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It is no secret that this year has been full of challenges. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, now more than ever, local nonprofits need your support. Our annual Good for Santa Barbara Nonprofit Section provides all the resources you need to donate this holiday season.
Noozhawk had the opportunity to speak with Greg Gorga, Executive Director at Santa Barbara Maritime Museum, to learn more about how the nonprofit is bringing education and history to Santa Barbara.
Santa Barbara Maritime Museum
Question: What is the name & mission of your nonprofit?
Answer: Santa Barbara Maritime Museum. Celebrating its 20th Anniversary, SBMM’s mission is to create quality exhibits and educational experiences that celebrate the Santa Barbara Channel and illuminate our rich connections with the sea.
Q: What was the inspiration behind your nonprofit?
A: Whether it is students experiencing their maiden sea voyage aboard a local vessel or learning how to collect indicator species with a naturalist, SBMM believes that everyone should have the opportunity to experience the Santa Barbara Channel, learn its history, and help preserve its natural wonders.
Over 20 years ago, a group of fisherman, divers, and sailors envisioned a place where the public could be exposed to maritime culture, important environmental issues, and history, without leaving the Harbor. On October 3, 1994, five founding directors—Clyde E. Kirkpatrick, Robert B. Kieding, Frederick Rice, Leon A. Fleischer, and John S. Poucher—signed the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum incorporation charter in the State of California. These five original directors, along with several others chosen to head up various committees—John. Cahill, Thomas Fuller, Miriam Polne-Fuller, and Leslie Leaney— set to work to plan, and find the artifacts and support for a place that Marinalife Magazine would come to name one of the top 10 maritime museums in the United States.
SBMM opened its doors on July 29, 2000 in the Harbor’s historic Waterfront Center (formerly the Naval Reserve Building) with the unique idea to present and interpret the rich and diverse maritime history of the Santa Barbara Channel. To this day, SBMM instills a love and respect for the Santa Barbara Channel, for the abundant marine life that calls these waters home, and for the maritime environment now and in the future. SBMM also informs the public about the people who have visited and inhabited this area for 13,000 years, those who make their living in and on its waters, and those who enjoy its recreational activities.
Q: How has COVID-19 impacted your nonprofit?
A: SBMM celebrated its 20th Anniversary on July 29, 2020. This year brought positive change, triumphs, and unexpected challenges. With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Museum closed its doors on March 13. However, despite our doors being closed to visitors, the interest level and need for Santa Barbara Channel-focused education, history, and experiences remained high. We responded with creativity, innovation, and technology to redefine educational programming and reimagine ways to educate and reach the community safely during this difficult time.
Thanks to its supporters, SBMM has been able to keep most of its staff “onboard” during the pandemic, many working at home, to mount new exhibits, develop new programs, and improve online communications with the community.
Because of a generous donor, our renowned monthly lecture series was moved to the Zoom platform – and made available for free to the public. Topics included Recovery of White Sharks off California – Dr. Chris Lowe, The Goleta Kelp Restoration Project – Chris Goldblatt, The History of the Santa Barbara Waterfront- Neal Graffy, and The Loss of USS Conestoga – Robert Schwemmer. The sbmm.org website was expanded to offer recordings of all of our lectures, virtual guided tours, a behind the scenes Curator’s Log, and The Deeper Dive Series.
The Deeper Dive Series provides additional information about our exhibits and interviews with or about the people who created our local maritime history, which will serve as an oral archive of their lives and work.
We also unveiled our first-ever online collection, the Dwight Brooks Models. Through this online collection, members of the community and researchers are now able to view photographs, model specs and stories of 32 large-scale, fully operational boats and ships.
Expanding our audience reach and engagement, our website’s new SBMM at Home pages feature educational programs, projects, videos, and activities for all ages.
From their own homes, community members also have access to SBMM programs like Maritime on the Move (three versions: Santa Barbara Harbor, Guadalupe, and Carpinteria), Ocean Connections, and Love Letters to the Sea ─ all of which encourage students and families to explore local ecosystems and biomes in new ways. Maritime on the Move brings museum-quality maritime-related experiences to locations throughout Santa Barbara County.
The adventures begin outdoors and incorporate engaging indoor and outdoor activities. Each activity can be tailored to meet individual needs and adapted for all ages to provide an unforgettable educational experience.
Almost immediately, revenue derived from admissions, store sales, events and rentals disappeared with our doors closed to the public. SBMM turned to new online fundraisers and auctions, emails, and social media to spread its messages and raise additional funds.
The Museum’s usual annual fundraiser (May 29) moved online, combining a virtual Surf the Big Wave silent auction, a Zoom presentation with Shaun Tomson, and a take-out dinner catered by the Santa Barbara Yacht Club.
The SCAPE Virtual Art Show & Sale (July 25-August 7) featured 150+ paintings from local artists and raised money for the Museum, while an online 20th birthday celebration included a virtual cake recipe contest.
This fall, SBMM “hosted” a virtual film premiere for She is the Ocean and will receive a portion of the ticket sales. Then, an online Sustainable Seafood Recipe Contest (September 15 – October 24) fostered the education of our community about responsible fishing practices, encouraged the use of local seafood, and supported our neighbors in the Harbor.
Finally, one of our community partners, the Santa Barbara Sea Glass and Ocean Arts Festival, recently raised $2,900 for the Museum with its Fishing for the Future silent art auction on Instagram (October 11 – 18).
Despite these efforts and the generosity of some of our donors and members, the Museum still experiences a significant loss in revenue over the last eight months.
Q: How is your nonprofit funded and what are your greatest needs?
A: SBMM is a privately funded nonprofit and does not receive any government funding, except for occasional grants. Most of the Museum’s support, about 60%, comes from the generosity of our donors, our Board of Directors, and members of our Navigators Circle. Another 20% of our income comes from grant awards, mainly from local private foundations; and the final 20% is what we consider earned income—admissions and membership fees, sales from our Museum Store, and SBMM facility rental income. With the Museum’s doors closed, SBMM has tried to meet its needs without earned income and without as many membership fees, resulting in cuts in staff hours.
Every year SBMM must raise about $1.2M; of which $300,000 supports our suite of educational programs and $100,000 supports exhibit installation, repairs, and upgrades, although that figure can increase three-fold depending upon the year and which exhibits we are opening. For example, when we brought the First Order Fresnel Lens from the Point Conception Lighthouse to our Museum, we had to raise nearly $500,000.
Our monthly operating expenses are about $70,000. While funding for education programs and exhibits is vital, our greatest need is unrestricted operating support for our fixed monthly operating expenses (rent, electricity, lighting and heating, climate control for our artifacts, off-site storage, and insurance) and our hard working staff. As a tenant of the Waterfront, SBMM pays more than $5,000 in rent and fees to the City of Santa Barbara each month.
Read more about our financials here.
Q: In what ways does your nonprofit utilize it’s funding?
A: SBMM centers its work on interactive learning opportunities for all ages. In order to accomplish our educational goals, we utilize various interpretive philosophies based on the different populations being served and on the belief that people learn best by doing, by using multiple senses, and by being able to question and test what they are seeing and hearing. For example, all of SBMM’s lectures include question and answer periods, and art exhibits allow interaction with the artists. Our youth education programs encourage the curiosity of youth by using interactive exhibits and experiential learning activities, such as collecting marine samples with a naturalist, onboard research into marine life, and building lighthouses and buoys at Science Nights.
With financial support from the community, we provide maritime-related education by:
- Bringing maritime education and history to life through multiple programs serving thousands of students annually; many at no cost to the students, their parents, or their schools
- Expanding our youth educational programming to online platforms and safe formats, including Maritime on the Move (Harbor, Carpinteria, and Guadalupe), Marine Science, Girls in Ocean Science, Ocean Connections, Tall Ship Program, Love Letters to the Sea, and SBMM at Home.
- Offering our renowned monthly lecture series exploring topics of concern for the region and the community as they relate to the history and environment in and around Santa Barbara and the Channel Islands, as well as making recordings of past lectures available for free on our website
- Building a uniquely curated presenter series for our Navigators Circle and Flagship Society members
- Developing an online Docent training module which connects the varied displays in the Museum to visitors of all ages and from all over the world
- Applying for AAM accreditation, demonstrating best practices for museums nationally
- Preserving, displaying, and celebrating the First-Order Fresnel Lens from Point Conception Lighthouse
- Cataloging, preserving, and presenting important local maritime artifacts through physical and online collections like the Dwight Brooks Model Collection
- Bringing traveling shows like the Arthur Beaumont: Art of the Sea exhibit to Santa Barbara
- Installing new exhibits, upgrading, and repairing existing exhibits
While much of our operating budget goes directly into educational programming for all ages, we also have fixed monthly operating expenses, i.e. rent, electricity, lighting and heating, climate control for our artifacts, off-site storage, and insurance. This fiscal year, without admission fees, event rentals, and merchandise sales to provide earned income, we must raise more than $1.2 M in charitable gifts and grants to support operations.
Your support ensures SBMM can provide educational programming online and in person. Support SBMM’s work today.
Q: How do people get involved / volunteer for your nonprofit? What protocols have been implemented for volunteers due to Covid?
A: SBMM is highly dependent on our volunteers, and we could not operate the Museum without them. We have a Docent program, through which volunteers dive deep into our local maritime history and then lead group tours through the Museum or serve as “Docents on Deck.” Our 4th-floor Outdoors Santa Barbara Visitor Center (the very best view in all of Santa Barbara!) is staffed by volunteers, our 103-year old sportfishing yacht, Ranger, has an all-volunteer crew, and many of our educational programs and events depend on our volunteers, along with our committees and Board of Directors.
People become involved as volunteers and docents in a variety of ways. At every lecture or program that the Museum hosts, our Executive Director talks to the audience about the work and need for volunteers, as well as the benefits of volunteering. Word of mouth, social media, and a newsletter for volunteers also interest people in becoming involved. In addition, SBMM’s website has a page dedicated to information about volunteering, the types of volunteer work that are available, and an opportunity to sign up online at https://sbmm.org/volunteer/, under the support menu.
Safety is our top priority for staff, visitors, and volunteers, and we have communicated on a regular basis with, and learned from, the many other museums throughout our county. We also follow the Santa Barbara County Health Department protocols and regulations and continue to monitor those on a regular basis. Read more about our reopening on December 3rd for members and the general public on December 17th.
We require everyone to wear a mask inside the Museum, except when staff and volunteers are alone at their desks. We have installed social-distancing signage throughout the Museum, installed sneeze-guards at our admissions kiosk, Museum Store register, and on the 4th Floor Outdoors Santa Barbara Visitor Center to protect our staff, volunteers, and visitors. We have installed sanitizer stations throughout the Museum and added sanitizing filtration systems to our heating and air-conditioning system. We are limiting the number of individuals and groups that can access the Museum Store, Fourth Floor Outdoors Santa Barbara Visitor Center, and our Museum at any one time, and we ask anyone feeling any symptoms of Covid-19, including staff and volunteers, to stay home. Most of our staff are working from home, and we alternate when staff and/or volunteers are in the Museum for added safety.
We have removed or restricted access to many of our high-touch, interactive exhibits, especially in our Children’s Gallery. And we are asking our visitors to use a stylus we provide to push any exhibit buttons. Facility staff have been directed to conduct regular cleaning of all frequent-touch points throughout the Museum.
When it is safe to re-open, SBMM kiosk attendants will have Treasure Maps with age-appropriate questions about the Museum for children and families. Children who answer the questions will receive a sticker and paper hat to take home. Coloring books/sheets with crayons will be available as well, including materials for our Love Letters to the Sea Interactive exhibit. All supplies will be new and single-use, and we will encourage visitors to take them home.
Maritime on the Move: Santa Barbara Harbor activity guides (in English or Spanish) will be available for visitors who are interested in an outdoor adventure. Visitors can go on a one-mile walk around the Harbor and focus on these educational themes: history of the Harbor, recreational activities, diversity of life, and preservation of the Santa Barbara Channel. Activity guides can be found here.
Q: What makes your nonprofit different from others?
A: We are unique in the community, serving as a hub and flagship institution for maritime-related information about the Santa Barbara Channel by showcasing its rich history, presenting inspirational programs, and prompting insightful discussions about the future of our coastal community. Whether you are interested in Santa Barbara history, the Santa Barbara Channel, or contemporary topics such as environmental preservation and sustainability, SBMM offers educational content for everyone.
Further, we encourage curiosity through interactive exhibits, experiential learning, lectures, and unique programs with special emphasis on California’s maritime history and environment. From our inception, we have been a resource and active partner with schools throughout the county serving students and teachers with activities at the Museum, in the Harbor, on the Channel, and in the classroom, many from Title I schools, at a reduced rate or at no charge. This commitment has led to educating nearly thousands of students annually. Accordingly, the museum opened an interactive Children’s Gallery and developed a variety of exciting educational programs—ranging from volunteers visiting school Science Nights to teach children about navigation, sailing, and lighthouses and leading tailored school tours, to developing unique programs like Marine Science, which takes students out on boats– to experience coastal California as citizen scientist.
Educating adults has also been considered an important element of the Museum’s mission and has led to SBMM’s monthly lecture series, Navigator’s Circle presentations and events, the History of Oil in the Santa Barbara Channel exhibit, and the Alternative Uses of Oil Platforms Expo, all to enable informed discussions of issues of concern in and around the Santa Barbara Channel.
SBMM’s unique suite of education programs include Maritime on the Move (Harbor, Carpinteria, and Guadalupe), Marine Science, Science Nights, Girls in Ocean Science, Ocean Connections, Tall Ship, Love Letters to the Sea, Docent-led Field Trips, Monthly Lecture Series, and SBMM at Home.
Q: What is the best kept secret or fun fact about your nonprofit that not everyone knows?
A: There are many things from the past 20 years that SBMM is proud of that most people do not know about, even in our local community. SBMM was ranked one of the top 10 maritime museums in the United States two years ago by Marinalife Magazine. Last year, the Santa Barbara Chamber of Commerce selected us as the Nonprofit of the Year; and in 2015, SBMM received the George & Vivian Obern Preservation Stewardship Award from the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation.
But many people do not realize that in 2012 the United States Coast Guard approached SBMM and asked the Museum to submit a proposal to transfer and display the First Order Fresnel Lens from Point Conception Lighthouse. It was an honor for SBMM to be asked to care for and display this artifact, which many believe is the most important maritime artifact along the Santa Barbara Channel. The 18-foot tall lens, built in Paris in 1854, has 624 glass prisms, and weighs nearly six-thousand pounds.
While the Coast Guard needed an organization to house the lens, they were unable to provide funding for the removal, transportation, cleaning, re-assembly, maintenance, or exhibit displays. SBMM therefore had to take a major risk in relocating the First Order Fresnel Lens from the Point Conception Lighthouse, which was on a remote bluff-top, with no road access, some 50 miles away from Santa Barbara. This innovative exhibit was especially risky due to the cost, logistics of disassembling, packaging, and moving a huge glass lens from the lighthouse via helicopter for subsequent trucking transport to the Museum. The full story of our First Order Fresnel Lens from Point Conception Lighthouse exhibit can be found here.
Q: Can you share one or two stories of individuals whose lives have been changed because of your organization?
A: Since opening our doors, more than 7,000 students throughout Santa Barbara County have experienced our Spirit of Dana Point Tall Ship Overnight Program. From 2001 – 2019, SBMM brought a tall ship up from the Ocean Institute in Dana Point and ran the Spirit of Dana Point Tall Ship Overnight Program, based on Richard Henry Dana, Jr.’s book, Two Years Before the Mast. Local fourth-graders, who were studying their California history, read an abridged version of Dana’s book, did a tour with our docents, of the Museum’s Dana Exhibit, and then spent the night aboard the ship, living the life of an 1830’s sailor. It was a hands-on, interactive program, with students acting as first-mates and giving orders to their crew, and the student crews doing everything from preparing dinner and breakfast, bringing barrels of water onboard, collecting hides and tallow, and standing night watch.
Hannah, a student at Marymount, had very little interest in ships or the ocean when she entered the Spirit of Dana Point Tall Ship Overnight Program as a 10-year old. But her experience in our program led her to later spend a full-week journey with her father sailing aboard a motor-less tall ship and learning the names and uses of over 150 ropes (lines and rigging). Then, before she finished high school, she wrote and self-published a historical novel, based on an English Navy officer commanding a ship during the time of Lord Nelson.
In 2010, SBMM opened a controversial exhibit, The Spill’s Broad Reach, about the 1969 oil spill and the environmental movement that resulted from that disaster. As part of SBMM’s monthly lecture series, we held a panel discussion, moderated by the late Mike deGruy, bringing together three members from the oil industry, and three representatives from local environmental groups. During that very civil, captivating two-hour open discussion, the environmental groups agreed to support Venoco’s plan to build a pipeline out to the one remaining oil platform that was still barging product across the Santa Barbara Channel. Both sides agreed that the pipeline would be best for our environment. More recently, in November 2019, SBMM held the Alternative Uses of Oil Platforms Expo, bringing in ten different groups with proposals of what to do with the Santa Barbara Channel’s oil platforms once they are de-commissioned.
It is always SBMM’s goal to provide educational, ocean-related experiences for our community members, and to provide educational programming with varying viewpoints where people of all backgrounds can learn, and hopefully find common ground.
Q: Can you tell us one short-term goal and one long-term goal that your nonprofit has for 2021?
A: After being closed for most of 2020 because of COVID-19, it has become more apparent than ever that our agility and responsiveness to the changing nonprofit environment and the needs of our members are paramount. Preliminary work is underway to secure sustainable funding and increase visibility and community awareness. This involves redesigning our membership programs (Family & Individuals), Navigators Circle, and Flagship Society to offer unique educational opportunities, camaraderie, elevated benefits, and access to SBMM, plus curated food and beverage events in a newly created membership club, which we aim to unveil in 2021.
In addition to redesigning our membership programs, we are currently undergoing two critical core processes in fulfillment of our goals – 1) Accreditation with AAM and 2) Strategic Planning. One of our short-term goals for 2021 is to complete the accreditation process, which we initiated last year. Our application has been reviewed and accepted, and we are currently awaiting a site visit and final approval in 2021. Achieving AAM accreditation will place SBMM in the ranks of other nationally renowned and respected museums, inspiring an even higher level of trust and confidence in the quality and value of our work and programs. Over the next year, during the AAM accreditation process, we will continue to operate exhibits and educational programs according to the highest standards, protocols, and best practices.
The most important of our long-term goals is to complete our next 5-year Strategic Plan, determining and implementing a new set of institutional goals, of which one will be to increase SBMM’s financial stability and endowment. COVID-19 has emphasized the need for SBMM and other nonprofits to diversify and ensure their revenue streams in times of crisis and change.
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