Friends of Nevada State Museum Las Vegas
Our Story ... Your Story
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Our mission is to encourage, foster, and assist Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas (NSMLV) programs and activities by volunteering, fundraising, and promoting community interest in the museum.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Digitizing Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas Plant Collection
The museum has a collection of approximately 2700 dried plants called an herbarium. The herbarium has plant samples from all counties in Nevada. The plants are used by butterflies and moths as host plants - they lay their eggs on the plants and their caterpillars use the plants for food. The collection is important for identifying plant locations and ranges, habitat, and seasonal flowering and fruiting periods. This information is needed to understand the relationships between the plants, butterflies, and moths. The Friends are raising money to buy equipment and supplies to mount, catalog, and photograph the plants for upload to the web. This makes the collection available to researchers and the public.
Traveling Trunks
It isn’t always easy for schools to arrange a field trip to the museum. For that reason, the Friends of NSMLV pay for delivery of Traveling Trunks to public schools. Traveling Trunks bring touchable artifacts, photographs, books, posters, readings, and more to classrooms. Each trunk focuses on a specific aspect of Nevada history or natural history, and contains artifacts and ideas to help teachers incorporate them into curriculum.
Community Membership Program
The Nevada Board of Museums and History and the Clark County School District partner with the Friends of NSMLV on a Community Membership Pilot Program. Under this program, the Friends purchase discounted family memberships from NSMLV. The memberships are given to the school district for distribution. Families with 4th graders in Title 1 schools receive the memberships so they can visit NSMLV (and other Nevada State Museums) for free.
Graphic Arts Internships
The Friends of NSMLV sponsor internships for Graphic Arts students from the University of Nevada Las Vegas at the museum. The interns work with the museum's Exhibits team and the Education Curator. The students design exhibit labels and backdrops, and brochures for distribution to visitors.
Where we work
Awards
Clark County School District Volunteer Organization of the Year 2020
Clark County School District
Affiliations & memberships
Clark County School District 2020
Clark County School District 2021
Clark County School District 2022
External reviews
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
To have the Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas recognized locally and nationally for the quality of its exhibits and programs, and to create financial support systems to ensure the continued quality of the museum.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
1) Fundraising for museum programs
2) Executing advertising opportunities to promote the museum
3) Reaching out to other organizations to inform them about the Friends and Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas
4) Providing volunteers to meet museum needs
5) Organizing unique workshops, speakers, and programs for the public and membership which tap into the expertise of museum staff, members, and experts in fields related to the museum collections and mission which would otherwise not be available.
6) Applying for grants to leverage funding on behalf of the museum
7) Maintaining working partnerships with Clark County Schools and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
1) A committed board with a variety of skills, backgrounds, and experiences in the business and educational fields that work well together
2) Generous donors within the Friends of Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas
3) Good relations with the museum staff
4) Applying Friends' skills in novel ways to expand the capability of the museum staff
5) Developing new and ongoing partnerships with community patrons/businesses
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
People who join the Friends already love Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas (NSMLV). But not every one knows about the museum, so we came up with diverse ways to draw people who never, or rarely, visit it. To promote community awareness and interest in NSMLV, the Friends sponsored a photo contest, presentations, programs for elementary students, participated in community events, and updated our social media presence.
Volunteering is part of the mission of the Friends of NSMLV and the services we provide are essential to the museum. In 2018, 42% of all the museum volunteers were members of the Friends of NSMLV, and we gave 44% of the total volunteer hours.
In 2018, we partnered with Hyper Networks and the Nevada Division of Museums and History to bring free WIFI to the public areas of the museum. This provides internet access to museum visitors and Cahlan Library Researchers.
Our 2016-2017 fundraising efforts to provide bus trips for elementary school students to the Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas inspired the State to create a 2-year pilot program with a $500,000 budget to bring all Nevada fourth graders to a State Museum.
The Friends created a video about NSMLV that showed at the Department of Motor Vehicles in 2017. It was so successful that the Nevada Tourism Department created a replacement video featuring the governor of Nevada.
Led by Stacy Irvin, Curator of Education, the museum has a “Traveling Trunks" program. Trunks are filled with artifacts, documents, and teaching resources on a specific topic. Teachers can borrow the trunks and have all the materials needed for several classes. In June 2017, the Friends received a $3,915 grant from the Nevada Humanities Council, made possible by the National Endowment for the Humanities, to refurbish the trunks which had not been refreshed for about 20 years. A total of 11 trunks were revamped.
We collaborated with the museum to provide Spanish translations of exhibit labels for the permanent galley. Our local population is approximately 40% Hispanic and exhibit labels are being translated into Spanish to increase access to museum resources.
In collaboration with the museum and the Nevada Division of Museums and History, we are executing a pilot program for free museum access for families with students in Title 1 elementary schools. The Division has discounted the price of the memberships which are purchased by the Friends. The memberships are distributed by the local public school district.
We are expanding the Traveling Trunks program by providing delivery of the trunks to public schools. It is difficult for teachers to come to the museum to pick up and return trunks, so we are providing free delivery trunk delivery services.
The Friends of NSMLV are sponsoring 4 graphic arts interns to assist with exhibits and production of printed and online media.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on demographics (e.g., race, age, gender, etc.), We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback, We ask the people who gave us feedback how well they think we responded
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
It is difficult to get the people we serve to respond to requests for feedback, It is difficult to find the ongoing funding to support feedback collection, Difficult to recruit volunteers willing to collect data
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Friends of Nevada State Museum Las Vegas
Board of directorsas of 06/29/2023
Jim Parish
Friends of Nevada State Museum Las Vegas
Term: 2021 - 2023
Donna Harper
Friends of Nevada State Museum Las Vegas
Term: 2021 - 2023
Jim Parish
Friends of Nevada State Museum Las Vegas
Donna Harper
Friends of Nevada State Museum Las Vegas
Katherine Thomason
Friends of Nevada State Museum Las Vegas
Michael Fong
Friends of Nevada State Museum Las Vegas
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
The organization's co-leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Transgender Identity
Sexual orientation
Disability
Equity strategies
Last updated: 02/18/2021GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
- We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
- We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.