Recession strategy: Seek alternatives to soliciting private donations

The Maryhill Museum, in Goldendale, Wash., expects to earn $100,000 to $150,000 annually, or about 10 percent of its operating budget, from a new arrangement with an alternative energy company, Windy Point Partners, to place 15 wind turbines on its 5,300-acre property. The company is paying to lease the land and will also pay fees based on its sales, in addition to committing more than $1-million to a local conservation effort to protect scenic areas around the museum.

Brewster Place Retirement Community, in Topeka, Kan., along with nine other retirement communities, is working to develop new products to help elderly people stay in their homes. Among the products: an automated medication-dispensing device that can alert people when it is time to take multiple medicines and dispense the correct dosages.

And the Cancer Research Institute, in New York, has started a new fund so that donors can invest in scientific trials to develop and test new vaccines and other ways to strengthen the immune system against cancer; the charity hopes to produce revenue from biotechnology companies’ use of medical discoveries advanced by the fund.

In California, the Boys & Girls Club of Laguna Beach, has found a simpler, more immediate way to generate money: renting parts of its building to other organizations such as performing-arts groups and a local parents’ club, which use the space for meetings and short-term projects.

The rental agreements generate an extra $3,000 each month and have resulted in other benefits, says Pamela Estes, the charity’s executive director. For example, she says, a church that rents space from the Boys & Girls Club each week has visited the charity’s Web site and donated toys, school supplies, and other items on the club’s online wish list of items needed by local children.

— Holly Hall and Paula Wasley