SUPPORTING RAILROADHERITAGE.ORG
The Railroad Heritage.org® web portal is a program that both preserves and presents railroad art and photography. It does so by organizing digitized images according to professional library standards and making them available online for viewing. These efforts promote railroad photography and art as an aspect of our shared cultural heritage. Our efforts also make the images available to scholars and students doing research. We hope you agree that this is a cause worthy of support. Please join us in these endeavors.
How can you support the program? The Center needs foremost to raise money for the program. In 2007, the Center has a goal of $50,000 in gifts from supporters and friends who recognize this program's value.
This amount also is a convenient match towards the North American Railway Foundation’s
commitment of support to develop the pilot program. This is critical money needed to make the
program a reality. The complete program, which runs through 2009, will cost approximately $650,000.
Our fundraising targets are as follows:
1. Private Gift Support: $150,000 (2007 Goal, $50,000)
2. Private Foundation Support: $200,000 ($55,000 guaranteed to date)
3. Federal/State/Public Support: $300,000
TOTAL: $650,000
Please make our campaign a priority in your personal
and/or corporate giving plan for 2007. All gifts
are appreciated, no matter what the level, and will be acknowledged
in several print and online venues. All support is tax-deductible
and will provide us the resources to deliver the online archive
to a wide variety of audiences, now and in the future.
Your dollars spent on this heritage program will sponsor efforts
to establish a utility that will be useable by the general
public, scholars, institiutions, and railroad enthusiasts.
Most importantly, this program ensures long-term preservation
of some of our railroad community’s most important
history, its visual heritage.
If you are ready to make that commitment, choose from one
of the following ways to make a gift of support:
1. For more information and assistance in making a gift, please call the Center directly at 608-251-5785 or by email at: info@railphoto-art.org.
2. To make an online donation by credit card,
click on the button below:
3. To make a gift by mail, a gift form is available for printing here: Gift.pdf.
Checks should be made out to: Center for Railroad Photography & Art and sent to the following address:
Attn. railroadheritage.org
Center for Railroad Photography & Art
1914 Monroe Street
P.O. Box 259330
Madison, WI 53725-9330
Please also indicate how you would like your gift to be acknowledged in print and online.
If you join us as a supporter, you certainly will not be alone. The North American Railway Foundation sees value in this concept, committing $50,000 towards the first year's production costs. Lake Forest College and the Center for Railroad Photography & Art are principal partners, offering labor, resources, and intellectual content to get the digital program going.
Several other institutions are also interested in participating in the program. The University of Wisconsin--Madison Digital Collections Center has expressed interest in the subject and program as well as the Wisconsin Historical Society.
The timing for this program is also ideal; the Center has
just finished a three-year program that involved working relationships with museums across the country. Working together we are moving towards a virtual community centered around an important digital heritage program.
In addition, several scholars and artists are providing
context and direction for these collections. People
like art historian Betsy Fahlman of Arizona State University, historian
and writer John Gruber of the Center, retired railroader Tom Farence, and lifelong rail photographer Dick Neumiller--these and many others will
contribute their insights regarding railroad visual history. All of these friends, partners, and colleagues together represent opportunities--opportunities to find ways to partner and reciprocally benefit from this online program.
But these individuals and institutions cannot by themselves pay for all of the production costs of this large undertaking. To keep on schedule, the Center needs to raise $50,000 in 2007 to enable the production work in 2008 to happen.
Most of that amount must come from private and corporate donors. This campaign will require some of our community’s leaders to step forward with major gifts, as well as each one
of us considering personally how we can contribute to the effort.
Please make a gift now, to help us to continue to move forward in
these goals. We look forward to working together and sharing the upcoming
successes from this program. Join our team and help us attain these goals
