Your historic preservation organization most likely got its start through an all-volunteer grassroots campaign. Many preservation groups exist for years as a labor of love for a small group of volunteers. But as your organization expands its scope and influence in your community, you may face a significant staffing decision to accomplish your growing workload.

The prospect of accepting responsibility to fund a full- or part-time staff person can be intimidating. Internships can offer a low- or no-cost way for your group to address workload pressures, but they must be carefully structured to offer value to the interns as well.

Take the Leap: Add a Paid Staff Member to Your Organization

To make a decision about adding a paid staff member, you must first have a solid strategic plan with a clear vision and goals. If it would be impossible to implement your group's vision and meet your goals because your volunteers don't have the necessary time or skills, your group is probably ready to begin fundraising and budgeting for a paid staff person.

In 2009, the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation hired Jason Tish as the executive director to professionalize the organization and ramp up advocacy efforts. Here is Tish's account of his group's thinking about hiring an executive director:

We had wanted to hire a staff person for many years — to make us more relevant, professional and engaged as an advocate, and to develop our programs further. As an all-volunteer organization we couldn't be very effective in our advocacy (the education part of or mission was consistent, not polished, but consistent), but when it came to advocacy all we could do was write letters and testify at planning meetings occasionally.

In 2008 NTHP [National Trust for Historic Preservation] offered the Partners in the Field grant program. One of the goals of the program was to offer matching funds to local and statewide organizations to hire their first Executive Director. It was a big step for us to commit to raising $87,000, but we took the leap and applied for the grant. We got it, hired me in 2009, and have raised almost the entire match.

Determine the Best Role for Your Paid Staff Member

If your group decides to hire a staff person, you'll also need to determine what role this staff person should have in your organization. Your group should consider these questions:

• Do you need an executive director, or is your board capable of sharing executive duties with a paid administrative support person?
• Do you need someone to focus on fundraising and public relations work, or do you need someone to "hold down the fort": manage and direct email, open the mail, manage memberships, edit your website, answer the phone regularly, etc.?
• Do you need someone full time or part time?

Enhance Your Preservation Efforts with Interns

A good intern, when well tasked, can enhance your preservation effort with little to no cost to your organization. An intern can gather information that will deepen your organization's advocacy arguments and inform your strategies. But some internships end up wasting an organization's time on a low-value research project. Others waste the intern's time by providing little to no educational value on tasks such as stuffing envelopes, filing, and running errands.

Every preservation group should take seriously its responsibility for ensuring the educational value of internships and their role in the development of future preservation advocates.

Although interns are not technically staff, you should approach working with them much like you would a staff member. Have intern-appropriate projects in mind before you advertise the internship. Just as you would evaluate a staff assistant's interests and aptitudes before assigning a task, you should know an intern's skills before agreeing to a project. Interview potential interns as if you were hiring for a staff position, even if this position is unpaid.

Design an Internship with Value for Everyone

To create an internship with value to both your organization and the intern, you must structure the internship around a well-defined project with a specific purpose. The project must involve extensive research or another task that does not require constant supervision. Here are some examples of intern-appropriate advocacy projects:

• Create a clip file of press covering local historic preservation matters
• Create a press matrix of local writers based on this press coverage
• Research elected officials who could aid your efforts with attention to preservation-friendly or unfriendly actions (such as whether or not an elected official lives in a historic house)
• Create a series of preservation "report cards" based on this research
• Conduct a windshield survey of a potential historic district
• Research and draft the text for a landmark nomination
• Interview a member of the city council about historic preservation (with supervision from a mentor)
• Develop an organizational or project website
• Research and write web and newsletter content

Your group might consider partnering with a college or university that offers a service-learning program (perhaps with academic credit) for its students. When a good project is coupled with regular reporting and feedback to a supervising staff member, an internship can provide significant support for substantive program work.

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Historic Preservation Advocacy Guide

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