[BCMA] HAMM needs help raising $2.5M

[Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv]

Hello all,

HAMM in Courtenay has a question about mega-fundraising campaigns that we have seen used to raise funds for children's hospitals, Animal adoption agencies, and similar causes.  We are unsure if any of you have used such a business to raise large amounts of funds for specific projects or not.
Our situation with our current location is that we have been trying to survive a financial situation that is not of our own making.  Long story short, it involved the City of Courtenay’s decision in 2020 to locate the homeless centre and drug treatment facility directly next to our front door.  This has resulted in our visitor count plummeting over the years. As a result of our attendance has been steadily  dropping from our high season of 7000+ visitors down to <800 this past year. Though we have been helped by our Provincial gaming grant and from a healthy sized grant from the Comox Valley Regional District each year, those have only overed about a third of yearly basic overhead.  For the past 3 years at least, all three of our volunteers have been forced to pay for all of the remaining costs to keep our doors open out of our own pockets.  At this year’s AGM, it was decided that we either find a different place away from the City’s homeless camp and out of the City of Courtenay or we will be forced to close our doors completely and put everything into long terrm storage until we can locate a facility to house us in another municipality in the Comox Valley. The City has stopped supporing us in 2019 just prior to setting up the Centre and has not been supportive of our existance since then. The latest word from them is that their solution is to move the Centre in three or four years (a solution which will not save us)

We have found a very large heritage building in Cumberland, about 9kms away.  It is more than perfect for the salvation and continuaance of our programing of Remembrance and honouring the history of the Canadian Forces and the Northwest Mounted Police.  It gives us a steel reinforced security system on the windows, almost 10 times the display area, an actual bathroom that isn’t down the hall, HVAC, fire suppression, Iconic building, and a much larger profile in the BC Museum community.  But it comes at a cost which we can not reach as we have drained our back up funds completely to stay open this long. (https://alberniproject.org/inthepink.html)

Our struggles to raise a minimum of $2.5M to purchase a building to move HAMM into has drained us of energy and our supporters.  We are considering hiring such a Fundraising organization or company to help put us at least closer to our goal than the 002% we have been able to raise through GoFundMe and other online donation resources (Paypal, Facebook, Tamborine and top hat on the sidewalk in front of the museum).  

Has anyone had experience with using a company such as this?  Or other ways to raise this kind of money?

Before we get suggestions to contact Heritage Canada or Heritage BC, we do not qualify for most grants to purchase property.  One reason is we are all volunteers.  We’ve never had the income needed to pay myself (Director) or the position of Curator.  We have to have at least two paid staff to qualify for some of the major grants.

Another hold back for us has been, because we are a story museum about Canadians in times of war and conflict, we don’t have a specified Aboriginal content.  Or rather we haven’t had one until last month when we received a beautifully produced exhibit: WARRIORS AND NATIONS from the Invictus Games 2025. So in the future, we at least have that now as part of our museum and mobile exhibit content.

We are currently looking into application to become a DND museum, but this process takes about 3 or 4 years. It also comes with a few changes we will have to make, part of which is to give up some of our autonomy.  We’ll do what ever it takes to save the Museum and the Mobile Unit we have worked more than 25 years to build.

In August, we might be receiving a donation of a classic MG automobile which would be used to help raise funds.  We also have several paintings which have been donated to us for us to sell or auction to help with the building fund.  But we have only held one auction before and something this big, we are in the dark in how to proceed.

If anyone of you have suggestions (even ones we have tried), please write to me either in this thread or to me personally at mrbarth at alberniproject.org.

We’re more than halfway through 2025 and much closer to the end of the year where we will have to make a decision.  We are, sadly, preparing for the worst case scenario.



at your service,


Lewis Bartholomew
Founder & Executive Director

mrbarth at alberniproject.org

MUSEUM ADDRESS:
HMCS ALBERNI Museum and Memorial
MUSÉE DU NCSM ALBERNI
5-625 Cliffe Avenue
Courtenay BC
250-897-4611


ADMINISTRATION OFFICE:
The Alberni Project Society
TAP Mobile Exhibit Bookings
65 Salsbury Road
Courtenay, BC Canada V9N9L7
250-338-2720
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Charitable Tax Number: 820205631RR0001

HMCS ALBERNI Memorial
www.alberniproject.org
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www.twitter.com/AlberniProject
k103museum at alberniproject.org


Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw the torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die we shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders Fields. 

 
Email is a non-secure form of communication and clients should not include any sensitive account information in any email to The Alberni Project. Le courriel n'est pas un mode de transmission securise et les clients doivent s'abstenir d'y inclure tout renseignement sensible sur leur compte dans toute communication electronique destinee a projet de Alberni. 


With gratitude, we live and work within the Coast Salish and Salish Sea region - on the unceded traditional territories of K'omoks, ɬaʔamɩn gɩǰɛ (Tla’amin/ Sliammon), Homalco, We Wai Kai and We Wei Kum, and Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group - traditional keepers of these lands. Avec gratitude, nous vivons et travaillons dans la région des Salish de la côte et de la mer des Salish - sur les territoires traditionnels non cédés des K'omoks, ɬaʔamɩn gɩǰɛ (Tla'amin/ Sliammon), Homalco, We Wai Kai et We Wei Kum, et Hul'qumi. 'num Treaty Group - gardiens traditionnels de ces terres.









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