Oberlin Heritage Center

Purpose: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement This project will help the Oberlin Heritage Center build organizational capacity and support institutional planning so that it can better serve the community and visitors. This active historical organization is the community's historical society, history museum, and historic preservation organization. It offers many educational programs and events and operates a complex of three historic sites open to the public for tours that tell the nationally significant story of the town and colleges. This grant will enable the center to hire a certified interpretive planner to work with staff, board, interns, volunteers, and the community to prepare a master plan for the site and historic buildings and to explore the potential for a new interpretive facility. The project will help lay the groundwork to improve interpretation, tour, and educational programs and to strengthen marketing and promotion for the center. The grant will also help purchase software for fundraising, membership, and volunteer management, and will train two staff members to use it. In addition, the grant will pay the part-time assistant to the director for 10 additional hours of work each week to assist the director and the board with all aspects of fundraising.