Opportunity Analysis
Friends of Mammoth Cave National Park
Economic Strategy
Friends of Mammoth Cave is a nonprofit alliance supporting the activities and continued preservation of Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. The organization leads fundraising efforts for the park, assists in capital projects, works to increase visitation, and provides natural and cultural resources for visitors to utilize in their trips to the park.
Friends of Mammoth Cave is a small organization, with two part-time employees and limited programmatic impact to date. With support from the National Park Foundation, Friends is exploring how they can more sustainability expand their work with new funding streams, partnerships, programs, and more. Numerous challenges stand in the way of achieving this goal in the long term. Friends is under-funded, with little operational fundraising occurring to support new employees and support for the park. The organization also is one of multiple organizations with work involving the park, with some organizations even working in opposition to Friends and the National Park. The park is relatively small and lesser known compared to other national parks with high rates of visitation and fundraising. The park is also incredibly rural, about 90 minutes from both Louisville and Nashville.
Our Approach
Working directly with Friends of Mammoth Cave staffing, Fourth Economy led a 6-month planning process to build consensus and momentum amongst organizational staff, board members, and external partners and funders. Beginning with a robust data analysis, review of organizational documents, and interviews with internal stakeholders, Fourth Economy built a working knowledge of the organization and its position in the region. Through interviews with model friends organizations throughout the country and a review of potential partners and funders throughout Kentucky, the planning team began to develop a listing of potential opportunities and fundraising strategies for the organization.
With a broad listing of potential strategies in hand, Fourth Economy led two Build Sessions, one with solely internal stakeholders and another with external partners, to begin building consensus amongst the organization for a path forward. These sessions highlighted specific needs for the organization: more formal fundraising tiers, membership offerings, public events throughout the state, and a connection with arts and culture happenings in the region. With a more concrete idea of potential opportunities and strategies to move forward with, Fourth Economy worked to build fundraising materials and deliverables that can drive the organization forward in its expansion of staffing and impact.
The Results
Fourth Economy produced multiple deliverables that not only serve as a guide for Friends’ future fundraising, growth, and impacts, but provide physical fundraising materials for Friends to use in these efforts. Deliverables included:
The assessment and implementation matrix provide an immediate plan, ranging from 1-5 years, for the organization to take on new fundraising strategies and efforts, build new programs and events, and firmly establish Friends’ impact in supporting the National Park. The fundraising materials are usable for Friends’ upcoming capital campaigns, pitch meetings, and events. Brand guidelines for the organization will help to formalize the organization and its marketing, positioning Friends to build a name for itself as the organization grows.
Location
Mammoth Cave, KY