more focus on engagement with NB Center team to be prioritized. K. Create other meaningful ways to promote membership including:
2.Evergreen, multi-purpose signage for use at events.
3.Portable 'membership kits' to sell memberships at car shows, community events.
-Current ‘kits’ are limited to desktop publishing but have volunteer coordinator and other departments that are doing joint outreach armed with signup materials and easy, portable QR code signage for Hilltop Street Fair and others.
4.Develop special 'members' only treatments' such as special parking opportunities, member concierge services at check-in, and the like.
-Members’ Lane concierge services implemented within first two weeks of arrival. Parking opportunities and additional services to be explored and implemented. Multi-year membership discounts for purchasing 5 years up front implemented at Individual and Family levels to help level off drop off timing, spread out lapsed retrievals and maintain numbers. Individual - 20% off (one year free) when purchasing an Individual membership for 5 years @ $200. Family membership 5-year price is $500 instead of $600, a 17% discount.
FLIS-SCHNEIDER’S REPORT
DIANE
A. The Concours Club
David Madeira, Vice Chairman
CONCOURS CLUB AND MAJOR GIFTS REPORT
1. Hired Sarah Collins as a new Executive Assistant to the CEO with responsibility to serve as Concours Club Manager. Sarah provides for ongoing member communication, maintains the Club website, provides for membership benefit fulfillment and, in conjunction with the Board Chairman, the Vice Chair, and Suzanne Hight, is creating an active Concours Club program.
2. Created an active Concours Club page and calendar on the Trust website with link to our other sites so that members can easily find information regarding Club activities, check on club house usage and reserve its use for themselves.
America’s Automotive Trust and its member organizations rely heavily on membership and philanthropy for the successful conduct of their missions. We know that 90% of philanthropy comes from individual donors through major and planned gifts and such gifts result when individuals trust an institution to deliver on a mission, they believe in. Thus, attainment of major philanthropy is dependent upon relationships between donors and organizational leadership. Relationship development is dependent upon deployment of major gift personnel and having an exclusive membership program providing donors unique ‘access’ to leadership and to other Club members.
The Concours Club was designed as a membership organization which would encourage the development of strong relationships between donors and the Trust to encourage such philanthropy. In that regard the Club has been a great success as 354 attained Concours Club membership over the years. Total support of the given since 2002 from Concours Club members is a stunning However,$128,318,460.74.justasother membership programs of The Trust suffered during the nearly three years of the pandemic, so did the Concours Club. Since early 2020 America’s Car Museum was closed for extensive periods of time and even now the Museum is open only 5 days a week rather than 7. AOW experienced similar closures. Club activities and trips completely stopped and access to the Weyerhaeuser Concours Club was impossible and, as a result, members lost a sense of ‘connection’ to ‘their’ Club and to the Itorganization.becameaprimary goal of 2022 to reactivate the Concours Club and major gift development programs. During this year we have:
5. Systematized provision of benefits including jackets, wine magnums, Club keys, admission passes and more so that members receive their benefits in timely and regular fashion.
4. Are conducting searches to hire Major Gift Officers to be based at AOW and ACM. Hiring has been extremely difficult in the current workforce environment, but we are committed to engaging full time personnel in this important area of our work.
B. Other aspects of Major Gift Development Major and Planned Gift Development has suffered over the past 4 years due to:
5. In attention to membership benefit fulfillment. In order to correct these problems and reinvigorate the Major Gift Development effort we have to date:
Next in our rebuilding of an effective Development program will be to engage a Planned Giving Officer and, finally, a VP for Institutional Advancement to oversee and coordinate all marketing and
3. Covid and resulting lack of program.
3. Thoroughly reviewed database management systems which will provide reliable, accessible data for our accounting, finance, membership, major gift development, events ticketing and retail sales needs institution wide. We have purchased a system which includes Financial Edge, Raiser’s Edge and Acme and will install this system in the fall of the year and to be prepared for its use in 2023.
4. Are working on and will soon communicate, an active ‘social’ program including national and international travel for Club members for 2023.
I am happy to report that since January this has resulted in the addition of 4 new Concours Club members and two couples have now attained Concours Club Chairman membership with support surpassing $1,000,000.
6. Corrected and updated all Concours Club donor wall plaques and membership lists.
2. Hired a new Constituent Relationships Database Management Coordinator to update records and provide for timely donor acknowledgement and benefit fulfillment.
1. Changes in CEOs who, in their short leadership terms, left key roles in development unfilled. These included a VP Advancement and major gift officers for ACM and AOW.
2. An inactive planned giving promotional effort and no planned gift officer to provide for needs of all entities of the Trust.
1. Undertaken steps to renew our Concours Club program as noted previously herein.
4. An antiquated Constituent Relationship Management Database and poor management of the same.
3. Begun to implement an active calendar of nearly monthly events and Club ‘open houses’ to regenerate involvement of Concours Club members with the Trust and to encourage new members.
development efforts and to serve as ‘chief’ development officer—meaning major gift development both corporate and individual. In sum, 2022 is a year of rebuilding our Major Gift Development effort and, in spite of current realities we are pleased to be making steady progress in this regard. I am grateful to Michael Towers, Suzanne Hight and Sarah Collins for their strong contributions to this important work.
ACM 3RD QUARTER 2022 REPORT TO THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS September 9-10, 2022 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Operations Report – Paul Miller II. Facilities Report – Robert Reed III. Sales and Events – Ann Sweeney IV. Guest Services - Crystal Buxton V. Education – Nora Fitzgerald VI. FINANCIALS – AAT, ACM, RPM, AOW VII. Board Calendar
Operations Board Report
SEPTEMBER 9, 2022
By Paul E. Miller, AAT Senior Vice President
TACOMA, WA
This report will be brief and to the point, both because it has been a short time since the June Board meeting and our focus has been on reestablishing operations. We have spent the summer maximizing revenue through Private Events, as Attendance Revenue has continued to fall short. While visitation has slowly started to return, it continues to be below pre-covid levels. The visitation that is missing is largely visitation from outside of the State. Traveling tourists tend to spend more while attending the Museum, so store, café and attraction revenue are all down. I believe that this comes from both a reluctance of individuals to travel, but also a decline in our marketing and advertising efforts.
While Dome events continue to be largely on hold and thus our Dome Parking Association revenues are down drastically, our outdoor Private Event sales have been brisk. Sales has delivered over 15 major events on our Haub Showfield this summer, bringing in over $75,000.00 in event revenue. This is in addition to a very strong book of scheduled internal events leading up through the end of the year. Our finances are still above the line, but we have expended all government support and are missing some key contributions. We are working to finalize the grant requirements for the State on the $200,000 secured earlier this year and are working to position ourselves for next year’s Therequest.biggest challenge we face is replacing lost staffing. We have experienced significant turnover in the last six months through both retirement and departures. Securing replacement staff is difficult in this market. It is not that we don’t receive applications it is the lack of qualified candidates. We have open positions for Major Gifts, Collections, Curator,
Guest Services and Education. We continue to operate the Museum on a 5 day a week schedule. We are opening the new Master Collector exhibit in time for the Gala and will being changing out the Alfa Romeo exhibit on the showcase gallery following Gala. In recognition of our 10 year anniversary we will be opening the Legacy exhibit, honoring Harold and Nancy’s gift to the community and accomplishment in saving so much history. We still are challenged with recovering from the shutdown, including bringing our facilities and our Showfield back to previous levels. We have a dedicated team, willing to work long hours for our success and they deserve our recognition and appreciation.
All departments are currently taking monthly safety quiz. The monthly topics are chosen to meet the specific seasonal safety concerns. We anticipate starting our quarterly safety committee meeting in January. This will allow us to discuss past safety issues/concerns, upcoming monthly quiz topics, all
As we are following these updates we are working towards and preparing for this winter. We along with all the listed municipalities are anticipating another surge in covid as the new variant mutates once again. For this we have stocked up on masks, disinfectant, and hand sanitizer so we can go into this period as prepared as possible.
By Robert Reed, Facilities Manager Safety & Security As the ever-changing climate of Covid continues, the HR Manager and Facilities Manager have been working closely to review all safety standards and mandates as they are released by the government, Health Department, and the CDC; updating the organization’s safety and health policies with these changes as the mandates dictate; and informing management and staff of the changes as they occurred. Thereby we ensure our organization’s continued compliance to all regulations and expectations as they are implemented. In addition, we ensured tracking of all exposures through contact tracing, processed notifications to those exposed, received and tracked positive tests, collected final test results, and tracked return to work clearance dates, keeping in close communication with the managers to assist in their scheduling of duties and projects.
2022 Mid-Year Facilities Overview
All Staff will be working towards re-certification of First-Aid, CPR and use of AED. These classes will be held off site and provided by Tacoma Fire Department. The first group of staff will be taking the class on September 17th with another group following every month until all staff working on-site at LeMay Americas Car Museum are fully trained.
achieve
covered
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ACM museum is always looking to ensure the safety of all vehicles, exhibits, and guests. To this we look at the security team schedules on a weekly basis to ensure we are covering all events and daily building use. This way we ensure the security of the museum 100% of the time.
review incidents that occurred in the last and what if anything we do
to eliminate these incidents happening again.
Sound Maintenance Practices During 2022 the facility team handled the following required maintenance testing: Quarterly fire inspections Quarterly fire pump compliance Annual fire alarm Annual smoke alarm Monthly fire extinguisher Annual Smoke door test Elevator monthly testing/maintenance Tacoma Fire Department yearly walk through Tacoma Health Department updates and mandates Annual ground water Filterra inspection Electrical panel inspections Quarterly Alarm panel inspections HVAC quarterly maintenance/inspectionsoperations Quarterly Emergency lighting testing and battery replacement We not only took care of the regularly scheduled safety and maintenance testing, we put together a new monthly safety meeting Q&A for all staff, and updated the new employee safety training schedule. Asset Preservation and Enhancements
can
During the spring and summer, we have been working hard to get ready for our 10 th anniversary Gala’s. This project has taken many twists and turns, some real complex, and some simple. To start off with we began looking at all the grounds, this coincided with the Haub family donation to enhance the show field. One of the first things we looked at was having in house grounds maintenance instead of outsourcing. This has allowed us to work around the scheduling of events and dome parking. This has also been where we have had a bit of a learning curve, we quickly realized that if we defer to long on any one area it takes months to catchup. We also underestimated the type and size if equipment needed to perform the job at the level we had expected. Now that we have invested in the proper equipment, we will be in a much better place moving forward. Our expectation is a savings of up to $10,000 per year. In completion of the Haub investment we will be replacing the trees that did not survive the summer of 2019 when we were closed due to covid. We will be seal coating the blacktop. We anticipate these all being done by the end of September.
Ann Sweeney – Sales and Events Manager
We have had car shows, including VW – Summer Jam, Out X Love, a Japanese Anime post production Club, and Mod Garage. Sweep Streets, 253 UTV, and the Toyota Elements Club, as well as the Dune Buggies have been on property. The Seattle BMW Club will be here on 9/11, to celebrate their 50th Birthday 2 Years Late, (Thanks, Covid!)
Danno Presents: Slightly Stoopid and Reggae on the Way to LeMay, 2 separate Reggae Festivals, one in July with 5,000 attendees and a 2 day festival in August with 6,000 guests. Danno Presents has already booked 2 concerts with us in 2023. The concert stage and set up was amazing, and the well-attended festival was highly visible from I-5.
Actual Revenue through July is $175,071 to a budget of $167,973.
While we continued with our usual full calendar inside ACM, hosting 3 proms, 2 local Galas, and numerous corporate and social events, the real high lights of the summer were outside the museum, on Haub Family Field, which is becoming a destination festival venue.
We had The Heart of Tacoma Festival on 6/4/22, presented by Tacoma Refugee Choir and Greentrike. Performances by Tacoma Refugee Choir, APCC Drums and Dance, Lincoln Drumline, ELO Students, Tahoma Indian Center and The Pazific present a diverse, multi-cultural lineup to a 2,000-person crowd.
Thru August 25th, 2022 there have been 94 private events bringing in a record 28,349 guests to ACM, as compared to a 2019 YTD tally of 110 events, bringing in 24,481 guests. There are 56 events already on the books for the remainder of 2022, and 14 booked for 2023.
Sales and Private Events through August 2022
Private Events
Cider Swig Festival, presented by the Greater Gig Harbor Foundation is scheduled to return in September, has already sold 3,000 tickets.
Group Tours/ Block Tickets
Group Tours/Tickets are making a very slow comeback from Covid. We are making progress in working directly with tour companies to book their tours with us. We are working with SH Worldwide, Mayflower Tours and Wells Grey Tours, a group out of Canada. Typically, Bus Tours set routes a year ahead, so we are on the radar for 2023.
promises to be a busy month with 26 events already booked for the month, 11 of them are in the Show Case Gallery.
Through July the actual Group Tour/ Block Tickets Revenue is $10,186 We’ve had 38 Group Tours bringing in 514 guests. We have sold 823 block tickets. August was a stellar month for block tickets, with several car shows using 772 tickets! Lexus continues to be one of our best block ticket customers, as they pass them out at the dealership to their clients.
Fashion District NW, a highly successful Puget Sound fashion show took place for the 4th time this year and is already slated for both July of 2023 and 2024. They expect to continue with 500+ attendees each year, 70% of their demographic is from King County, and first time ACM Decembervisitors.
Attractions YTD revenue $50,787 Having an engaging staff in this area has led to an increase in overall participation from guests in these attractions.
Slot Car Tickets sold May-Aug 1372 vs. 1230 LY Simulator Tickets sold May-Aug 2777 vs. 2565
Attendance YTD revenue $608,069 May-Aug attendance numbers 19,612 vs. 23365 LY Our peak season numbers have slowed over prior year, with July feeling slower than anticipated. The weather and extreme heat have certainly played a factor, but as we approach the fall and families arrive back from their vacations, we are seeing an influx in attendance on our historically slower days.
American Cruise Lines is booked for 8 days of visiting the museum this summer. The start has been slow, the first 3 ships that came in were at half capacity. They expect much better capacity this summer and fall.
Crystal Buxton, Guest Services Manager
August 2022 Guest Services Overview
Tacoma Dome Parking is still relatively low compared to 2019. We are seeing more rescheduled events from earlier cancellations being added to the calendar for this fall. December is still being filled at this time. We currently have 18 more events to park before the end of the year. Most of which will generate the bulk of the projected $670K
The store continues to grow in sales with the gradual increase in consignment vendors. Supporting local artists and purveyors allows us to maintain a diversified inventory and help lower overall inventory costs. Purchasing is focused on LGBTQ and minority owned businesses as well as products that support equality.
LDPA May-Aug revenue $59,639
Promotional parking and general admission parking numbers YTD 5611/5777
YTDMay-AugStore2022
Parking YTD revenue $61,185
Our Summer programming highlight was our week of middle school day camp offerings. Check out the photos at the bottom of our report! Department Highlights
Café is reporting the same trends we are seeing in admissions with lower-than-expected numbers in July and August but has indicated that this seems to be turning around as we approach September. They are optimistic with their fall projections.
Full Throttle Café May-August revenue $27,715, YTD $62,124
Middle School Summer Camp—Middle school students had the option to attend between one and four days of camp including options such as Pinewood Derby Car Construction, Car Care Basics, Hoods Up Engine Workshop, and 3D Printing.
Education Department—September 2022 Board Report
Family STEAM Day—This event continues to be held monthly on the 3rd Saturday, with free admission for all children 18 and under. Participation continued to be strong this summer. The August event was canceled due to COVID-19 exposure and required protocol.
Powering the Future exhibit refresh—We are currently in the design phase of this project and have been making several adjustments to the plans that have been submitted. The department will be scheduling out production over the course of the following year.
AAT Education Task Force—This group started meeting this summer and is off to a strong start in providing strategic direction for AAT entities to synergize their educational offerings.
If Cars Could Talk—The Education department finally welcomed author Michael Shapiro and his engaging talk on the Cars of Cuba. He presented his talk in the banquet room and provided the library with a copy as well!
Outreach—This quarter the Education department did outreach at several Tacoma Public School events as well as the Tacoma PRIDE Celebration with make-and-take activities for youth and families.
Dates Program(TotalAttendancew/outoutreach) Program Attendance (Total w/ outreach) GroupEducationVisit STEAMFamilyDay IfCouldCarsTalk ProgramsOther Outreach 2022JAN 200 305 8 100 40 52 105 FEB2022 169 307 84 68 0 17 138 MAR 432 492 208 45 40 139 60
APRIL20222022 269 526 201 68 0 257 MAY2022 439 545 378 31 30 0 106 JUNE2022 460 584 245 200 15 124 JULY2022 640 490 437 41 12 94 150 AUGUST2022 60 60 0 0 0 60 0 TOTAL2022 2519 3309 1561 553 110 268 790 Pictured above: Middle Schoolers and their families enjoy a day at LeMay – America’s Car Museum for the Finish Line Celebration after reading Neal Bascomb’s book, The Racers.
Linda Merkel, Executive Director America On Wheels Museum
August 18, 2022
As you all know, Lehigh Valley is a region in Eastern Pennsylvania that offers something for everyone.
FYI: As of August 13, 2022 – Board of Director, Al Ruozzi, offered to be the driver and offer visitors an opportunity to “experience and ride” a 1922 Model T. Thank you Mr. B. and Keith for sharing this unique vehicle with our visitors. At this time, we will be providing this opportunity twice per month. Please know that we look forward to the following upcoming events all being held between September and December. They include: 2nd Annual Golf Classic, 1st Annual Poker Run, Model Car Show, Annual Dorney Park Event, Classics & Sliders, Annual Holiday Train Show. Lots going on for sure. Monthly operating expenses remain at approximately $46,000 per month. Grants, sponsorships and memberships are solicited year-round in our attempt to achieve the funding/revenue goals required operate successfully. This is not an easy task as companies and individuals are still recovering from the pandemic’s consequences. And there are more businesses, both non-profit and for-profit, vying for any and all grant and sponsorship opportunities. Add inflation into the equation and the available funds shrink even more. I am trying to secure naming opportunities for the following areas but businesses are waiting still as visitor numbers are not at 100% yet --- but we’re certainly getting there.
Truist Bank – Restricted $ 27,875.00 (restricted)
Truist Bank Account $ 65,525.00
America On Wheels also offers something for everyone through its exhibits of classic cars, rare trucks, motorcycles and bicycles. America On Wheels Museum, like all museums, is recovering from the Pandemic and we remain careful with our expenses. We continue to offer numerous events to increase admissions on a regular basis. As we benchmark attendance and document numbers during events, we definitely see an increase in admissions. It does appear that, although people love their experience at the museum, they also love additional perks such as an event going on within the museum, as well.
Banking Information – Balances as of August 18, 2022
Board of Director’s Meeting - Sept 9 – 10 2022
Please know that our Certified Public Accountants have provided AOW with its “Communication with Those Charged with Governance” letter. A copy is attached for Board review. Grants $ 106,512.00 Cash Contributions $ 136,822.00 Membership $ 11,630.00 with $1,500 in PayPal Admissions $ 46,427.00 Museum Store $ 17,645.00
Continued Fundraising:Leavea Fueling Mark – Naming Opportunities are Available
2. Location: North Gallery (12’x22’) – Investment: $9,000 x 3 years
Lehigh County 2023 Tourism and Quality of Life Grants have been submitted. AOW did receive $6,000 in August from the County for 2022. Searfass Construction also contributed $1,000 towards EITC Educational Programs. And, a very special thank you to Corrie McFarland for his wonderful contribution to AOW for $25,000.
Additional Updates include: Exhibits - The upcoming exhibit for October 2022 through March 2023 will be “Time in a Bottle, A Century of Automobiles in Original Condition. Board of Director, Alan Gross, is working with Rich Greene and securing vehicles at this time. Thank you Alan. Some potentials are 1948 Plymouth, 1959 Cadillac, 1956 Cadillac Eldorado, 1960 Chrysler, 1986 Fiero GT, 1968 Cougar GT 427, 1990 Mustang Air Products - Alan Gross and I met with Air Products. The North Gallery focuses on the history of automobile power sources, including greater than 100-year-old electric vehicles, showcasing early Ford models A and T as well as a Stanley Steamer, and concludes with a hydrogen fueling station replica.
1. We will be working with Air Products to update this display area. They will also update their videos to convey H2FM concepts.
Stifel Account $ 3,550.00 Embassy Bank $ 5,179.00 AOW Endowment $ 394,541.00
3. Location: South Gallery (15’x 12’) – Investment: $8,000 x 3 years My goal is to try to have these naming opportunities filled by March of 2023 before we celebrate our 15th Anniversary in April.
Americus Hotel - This is a historic hotel in the City of Allentown. AOW now has an antique 1934 motorcycle in the lobby of the hotel. All hotel visitors are now provided with a Free BOGO voucher to the museum during their hotel stay.
1. Location: Main Corridor (29.5’ x 10’) – Investment: $10,000 x 3 years
Mack Trucks – AOW and Mack are working together for an upcoming exhibit change. Mid-August the trucks in the South Gallery will move out. Mack will be supplying 5 unique trucks as we rotate this area once a year. This isn’t an easy task due to the weight of the trucks but we remain fortunate to have Mack’s assistance to rotate this area for the visitor experience.
2. Goal: Alan and I asked Air Products to have this new update completed by mid-November. This will be in time for the Holiday Train Display.
3. HVAC will have their quarterly maintenance and changing of 100 filters mid-August.
4. Digital Sign up and running and now lists Mack’s Support of FREE Children 12 and Under on Weekends which has been good because we have seen a very nice increase in children coming in with their parents/grandparents. We are rotating sponsors on the Digital Sign on a regular basis.
5. RB Collection was nice enough to take charge of our rose bushes and front entrance of the museum. They had the area all weeded and rose bushes trimmed. Thank you so much to Al & Alex Ruozzi Manhattan Building Company - Exciting News ~~ they purchased the Neuweiler Brewery which is located directly up the street from AOW. More development will soon begin. Our area will certainly be a desirable attraction. Despite waiting so long for redevelopment, all that matters is that it is, indeed, happening now!
Holiday Trains – We’ll be ready for Black Friday to kick off the Holiday Train Display. AOW will have the 1930 Taxi from It’s a Wonderful Life also on display in our lobby. This will be a wonderful treat for all who visit.
Facilities:1.1950’s HubCap Cafe – AOW passed the Health Inspection on 8/9/22. We do need a new refrigerator in the Cafe’ fairly soon. I am reaching out to Coke to see if they will provide one for us in-kind. I’ll know soon.
AARP Foundation - This foundation is a nation’s leading organization for people age 50 and older. The goal is to provide useful, but part-time temporary, community service to host agencies (AOW) and to assist with growth, skills and obtain a permanent job. AOW can have the individual work for up to 4 years before hiring if we choose to do so. The foundation provides their benefits and paycheck. No cost to AOW. We are currently interviewing with the AARP Foundation Director and Office Coordinator. Please know that participants who will work in the AOW office will not be considered employees as their paycheck comes directly from the AARP Foundation. This is a good opportunity as it will not be an expense on AOW’s budget.
2. AOW Boilers passed inspection (yeah).
WDIY / Air Products - Linda has been asked to be a guest speaker on WDIY Radio. Linda will be interviewed by Laurie Gostley Hackett who is a head of Community Relations. Our goal is to announce the new Air Products display as well as all the “happenings” at AOW. This is a very nice opportunity as Laurie will provide a link of the interview on our website to be used as a marketing tool. Air Products will also spread the word on all their social media outlets.
Task Force – RPM / AOW / LeMay have successfully secured individuals for a committee to align educational programming. The eight members of the Task Force Committee are certainly talented in their backgrounds and highly educated. The meetings are via ZOOM and held once a month. Our goals are to develop age-appropriate opportunities from elementary to college age children. Nick will provide the Board with an update during his reporting. Museum Store – We are seeing more spending in the store which is nice. Board of Director, Ike, has worked hard to fill the store with more unique offerings and it is working. Thank you Ike.
Internship: We will be reporting to the RPM Foundation with a report concerning our summer intern which was possible with the grant of $5000. Thank you again to the RPM Foundation.
1. As of August 17, 2022 I have another intern who will help in the museum office. He has a nice amount of experience in social media and marketing. He is required to fulfil 120 hours by October. He will be a nice addition in the AOW office. Thank you to the Board for sharing your time and talents with us. Respectfully submitted, Linda
RPM Foundation June 2022 Board Report
Nick Ellis, Executive Director Executive Summary
RPM enjoyed great exposure thanks to our participation in The Great Race’s X-Cup student division this summer, having fielded an all-female team that performed above and beyond our expectations. The team handled repairs and maintenance on the Race vehicle, a 1966 Mustang provided by LeMayAmerica’s Car Museum, and did a phenomenal job in providing social media updates along the way. In addition to the social media exposure, we received enormous legacy media exposure by way of a fullpage spread article in the New York Times that profiled the team, The Great Race, and the RPM AdditionsFoundation.to our staff in the form of Lourdes Becerra, Administrative and Grants Coordinator, and a rotating intern position, have been extremely positive. These positions have focused on administration, marketing, and social media, allowing for an increase in attention to raising the profile of RPM while enabling us to bring our social media management back in-house, and even to expand our social media presence into new channels. This has also enabled us to consolidate contact information that has long resided in multiple spreadsheets in preparation for a conversion into a proper database and customer relationship manager. We continue to make progress on our apprenticeship program and other workforce development initiatives, working with the Department of Labor to gain approval of the apprenticeship program and securing $25,000 to be applied towards the Hagerty matching funds grant for the benefit of the Endangered Skills program. Our final quarter will be devoted to increased fundraising efforts in order to meet our Development goals for 2022. Development The Development Goals set for 2022 were as follows: Diversify funding sources to avoid reliance on single contributor: Our application for Department of Labor grant funding to support the RPM Apprenticeship Program has unfortunately been denied. We were informed, however, that our submission was within the second quartile of applicants. We received feedback that the justification for denial was a lack of experience in administering apprenticeship programs, which was an expected result. We are moving forward with the launch of this program on a smaller scale in order to amass the necessary experience to be considered for funding in 2023.
Increase RPM Grant funding impact: Our website donor page and giving portal has been redesigned for greater impact, utilizing feedback from our focus group.
Fundraising for the Great Race X-Cup was very successful, bringing in over $30,000 for the student division of the Race. We’ve secured a donation of $25,000 for the Endangered Skills program, which will be matched by Hagerty, and are conducting additional fundraising to meet the full $50,000 match.
Workforce Development
Raise profile of the skilled trades through media campaigns: A great boost to this goal arrived in the form of a New York Times article about the RPM Great Race X-Cup team, which we have incorporated into social media and fundraising campaigns. Bring social media management back in-house: We are on target to transition social media back inhouse, having worked with PopSkull to hand back control of all social media and newsletter content to RPM. Our final month of outsourced social media was August. PopSkull remains a positive relationship, and Founder PJ Rashid has volunteered to join a monthly update call at no cost.
Sponsorship relationship with Events (Concours, car shows, etc.): We are continuing to pursue sponsorship relationships with Events, negotiating with the New York and Fort Lauderdale Concours to be named as charity beneficiary for these events. Expand relationships with car clubs: Our profile continues to be raised through The Great Race partnership, and we are now working with the AACA to have the X-Cup presented as a youth initiative to the club’s individual chapters. Marketing The Marketing Goals set for 2022 were as follows: Produce specific marketing campaigns for Workforce Development, Outreach, and Grant programs: Our grant recipient social media campaign has grown to include testimonials from funding recipients; examples of these will be shown during the ATT Gala this year. We have also launched our TikTok account and have introduced campaigns within that account related to our Workforce Development and Outreach initiatives.
The Workforce Development Goals set for 2022 were as follows: Complete pilot of the RPM Apprenticeship and Internship Programs: Although our application for Department of Labor funding to support the RPM Apprenticeship Program (see “Development,” above) has been denied, we are moving forward with the launch of the program on a smaller scale. We have been assigned a Department of Labor consultant and have submitted an application for the introduction of Automotive Mechanical Restorer as a new Department of Labor-recognized occupation.
Launch the Endangered Skills Program: We have secured 50% of our fundraising goal for the Endangered Skills program, which will allow us to move forward with securing one of the two target skills for 2022. Our first skill to secure will be Vintage Engine Tuning.
Outreach The Outreach Goals set for 2022 were as follows:
Deb has been instrumental in several key connections for RPM in the past, including W Series driver Sabre Cook, who participated as a driver on the RPM Great Race X-Cup team.
Our pre-apprenticeship program (formerly known as the RPM Internship Program) will involve RPM providing high school automotive programs with core competencies necessary for entry into the full apprenticeship program. Industry association approval of the RPM Curriculum would establish a nationally-recognized certificate, similar to ASE certification but specific to restoration and preservation. Developing our outreach programs into turnkey student engagement activities that can be duplicated nationwide is another step towards this goal, as is partnering with The Great Race X-Cup to enlist AACA and other club chapters in fielding X-Cup student teams. When problems facing the vehicle restoration and preservation industry are discussed, we want the RPM Foundation to come to mind as the solution.
Develop Outreach Programs (Shop Hop, Off To The Races, Futures Class, etc) into turnkey models: The RPM Programs, while very popular, have always been extremely time-consuming to implement. Our recent approach to the Programs has been to have an RPM Ambassador lead the program, saving RPM Staff time and the expense of travel. In February, RPM Ambassador Chris Gleason led an RPM Shop Hop in Fort Lauderdale, and in April, RPM Ambassador David Murphy Rising led a Shop Hop in Tacoma. Both programs were executed with minimal time and expense on the RPM side. This approach would continue with the Great Race X-Cup appeal to the AACA chapters, providing the chapters interested in fielding an X-Cup team with the road map for doing so.
B.H.A.G
Our “Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal,” for 2022 and beyond, is to establish RPM as the national authority on education and workforce development within the world of vehicle restoration and preservation. An enormous step towards this goal will be approval of the RPM Apprenticeship Program by the Department of Labor. Although our Apprenticeship Building America grant was not awarded, we have a plan to achieve DOL approval of the program that has developed out of the application process.
Recruit additional RPM Ambassadors to lead programs: Deb Pollack, Publicist for Singer Vehicle Design, will be presented for approval as an RPM Ambassador during the AAT Education Committee meeting.
Enlist restoration shops, museums, and vehicle clubs to host programs: Continuing the trend of sharing efforts between institutions, our most recent outreach programs have been led by RPM Ambassadors and hosted at businesses like Griot’s Garage and The Creative Workshop, and museums like LeMayACM.
I. September 9 – September 10, 2022 | Tacoma, WA
I. January 27 – January 298, 2023 | The Hyatt Regency @ Gainey Ranch|Scottsdale, AZ
Showcase Galley @ ACM
2022/2023
Note: All meetings reflected below in Mountain Standard Time. Schedules are tentative until approved. Friday January 27 TBD TBD Committee Meetings Room TBD
Lucky’s Garage @ ACM Saturday September 10 9:00 AM 12:00 PM Board Meeting Banquet Room 12:00 PM 1:00 PM Lunch – box lunches provided Banquet Room 1:15PM 2:15PM Executive Session Banquet Room 5:00PM 9:00PM Annual Wheels&Heels Gala - tickets still available: Wheels & Heels Annual Gala - America's Car Museum (americascarmuseum.org)
Board Calendar
Note: All meetings reflected below in PST. Schedules are tentative until approved.
Friday September 9 Breakfast provided 9:00 AM 10:15 AM Development Committee Board Room 9:00 AM 10:15 AM Collection & Exhibitry Committee Banquet Room 10:30 AM 11:45 AM AAT Education Committee Board Room 10:30 AM 11:45 AM Operations and Finance Committee Conference Room 10:30 AM 11:45 AM Marketing Committee Banquet Room Lunch and afternoon on your own 6:00PM 11:00PM Annual Concours Club Gathering – tickets still available: Wheels & Heels Annual Gala - America's Car Museum (americascarmuseum.org)
Note: All meetings reflected below in Eastern Daylight Time. Schedules are tentative until approved.
Friday June 9 TBD TBD Committee Meetings Room TBD TBD TBD Board Dinner Room TBD Saturday June 10 9:00AM Noon Board Meeting Room TBD TBD TBD Afternoon and Evening Events Room TBD III. September 8 – September 9 2023 |Tacoma, WA
Saturday January 28 9:00AM Noon Board Meeting Room TBD 6:00PM TBD Annual Enthusiasts Gathering Room TBD II. June 9 – June 11, 2023 |America on Wheels |Allentown, PA
Note: All meetings reflected below in PST. Schedules are tentative until approved.
Friday September 8 9:00AM Noon Committee Meetings Room TBD Saturday September 9 9:00AM Noon Board Meeting Room TBD TBD TBD Annual Wheels&Heels Gala Showcase Gallery @ ACM