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Interactive science museum and steam educational facility in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.
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Hi, my name is Harley, and I'm an educator and the community affairs coordinator here at the Emerald Coast Science center.
Hi, my name is Jacy and I'm the social media coordinator.
Hi. Hi, my name is Diane and I'm the director. Today we're going to be discussing misconceptions of museum funding, and this is something that's really near and dear to my heart. There's a couple things. I'll start out with this story from years and years and years ago. I was at a community event, and it was at the hospital, and they were showcasing a new robotic surgery equipment. And one of the doctors there was talking to me about it and everything. I was like, oh, yeah, that's so cool. This is so neat. Wouldn't it be really great to have something like this in a science museum? You know, I run the local science museum, and he goes, well, all my taxpayer money goes to you anyway. And I didn't think about it at the time because I didn't have a response to that. And obviously, I still think about this because it's been a minute since that event actually happened. And I think the misconception is that museums are fully taxpayer funded, and that is absolutely not the case for us. Now, there are some museums, even some museums here locally that are taxpayer funded, like the indian Temple Mound museum complex that is actually owned, managed, operated by the city for Walton beach. So the people that work there are actually city employees. So they have a totally different set of operational objectives and financial situation than some of the other museums that are here locally. So just to give you a heads up, even all of the larger museums aren't all, you know, taxpayer funded. For an organization like us, we're completely independent, so we have to figure out how to pay for everything that we do. And one of the things that we have really been focused on since we moved into this location in 2014 is growth. And so everything that we do, we turn around, and if we have, you know, $10, we try and put it right back into the museum to figure out how to make the museum a better place. And I think if you've been with us for any amount of time, you've seen that growth. We're coming up on ten years, but it takes a lot of effort and finding funding from a lot of different places. So we're going to talk a little bit about how we get that funding, where it comes from. And one of the huge disappointments that we were hit with this summer, as I said, we're completely independent, so we have a mortgage that we have to pay. We have purchased our facility from the city. So that's the first thing out of the gate, right, is we have to make a house payment every month. We do have professional staff. People ask me all the time, well, can't you just get volunteers? Why do you have to have staff? Well, you need reliable people. You know, all of our educators have to go through a level two background check with the school district, you know, so they have to be fingerprinted. We have to know that people that we are putting in front of kids and families know how to manage behavior of kits.
And do you really want a volunteer to train other volunteers to make sure.
They'Re good to go?
It's a lot.
It's a lot. And we do have some amazing, absolutely amazing, wonderful volunteers here that we couldn't do what we do without them. But then you also have got to have paid staff because I need people to work on Saturdays and, you know, that's, you know, a lot of times people don't want to do that unless they're getting paid for it, you know, in evenings and events that we do. So. Absolutely. You have to have reliable staff. You have to have staff that have certifications. You have to have staff that pass background checks. You have to have staff that have a foundation of knowledge. You know, we could ask a lot of different questions from a lot of different directions about science, all different disciplines of science. So we need to have people that have a fundamental background in science. They can understand and answer those questions legitimately. That's it. So we have building. It's an old building, too. Remember, this building was built in 1977, was not designed to be a science museum.
Hey, she's strong, though.
Yes.
Oh, no, I'm nothing. I'm not knockinner, but I'm just telling.
You that we've had to take this space and make it our own upgrade.
Exactly. And a lot of that is absolute.
Sweat equity, both staff and volunteers.
Exactly, exactly. We have some wonderful volunteers that have helped us to really fill out the space here, especially in our outdoor area, which you've probably seen since the pandemic has really blossomed. And we have other ideas and other organizations impact 100. That's had a huge, huge piece of the growth that we have had over the past, you know, ten years since we've been here. So other places that we get funding, corporate sponsorships, those are always fantastic when you can find organizations that have like minded missions, or they're looking to promote STEM education in a community, you know, and they come on board as either sponsors for events that we have, or they can just, you know, write a.
Check or they contribute. Group volunteer days, too.
Yeah, that's really helpful as well.
I think a great example is MTSI sponsoring gems. That, too. Yeah. Cause they sponsor Wolfgang.
Yes.
Right. Yeah.
And they've come and done things on volunteer days and stuff like that as well.
Yeah, they're wonderful people. We love them an awful lot. MTSI, which sponsors our gems program that allows us to partner with the Fort Walton Beach Library, allows us to offer that program absolutely free because we have somebody that underwrites the program for us. So we're basically running off of earned revenue, which is admissions fees that we charge for programs that people pay field trips. Field trips are absolutely. I mean, they're your mortgage makers. I mean, they're the things that will pay your mortgage, having field trips. And it was really, really hard that year, two years during the pandemic when we had no field trips, that was very scary time.
Definitely had to pivot to other types of programs, virtual programs and things like that, just to see what we could.
Put out there to keep the community engaged. Part of it, too, is just awareness, just making people remember, oh, yeah, Emerald Science center. Yeah, it's a great place to take our kids and families. It's a great place for tourists to come visit. So a lot of it is earned revenue. So we do appreciate when you come in and you buy a family membership or you pay admissions to get in, or you attend one of our fundraisers. Of course, our biggest fundraiser is our, my chemical cocktail party that is in the spring going on year three in 2025. So, yeah, that's really important to us. And it's a great community event, and it's a lot of fun as well. The two places that we do get a little bit of tax funded money is one is bed tax. Now, that's paid on short term rentals. So it is not on people that live in our community, but these are people that are visiting the community, and that goes to the tourist development department, and it has a council that manages it. But that's part of the county, part of Okaloosa county, and there are laws set in the state of Florida that tell how that funding can be allocated and spent. So some of it goes back to the municipalities, which is the cities. Some of it goes to fund the actual staff and the tourist development department itself. Some of it goes into beach safety, but there's a cap on the percentage of the funds that's allowed to go back towards, like the sheriff's department and the destined fire and safety and organizations like that that provide safety for our visitors and guests when they're here in our community. And there is line item number five, which says some of that funding can go back to museums and some other cultural organizations that do provide opportunities for guests to visit, things like that as nonprofits. And so we do get very small amounts, but it's up to the council to decide that amount. Absolutely, absolutely. They have some really great discretion in how they, and that's the tourist development department and what budget they put together and how much and to whom they give it to. So the focus in our area has not been on putting it back into museums. So they have a tens, tens, tens of millions of dollars of money every year, and they give less than $100,000 to the eight eligible museums in our community. So that ends up being like $12,000 a museum percentage wise. Like a very small, very small. And it's heartbreaking to me because I feel like this is a great way for them to invest into organizations that provide family friendly venues for, you know, it does rain, you know, and people get sunburned. And some days, especially recently, it's just been too hot to even think about being outside, even if you're sitting on the beach. It's been too hot to be thinking August.
Yeah, just August, really.
But, you know, investments made into those museums, which would then turn around and create new exhibits and new experiences for those tourists that come to visit our area. Also create this wonderful new exhibits for locals to take advantage of as well. And museums have access for everybody. So you could be two years old, you could be 82 years old, you could be a non reader, you could have physical mobility issues, but you can still visit a museum. That's why to me, I find it heartbreaking that we're not top priority. Yeah. We're not emphasizing supporting organizations that provide activities for people of all ages instead of creating things that are generally for people that are mobile enough to get outside and get on a boat and off a boat with money. Yeah. So, and this is a pet peeve, and I get in trouble for speaking out about it. So I probably get in trouble for saying this, but it matters to me. And my job is to advocate for my organization. I also feel it's my job to advocate for all the museums that are in Okaloosa county.
You know us as museums. We hold all of your history and your culture. Even as a science center, there's history on our walls, literally. So.
Well, I mean, we tell you why we are who we are.
Exactly.
I mean, this is how we grew up, and I say grew up. This is how our community grew up. This is why the things that we do, the things that make us unique are the things that we do and the things that make us unique because of the history and because of the natural environment that we have here. That's why all these people come. That's why they come to visit us here, and we have an opportunity to explain to them what makes our area so wonderful and beautiful and unique. And so they not only get to experience it, but they also get to understand it, which I think is important as well. So that's, number one, taxpayer, but not taxpayer. Actually, it's a bed tax. So short term rentals. And then number two is through the state of Florida has a program called Florida's arts and cultural grants. They are run through the Florida Department of State. They have always been a line item in the budget every year. It is a very rigorous grant process. You have to submit a grant. You have to have letters of support. You have to be open a certain number of days a year. You have to provide certain amounts of programming and definitely analytics and metrics, too.
Because it does a lot.
Yeah. It takes our grant writer, Kate, who, by the way, is amazing. It takes her about two weeks to get this grant together. And then volunteers from other cultural organizations read and score the grants, and you have to have a score of 80 or higher in order to be eligible for the funding. And then there's always this statewide call that, you know, it has different tiers, different categories, based on the size of your museum and your operating budget and the type of museum that you are and the type of funding. There's four different pots of money inside of this grant process, and it's that call. And you have to sit on this call, and they go through. The reviewers are on there and they go through. And they go through the rubric and they talk about, you know, it's awful.
I mean, because it's like they're being peer reviewed.
Exactly.
While everyone else is listening to you.
Yeah. In front of all of your peers, which could be, you know, 30, 40 other museums, they're all on. On this call. The call lasts multiple hours. I remember this was the first year it took us a couple of years to get into the grant cycle. I remember. I think it was year two, and I think Kate was on a cruise during the call, and I was the one that had to be on the call.
Uh oh.
And, okay, first of all, I didn't know how to mute the phone call, so let's just start with that. This is how bad this was. And we had this bird at the time. Her name was Roz, and she was incredibly loud, and so she was down the hallway, and she was just making all of this noise, and I. Someone's like, they're not muted. Who's got that bird? What's going on? These are, like, the grant reviewers talking about. I'm like, oh, my gosh. And they're like, okay, you need to press, like, star six, everybody. Press star six to mute yourselves. So I was just mortified. And I'm like, oh, thank God they didn't know that it was me. Well, a little bit later on, it.
Might have been zoom then, because you can tell who's muted and not muted.
Okay, this was like a phone call.
Like an actual phone.
Actual phone. And this was probably eight years ago.
Okay.
Okay, so this is like the second year that we had written this for this grant. So then there is this museum, and it's the museum of shorebirds. And so the guy gets on there, and it's his turn to be reviewed, and he goes, by the way, that wasn't me with the bird in the background. Uh oh. Yeah. So that's where I started.
Nobody knew it was you, though, did they?
But not the shorebird music.
Yeah, but they wanted to make sure that everybody knew wasn't them. And I'm like, well, now everybody knows because I just outed myself. But, yeah, so it's a huge process. So every year, there's, like, an ask. So all these museums, cultural organizations. So we're talking about, like, the northwest Florida Ballet, Emerald Coast Theater company. These are. I'm just naming off some ones that are local, so you'll have some sort of point of reference for who we're talking about Pensacola little theater, Pensacola Symphony orchestra. So all of groups and organizations like this, they submit, they're reviewed, there's scored, and so maybe everybody. And this is over 600 different organizations across the state. And maybe the ask is. I know. I think one year, it was like $93 million. So the legislature looks at this, and they're like, oh, you know, we don't feel like we can fund for the whole state. For the whole state. Absolutely. Yeah. And so, and for the four different pots of money. Okay. Because there's four different ways that you can apply for. The largest one is just like this straight up museum grant. There are some that are like special projects, some that are like cultural organizations, not like a brick and mortar, but maybe events. So say the ask is $93 million, so it gets to the legislature and the House says, okay, well, we're willing to put $45 million at it. And maybe the Senate's like, oh, well, usually the Senate is more generous in the House, and the Senate maybe says, oh, we'll give like $57 million towards it. So as they negotiate these budgets and then they end up maybe with like $49 million for museum grants. So that means that you're not going to get but 45% of the funding that you're eligible for. Okay. So this is also based on your operational budget. So, like, smaller museums don't get as much money as larger museums. But also there's a cap. So we have some really big, crazy, wonderful museums in the state of Florida that are like multi, multi million dollars operational budgets. Well, they're not going to get millions of dollars. There's a cap, I think, and please don't quote me, but I think the cap is $150,000. So it doesn't matter, you know, how big you are. You can only ask for up to a certain point in funding. So they negotiate, they get this number, 49% of the ask, and then they go back and they look at your scores and then run an algorithm and they say, okay, well, where you would have been eligible for $90,000, now you're going to get 49% of that, which is, I don't know, maybe $46,000 or $45,000, something like that. And you have to tell how you're going to spend that money. So we usually spent that money on getting a brand new exhibit every year so that, that way people would come back and have something new and fun to see. Well, museum exhibits cost fifteen thousand dollars to. Twenty thousand dollars to start with. Absolutely to start with. And that's just like a kind of a basic, I mean, I've been looking at this one exhibit that I want so bad, but it's $70,000 and I know, I know we'll never get it, but anyway, I want to throw up. Yeah. Is that an anatomy table? Oh, yeah. That thing is so wicked cool. You can do so much stuff on it, but I won't ever have $70,000.
Someone have to give you.
Exactly. And every year I just like Pokemon. Well, do you know of any grants that are. That people have used to get that exhibit?
Yeah.
And they're like, yeah, no, so anyway, but the point is, we try and always buy a new exhibit. We use it to underwrite some of the programs that we offer. Not all of our programs make a ton of money, and we need them to because we need to have earned revenue. So we underwrite some of those programs and buy the materials and supplies of our family science night program, for sure. And some of our homeschool programs, outreaches. I mean, when we go to these festivals and these community events, we've got one coming up this weekend. Well, and Thursday. Oh, yeah. And. Oh, yeah. So two this week. Two community events this week that we have to go to pay staff, time for, have materials and supplies. If we're doing a make and take or we're doing activities. Well, nobody pays us to go to those. That's just stuff that we just do because it's part of our mission. Right. So some of that funding helps to underwrite for us to be able to go to those types of events.
And if you don't go to those things, a lot of those times, those organizations that are asking you to be a part of it could potentially forget about you.
Well, I think it's part of, like, raising awareness. So it's kind of part marketing, but it's also kind of serving your mission, which is for us to engage and inspire a scientifically literate community, which means we need to be in the community. We need to be there where the people are.
And you want those people that are at those organizations to be like, oh, yes, there is a science museum here. You could go to this place.
Well, and sometimes there are people that have like minded missions. Missions, right. And by working with them, you know, we're fulfilling our own mission. There's so many opportunities for collaboration, and we could talk about collaboration in an entirely different podcast because it is just so incredible in our community. But so that's the kind of things that we use this funding for. Well, this year in the budget, it was $32 million. They had only decided the legislature was only going to fund two pots of the four pots of money, which would have been $32,000,000.01 of them was 26 million, which was like the general one, and the other one was like five sixes, something like that. Over 600 different cultural organizations throughout the state would have divvied up that funding amongst themselves, and the governor vetoed it. Like, at the absolute last minute. Everyone was shocked. That's never happened before, never in the history of this grant. I mean, it's just every year the percentage of funding fluctuates, right? But it's never not there. And everyone was blindsided. So this happened in the middle of June. Well, a lot of these organizations start their fiscal year July 1, right? So you've got all of these organizations that had anticipated getting whatever funding they thought they were going to get because they understood where the legislature had funded this, where it was in the budget, and then all of a sudden, somebody yanks that money out from under them two weeks ahead of the brand new fiscal year. So that was it. So that's. That's it. No affairs?
None.
None for anyone. Which just. It kind of struck me because I had a friend whose daughter is a schoolteacher here in Oklusa county, and she had been in one of the productions at Pensacola little theater. She was in their production this summer, and for months, she had been driving back and forth from here after school to rehearse, to practice. She's a dancer, and she's not getting paid for that. So that they could put on this Broadway production, so that we could have joyous, so that we could go on a date night and we could go see something, and we could have culture. We could have the same things that you can find in bigger cities. And it basically felt like they said, the governor said, that's meaningless. Like, I don't care. I don't care. The sacrifices that you make. I don't care that you're putting all of this out there to try and make this a better place. And it's art, it's culture. It's things that are, like, not necessary to live, but they are the things that make living worthwhile. And I sat there and I listened at a Techman meeting, and I listened to them talk about, you know, oh, how we're competing with all these other places to bring these businesses into the state of Florida. Well, what do businesses look for when they come?
They want to have fun.
They look for culture.
But also some of those people that do those programs and that culture and the arts. Sometimes those people do need those things to live. They require on that, too. Maybe the festival is some sort of fundraiser, and they get money for it, or their organization does, or it brings them joy, because that's where they get it from, by doing that to provide joy for other people.
Well, and it's individual artists, too. I mean, and these are people that. This is how they live. They support themselves. Art, you know, Maddie Kelly, Arts was one of the organizations here locally. Symphonia ourselves, Emerald Coast Theater Company, and northwest Florida ballet all lost funding because of this. It was only, like, $1.2 million across the panhandle. Organizations that lost funding, most of them in Pensacola area. But there's a couple here in Okaloosa County, Walton county arts Coalition.
Walton County Arts alliance.
Is that what you call. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I think that's it.
Yeah.
Also lost funding, and they do some really incredible stuff. You guys should check them out. So I guess my. My takeaway to you is that hurt. It hurt my feelings. Okay. I'm not gonna lie. It made me very, very angry because it felt like my government said the word that we do isn't important. And I see every day how important the work that we do is. And then my ask to you is support these organizations. Go see the play. Go to the museum, go see the ballet. Go listen to the symphony.
Come see us.
Come see us. It's gonna be a tough year, but we have just gone through that grant cycle again. It's very disheartening. Right? Because you're like, all right, I just wrote this grant again. I am. They're out being reviewed right now. What's the point? Is there going to be funding for it next year? We just spent a lot of time and effort. And tell them. Tell your representatives, tell your state government this is important. It's important to all of us to have these organizations, to have these little moments outside of our everyday life that, you know, spark imagination and creativity and joy and to see somebody else, you know, sharing the talents and the creativity and the gifts that they have with a larger audience, that that's what it means to be a human being. And I feel like that we got robbed of that this year. And so I'm asking you, I mean, obviously, I'm gonna ask you to come see us, but I'm also asking you to see all of those things, you know, especially if it's not something that you've thought about doing before. I mean, this is the time. The time is to go do it right now.
Maddie Kelly also just put out all of their, like, plays and stuff that they're doing. I got a thing in the mail.
Yeah.
Spider man.
Oh, dear. Evan Hansen. Okay, but that's the different Mattie Kelly.
That's the art center. Do I would. Do you think that they are affected as well?
I don't think so, because I did see the list of everybody, because that's the one that runs through the college.
Okay, so they probably have other funding resources and such.
Right?
But Maddie Kelly Arts foundation, they do, like, the festival of the arts in October.
They do the concerts in the.
In the village.
Yes. And they also have a really amazing military program. Is it the art program that they do that Melanie does? It's absolutely fascinating. But there's, like, a wounded warrior one or something like that. And it is amazing, isn't it?
Zentangles?
Yes.
Yes.
Oh, those are fun.
They are. And she's. Melanie over there is incredible. And that just kind of broke my heart when I saw that they lost funding, because I was like, oh, my gosh. Some of the programming that they do is really, really important, especially to those people in those smaller, targeted audiences that they're reaching out to. Unleashing that creativity is very important. So one of the things that we're getting ready to do is coming up on nonprofit day, which is August 17. So we'll be reaching out on our social media platforms. There will be an ask, so we'll.
Also email and stuff like that.
Kate?
I'll be sending.
Yeah, there'll be an email coming out as well. We're just trying to raise awareness, so maybe this won't happen again.
Yeah.
Because it matters. It's important.
And we'll also be in two places that day if you want to come and visit us here and at the Fort Walton beach landing, the Clean Water.
Festival on Saturday, which, by the way, we're not getting paid to be there. We just thought this was something that has just kind of been weighing on us all summer long, and I've been fussing about it, and every chance I get, so why not fuss some more?
Will this be the final time?
Who knows? It's not over yet. I mean, maybe next year if they come back and fund us 100% of the act.
Yeah, that'd be nice.
We'll seal our lips.
Yeah. Then I'll jump over it. No, I'm sorry, guys. Thanks so much for giving us this opportunity to kind of clear up some misconceptions, give you some ideas of, you know, it's a struggle and how much we love and appreciate all that you do for us to make sure that, you know, we're still here, that we can keep going, especially for those of you that supported us during the COVID time. I mean, we were just absolutely over the moon with the response that we got from the community to keep us viable, and we're coming up on ten years. So November. So we're gonna do a party. We're gonna do something to celebrate that. Ten years. Because I.
Ten years in September.
October.
No, it's November.
November.
November.
Because right around Thanksgiving time.
Sunday before Thanksgiving.
Yep.
That's when we opened here at this location.
Okay.
So, yeah. So keep your eyes and ears open for. We don't know what that is yet.
Yep. It'll be some celebration. And there, of course, will be cake.
Oh, absolutely. Because I'm always here for the cake.
Yep.
So I am talked out. Go meet.
So thank you guys for listening to this week's episode. We'll be back in two weeks with a new one. Until then, see you guys.
Bye. Stay curious.
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