Dear Docents and Volunteers,
It is hard to believe that we are now 8 months into this pandemic and the last time the staff and volunteers were in the office together was March 13. Over the past week we have seen signs of hope, including promising news of a potential COVID vaccine, but the road to physical and economic recovery will still be a very long one. Unfortunately, CAC reached another critical crossroad this week and had to take significant action to sustain the organization during this period of recovery.
Yesterday, we laid off 15% of our staff. In addition, we had two VPs announce that they were pursuing other opportunities and one announcing a reduction in schedule. These are not decisions that have been made lightly. The impact of COVID on tourism, attendance, and development has been drastic, and with cases rising again going into the winter, we are faced with more uncertainty and renewed restrictions. We have modeled multiple scenarios that will allow us to not only reduce expenses, but also focus on revenue opportunities and a comprehensive content creation in this virtual environment.
In getting to our latest staffing structure we spent a lot of time mapping out the CAC future state and the appropriate organizational structure. We looked at organizing around 3 pillars:
- Content Development
- Content Delivery
- Content Marketing
Under our most recent structure, content is developed in many different areas around the CAC, programs for youth in the Education department, adult programs by the Programs Team and Docents developing tours. Docents have also begun developing and delivering virtual programs and tours, a model likely to continue even when we can once again gather regularly in person. As we move forward, bringing these silos of content creation under one shared umbrella allows us to more fully utilize the research that goes into creating content, make better use of staffing and volunteer resources, and better market and fundraise. The example I use is the Great Fire anniversary coming up next fall – we should be embracing this as an organization in all that we do for youth, adults and tours and push this content throughout all we do.
As a result of this, we are putting all content development under one department headed up by our VP of Education and Audience Engagement, Nicole Kowrach with a dotted line to our Senior Curator Michael Wood, who is our content expert. This new department includes Youth Education; Programs; Exhibitions; Volunteer Training and working with docents on new tour ideas. Michael Malak, VP of Operations will manage content delivery which includes Tour and CAC Operations, Volunteer Management, Tourism Sales and Facilities.
We have made other changes that include moving membership into Development so that we create the relationship with members that will lead to them becoming donors. I will be managing the Marketing and Administration departments with the hope that we can rehire in the summer when we have better indication of our revenue streams. CLICK HERE for an organization charts that show where we are, highlights who have left the organization and the organization chart reflecting the future state where we are today.
The decisions that had to be made over the past eight months for the good of the health of the CAC have been tough. It has forced us to refocus our efforts on our core programs and address areas for future growth. We have had to let go many talented individuals in the process which has been challenging. I am however convinced that though the team is smaller we have the right people, positions and structure to make us nimble, quick and resourceful to deal with the challenges and opportunities going forward.
I thank you all for your support. We are a resilient organization with a competitive advantage because of our unique partnership of staff and incredible volunteers.
Now onward and upward!
Regards,
Lynn