Speaking of the Autry Museum.  A very bright young lady we know works at the Autry in the fund raising area. After visiting the museum and Disneyland and talking to her about the difficulties of fund raising all in roughly the same time frame I came up with this idea for the Autry to get corporate sponsors money,  to give valuable consideration in return and to perform an important community service.
Some background:  The museum shares a parking lot with the LA Zoo. Lots of school groups visit the zoo. Why not organize a California History Parade in the parking lot to coincide with the school visits. It could consist of about a dozen eductional but fun floats, each with a sponsor, all loosely based on a combination of the Rose Parade and Disney’s Electrical Parade.

A Rose Parade Float

The sponsors would get lots of publicity (advertising) and the children would learn history. The magnitude of the opportunity for the sponsors would perhaps take the decision out of the corporate giving department and put it in the marketing department where the real money is.
Some examples of the floats to get your juices flowing:

• The Native Americans sponsored by The Morongo Casino
• The Mission Era sponsored by Mission Foods
• The Gold Rush sponsored by Morgan Stanley
• Statehood sponsored by Wells Fargo
• The Railroads sponsored by Amtrak
• The Automobile sponsored by Toyota
• Flight sponsored by Boeing
• Space sponsored by JPl
• Also Food, Water, Shipping, Recreation, Education and Tourism

Valuation of the sponsorships would be based on factors like:

• the cost of commercial time on childrens TV
• The cost of Rose Parade floats per viewer
• Secondary sighting based on photographs viewed by parents.
• Political goodwill

The floats would be designed for minimum maintenance. The riders could be selected from the daily audience and the selection of the daily “Grand Marshall” would create a patronage opportunity for the museum. What a great idea!