Hi Tom:

Sounds like you may be heading for the horns of a dilemma.  I say this
because your post reminds me of two cardinal rules in business/strategic
planning.

     1.  The budget is not the plan.
     2.  The numbers from another place can't be substituted for your own.

If you are interested in comparing your market research numbers with the
actual numbers from other institutions, be very careful.   This can be a
helpful exercise only if the numbers you are using for the comparison are
from  "look alike" institutions that are similarly situated geographically
and demographically (and even psychographically).  A good resource for
finding such locations is a book called the "Places Rated Almanac" (Savageau
& Boyer, c1993).
A local reference that may be of some help is the book, "Open to the Public:
A guide to the museums of Northern California" (Akers, c1994).

If you have no numbers to work with in developing your budget, then you may
be putting a cart before the horse.  The numbers you are looking for should
be the product of site-specific market and economic research.  Such
information will allow you to contruct your various income scenarios. In the
meantime, your expense numbers will tell you what level of operation is
required to breakeven.  From this, you can develop a preliminary set of
stats that can serve as place holders until the hard data comes in.

Also, there are equations that you can use to construct a preliminary set of
numbers.  For example, I assume you will be operating as a 501(c)(3).  If
so, forget being a self-supporting institution.  You'll be dependent on a
mix of earned income and contributed support (The ASTC published an
excellent article on this subject back in 1993.)  What that mix is is
dependent on whether your focus is on serving the local population or the
out-of-area visitor.  The former indicates an orientation toward children.
The latter indicates an adult-orientation.

If you are children-oriented, then admission will be relatively low cost and
membership with be of relatively low value.  Your revenue mix will be more
heavily weighted on the support side of the scale.  A place to start is to
shoot for a 40/60% split (earned income/contributed support). It may
actually come in at 30/70% but it should not be anymore out of balance than
that. If you are an adult oriented institution, the numbers are reversed.

So, if you need a million $ to breakeven and you are
children/locally-oriented, then you need $400k from earned income and $600k
from contributed support.  Use the IMS/GOS financial reporting worksheets to
construct a breakeven budget. Assume, for example, that the $400k earned
income objective will be divided evenly between admission, membership, sales
& fundraisers.  With $100k assigned to the membership category, you can
begin developing a sense for the level of support you will need from the
local community.  Go through the same exercise for the $600k you need from
contributed support.  Begin by dividing the objective evenly amongst the
various budget categories (fed. grants, individual contr., foundations,
corporations, etc.).

As you are working on the hypotheticals, hopefully the market and economic
research you are conducting will provide real numbers that will make your day.

I strongly recommend you include objective and unbiased focus group testing
as a part of your market research.  Also, develop at least three planning
scenarios:  1)breakeven, the minimum level of operation necessary in order
to keep the doors open; 2)zero-based, the optimum level of operation
necessary in order to meet the objectives of the first-year plan; 3)
nirvana-based, the ideal level of operation necessary in order to meet the
goals and objectives of a 3-year business plan.

Lastly, remember to factor in retention rates when you are contructing your
plans for subsequent years.  For contributed support, figure 70-80% (in
other words, a 10% increase over the previous year actually requires 20-30%
new money).  When it comes to membership, figure 60% as your retention rate.
 That means if you want to increase memberships from 1000 to 1100, then you
have to come up with 500 new members, not 100.  If you rely on telemarketing
as an integral part of your membership campaign...two things, don't but if
you do, the retention rate on membership will drop to below 50% so your
volume is going to have to start and stay very high (here's where the size
of your name universe will help to determine if your membership expectations
are reasonable).

Hope this epistle helps.  Us development-types have this stuff coursing
through our veins.

DITDITDITDA\/DITDITDITDA\/DITDITDITDA\/DITDITDITDA\/DITDITDITDA\/DITDITDITDA\

Rich Jones
CAUSE AN EFFECT:                        Q: What's better than implementing
Nonprofit & Institution Development        a perfect plan tomorrow?
Redding, California 96001               A: Implementing a good plan today!
Phone/fax: 916-275-9261