Hancock Shaker Village Model for Innovation, Investment
 Hanckock Shaker Village is practicing Shaker principles as it seeks to become a leader in education and innovation. |
Last week, Spear announced that the Kresge Foundation had awarded the nonprofit village, which just celebrated its 50th year as a living history museum, a $1 million grant. The grant was awarded as part of the $3.1 billion private, national foundation’s sector leader investments and, according to Spear, will open up many new doors for the Berkshires landmark.
"This opens up new opportunities for us," she said in a phone interview. "We are expected to lead by example and do what we say we are going to do. You don't abandon the museum for the museum's sake; we have to be more than just the maidens at the temple.”
This means relying on more than just admissions and gift shop revenues to keep the museum afloat. Spear said because of the recession and its impact, particularly on nonprofits, that museums and historical houses need to get creative with their programming and be more of a presence within their communities.
“It’s an interesting time in the history fields,” she said. “Just because someone famous slept somewhere doesn’t mean much anymore. History venues need to be part of the solution to community issues. There is a new paradigm among donors; they are not loyal to organizations but to causes. The Kresge Foundation links very powerfully to community causes.”
While there are many issues of concern within Berkshire County, Spear identified higher education and the creative economy as the most pressing in the eyes of the Village, which is now home to a master's degree program (with University of Massachusetts at Amherst) that focuses on historic preservation.
“We have the historic preservation program now and next year, we will be adding an archeology track,” she said. “We’re also exploring the possibility of a landscape architecture program as well. We want to break down these old barriers where kids say, ‘Oh no, don’t make us go there and learn.’ It needs to be fun and engaging, beyond the presentation of history. We need to be engaged in the community.”
In addition to its many educational programs, the village also contains within it a model for sustainable living, including ground and roof photovoltaic panels (installed two years ago) as well as planting and growing three biofuel crops; crambe, switchgrass and sunflower. While these new innovations may seem a bit far-reaching for a museum, Spear said present and future innovations all stem from the Shaker model of a “principled life.”
“The Shakers are very nimble people,” she said. “We’re really looking to the Shaker way in repurposing and preservation. We need to excite the next generation of preservationists. We’re not recreating anything. We have a unique window into the Shaker world whose key strength is authenticity.”
The Kresge Grant, in addition to providing much-needed capital to HSV’s educational and Building Reserve funds, will also be applied (roughly half) to “launch promising new business initiatives” that includes website expansion and involvement in more food and agricultural enterprises.
“We can be a magnet for growth,” Spear said. “We have the brain power. We have a dizzying array of professionals and scholars living quietly in the Berkshires who can be part of this. We can link in to efforts to the Berkshires a center for sustainable-type businesses. I really applaud the Kresge Foundation for recognizing that organizations need to be capitalized.”
