Gilboa Historical Society Endowment

Structure of the endowment

Nature of an endowment fund: Conservatively invested, a trust fund year-in and year-out should generate investment revenues of at least 5%. In regard to expected growth and interest rates, investment experts and research by The Pew Charitable Trusts now forecast a long-term median return of approximately 6.5 percent a year for a typical pension fund portfolio.

Every organization must have an endowment fund to cover major maintenance expenses. For instance, the GHS can project that we will need to paint the exterior of the museum and history center every 6± years, and the cost for this might be about $6,000 for each repainting. The portion for an endowment aimed at exterior building maintenance would have a principal that could not be used for other expenses and would be large enough that it return on investment (ROI) could be accumulated to cover the capital expense of exterior painting every 6 years. 

  • If our only capital expense were repainting of the museum, we would need $6000± every 6 years, an average of $1000 per year.
  • If we set up our endowment to generate 5% annual ROI, the endowment would need a principal of $20,000 in the trust fund. Each year, the fund would generate .05 x 20000 = $1000, earmarked to maintain the exterior painting of the museum to be used on a 6-year cycle.
  • Other capital expenses would include predictable maintenance of foundations, roofs, deck, pavilion, exterior sheds, landscaping, driveway, parking, etc. Each of these areas should have a projected cost and calendar of these maintenance projects to establish a target for the size of the endowment.
  • We will need to spend significant time creating a complete maintenance and cost schedule in order to determine the necessary size of the endowment.

Other considerations with an endowment

The purpose of an endowment is to provide cash reserves for major plant maintenance. 
  • However, if a major capital expense comes due at the time the stock market takes a dive (think March 31, 2020 and the Covid-19 pandemic),
    • the organization has to make a decision to cash-in stocks at a low point in the stock market,
    • or to delay the expense until the market recovers. This is a real problem if the maintenance is imperative. 
  • To get around this, the organization should first maintain a cash reserve for projected expenses 18-months in advance. This cash reserve provides money for maintenance expenses without risking having to take it out of the market at a low point. 
  • If an endowment is based on a 5% return on investment, the society should always take out the full 5% for the endowment’s cash reserves.
    • The prime goal is to build a cash reserve that can handle immediate maintenance expenses, and then to build up cash reserves to cover an average 18-month’s expenses;
    • If the endowment itself is insufficient to maintain cash reserves for 18 months, the society should work on improving contributions to the endowment (and not take money out of the cash reserves);
    • When endowments get up to a level where it can cover all maintenance issues, review the maintenance calendar and costs, and adjust the endowment accordingly. 
      • Remember: the endowment has 2 parts: a principal that is invested in stocks and bonds and cannot be used for any other purpose, and the cash reserves that can be accessed whenever maintenance is required. 
      • In the event that cash reserves continue to grow beyond 18-months, the society can consider establishing an additional growth-oriented stock fund in the “cash reserves” portion of the endowment.
      • The society cannot access the principal
      • The society can access cash reserves (or growth-funds based in these reserves).

Funding sources for the endowment

We have been blessed with major grants from Gilboans past and present, and with money from local state or nonprofit agencies. However, this income has underwritten one-time capital construction, donations of outbuildings, landscaping and other designated projects. This generosity has been great, but now we need to establish a way to create the endowment to maintain our facilities for the future.

Fund raising

The 2020 Gift Basket fund raiser was extremely successful, and we should continue that effort with emphasis on soliciting endowment contributions.
 

Gilboa Historical Society Press 

At the beginning of 2021, we had 434 members of the society, and the November fundraising efforts indicated that we are blessed with a broad and generous base of supporters. Equally gratifying notes and a nice card thanking the staff for “working for the GHS and, as far as I’m concerned, the museum is the most important thing in the town.” The most common thread with these people is their love of Gilboa and Conesville, and also that they have a passion for various facets of local history.

We have discussed starting our own press, seen the acceptance of Historical Views, and feel that our local, national, and international (Finland, England, Germany, and Canada) colleagues would support our efforts in this area.

Annual collections of Quarterly newsletters

    • From 2007– 2017, the GHS Newsletter (aka Quarterly) published 4 issues per year of local history. Each of these issues averaged 40 pages. 
    • We plan on combining each year’s issues into 9/ 160-page books (the first two years of the newsletter were shorter and be in a single volume); and a completely new publication devoted to the properties of the agricultural valley to the east and south of the village.
    • These books will be published quarterly over the next 2.25 years:
      • each of these volumes will have a unit printing cost of $3.05 plus shipping, a total of $4.00± per book;
      • traditionally, list prices are calculated at 5 times the unit cost, so these books would have a list price of $16.00;
      • the profit of each volume sold would be $12.00, to be distributed as follows:
        • 50% of the profit ($6.00) will be earmarked directly to the endowment. In the first 12 months of each book, we expect it to generate a minimum of 100 copies per title, or $600 per title per year;
        • the other 50% of income would go to the operational profit of the Gift Shop or marketing outlets the Gift Shop selects.
      • Income from these books will continue into the future, although annual sales will slowly taper down. I expect a 5-year pub life for the 9 volumes will generate $21,600 for the endowment and a similar amount for the gift shop. 
      • In subsequent years, total annual income to the endowment and the gift shop will be around $1500 each.
      • We will work to get grants or matching grants from local nonprofits.

A coffee-table reference of Gilboa Valley and the Village

We have published in the Quarterlies walking tours of the village of Gilboa based on tax maps, tax rolls, or a reasonably complete set of BWS pictures; and conducted bus tours with structured guides around the perimeter of the reservoir.

However, we have not published large numbers of photographs from family archives; and we do not have tax maps, tax rolls, or a reasonably complete set of Board of Water Supply pictures of the agricultural valley under the reservoir. 
 
Jim Meagley’s A Look Back at Hobart New York is a 392-page, 8 x 10 book where each street in the village is its own chapter, and each property on the street is its own section showing ownership records illustrated with historic and family pictures. We plan to use a design patterned after Jim’s book for all of the properties displaced by the Schoharie Reservoir.
 
Like Jim’s book, the probable list price for The Gilboa Valley, ca 1915 will be under $50.00  and hopefully we will match Hobart’s sales record of well over 1000 copies.
 

Six Topical Histories of the Construction of the Schoharie Reservoir

Over the years, we have scanned all of the NYC Board of Water Supply Annual Reports from 1904 to 1934. Each of these volumes report on the activities of the Board of Water Supply for the year in question.

Thus, volumes in the 1904-1914 years reported the maintenance and expansion of New York City infrastructure, improvements to the reservoirs in Westchester and Putnam counties that would eventually receive Catskill and Schoharie waters, long-range plans for the Catskill watershed, and increasing coverage of the Esopus watershed and the dam at Ashoken.

From Gilboa’s point of view, there was not much information pertaining to the Schoharie Dam in these 1904–1914 books, BUT there is a wealth of information about the decision-making of where additional water might or might not be coming from to supplement the waters at the Ashokan Dam. We thought it would be a great project to collect all of this strategic information into a single volume called The Schoharie Reservoir: Why Gilboa? and include other research and period photographs from local sources.

Using that publication as a model, why not do the same for other thematic information from the Annual Reports, other research, and period photographs:

  1. The Schoharie Reservoir: Why Gilboa, 1904–1914?
  2. The Schoharie Reservoir: Infrastructure necessary for a public works project, 1915-1923
  3. The Schoharie Reservoir: The Shandaken tunnel, 1916–1925
  4. The Schoharie Reservoir: The Construction of the Gilboa Dam, 1919–1927
  5. The Schoharie Reservoir: Eminent domain and compensation in the courts, 1925–1935
  6. The Schoharie Reservoir: Maintenance of the Gilboa Reservoir, 1927–2025
 
  • Beta versions of each of these books will be published (one per year) 2025–2030, and revised editions in 2031–2036.For the record, I will be an unpaid consultant for the early stages of this project.
    The length of each of these volumes is unknown, but will probably range from 200–460 pages, will have a 7 x 10 trim size.
    Each of the volumes will have individual authorship requiring royalty arrangements.
    As above, the relationship between manufacturing cost and list price is a linear tie of 5-times:25% of the profit will be earmarked to a general editor of project;
    25% of the profit will be earmarked to the author of the individual book;
    25% of the profit will be earmarked to the endowment;
    25% of the profit will be earmarked to the Gift Shop or marketing outlets the Gift Shop selects.
    We will work to get grants or matching grants from local nonprofits.Area governmental or non-profit agencies:
    Assembly’s Grants Action News: http://nyassembly.gov
    Decentralization Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and administered in Schoharie County by Greene County Council on the Arts dba CREATE.The mission of Humanities New York is to strengthen civil society and the bonds of community, using the humanities to foster engaged inquiry and dialogue around social and cultural concerns. Funded by federal, state, and private sources, Humanities NY is a private 501(c)3 founded in 1975. The mission of Humanities New York, info@humanitiesny.org

Navigating the GHS internet pages

The narrower column to the right of your computer’s browser (or at the end of your phone or pad’s window) has three scroll-down windows:

  1. Current activities within the society and neighborhood;
  2. Links to our society’s web pages (unlinked pages are shown but under construction)
    • Facebook
    • Information about the Gilboa Historical Society
    • Paleo- and current history of the Gilboa Fossils
    • Local history of the Gilboa valley and village
    • The construction and functioning of the Schoharie Reservoir.
  3. Membership information

 

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GILBOA MUSEUM OPEN
12 TO 4 Saturday and Sundays
Memorial Day to Columbus Day.

MUSEUM TOURS-ON-CALL
(607) 588-6894 to set up a tour.  

Map for the Gilboa Museum.

May, 2024
• Wednesday, 5/15, 6 p.m.:
General program TBA.

• Saturday, 5/25, 12 p.m.:
Gilboa Museum celebrates the season opening.

June, 2024
• Sunday, 6/2, 11 a.m.:
Psychic Fair.
• Wednesday, 6/19, 6 p.m.:
Annual Shopping Bag Auction.

July, 2024
• Wednesday, 7/17, 6 p.m.:
GHS program: Field trip to be announced.
• Saturday, 7/20, 10 a.m.:
Gilboa Naturalist Program Drive-By Bald Eagle nests.

August, 2024
• Saturday, 8/3, 10 a.m.:
Gilboa Naturalist Program Fossil Tree Descendants hike with Mike Kudish.
• Saturday, 8/17, 10 a.m.:
Gilboa Naturalist Program
American Indian Clay Bowls—Bouck Island.
• Wednesday, 8/21, 6 p.m.:
Gilboa Historical Society Ice Cream Social.
• Saturday, 8/31, 10 a.m.:
Gilboa Naturalist Program
Fossil Hike on Schoharie in Gilboa.

September, 2024
• Sunday, 9/1: 10 a.m.: Harvest Festival.
• Wednesday, 9/18, 6 p.m.:
General program TBA.
• Saturday, 9/21, 10 a.m.:
Gilboa Naturalist Program
Field trip to Cairo quarry.

October, 2024
• Wednesday, 10/16, 6 p.m.:
Annual Meeting of Gilboa Historical Society & election of board members.

November, 2024
• Sunday, 11/17, 11 a.m.:
Holiday Boutique at Gilboa Museum.
• Wednesday, 11/20, 6 p.m.:
General program TBA.

December, 202
• Wednesday, 12/11, 6 p.m.:
Raffle and Bottle Auction, pot luck refreshments

The Board of Gilboa Historical Society meets at 1:00 p.m. on the last Wednesday of each month.

Unlinked pages are under construction.√

GHS Facebook page
GilboaMuseum
Gilboa Museum Gift Shop

Gilboa Historical Society
GHS History (Founders, Early Supporters, First Decade, Expansion, Our 21stC)
GHS Activities
GHS Facilities
GHS — Who We Are
Publications  and Podcasts 

Gilboa Fossils and the Devonian ecology
Gilboa Fossils, a site of the Gilboa Historical Society.

Nicholas J. Juried History Center
Gilboa Village (under construction)
Gilboa Reservoir (under construction)

Map for the Gilboa Museum 

Communications between you and the Society is key to your enjoyment and our success.
     You can type out your information on this form, save it to your desktop, and email it or print it out and send it to the Society (PO Box 52, Gilboa, NY 12076)
     Our annual membership is based on an anniversary date established when we process your check. A renewal would simply add 12 months to the projected expiration date, while lapsed memberships are seen as new ones without penalty for the lapse.

Member benefits

  • All GHS Newsletters and mailings.
  • Gift shop discounts of 10% on all sales.

 

For donations, please use the QR code