Lizette Terral and Taylor Beery

00:07 My name is Taylor Beery. I'm 36. Today is December 11th, 2015. I'm here at the Louisiana children's museum with Lizette terral who is also serves on the board of the children's museum with me.

00:21 And my name is Lisa Terrell. I am 51 years old today is December 11th, 2015. I am here at the Louisiana children's museum with Taylor Beery. Who is our current board chair.

00:38 All right. Just kicking off. What is your earliest memory of the Children's Museum here. So my earliest memory was when one of my closest childhood friends was amazed. I had not heard about the museum yet and I had two children and I was pregnant with a third and my husband was home studying for exams. So I got a big mug of coffee and came over here and discovered the toddler Adventure area where I sat for 8 hours during the day to keep the kids out of the house and had him so worried because when you were here you turned off your cell phone and everything was magical and fun. And so my first experience was in first adventures and we went from napping on the mats, which they didn't kick us out for 2 playing with all the stuff but they were still at the age where you had to bring them into the exhibit.

01:38 And hooked a little adult lock so that you know, you wouldn't lose them right? So it was great. How about you?

01:46 I can remember playing here. I can remember the the supermarket area vividly. And then that was the only thing if you ask me probably, you know a few years ago what I remembered that would be the only thing I can remember but since I've started bringing my kids here now and watching them play. I don't know if I'm

02:12 I don't know if out if it's just sort of being fabricated in my mind. But I'm starting to have more memories about playing on the you know, the boat exhibits over there. And in the toddler at I guess I was you know, probably passed the toddler age at that point. It makes me come when I go back and ask Julia like am I making this up with that? Actually, they are 30, you know, whatever years ago or not. But yeah, I can I can remember playing here.

02:39 So what is your three year olds favorite exhibit at this point? He is obsessed with this place. In fact, we're just talking about how my wife is going to be ditching me for the weekend. And when that happens, this is our first stop. I mean, it's all he wakes up, Louisiana Children's Museum. He does the whole name be done. Just say Children's Museum. He even though he's three and it's kind of graduate it out, but his sister is more.

03:09 For the toddler area. He goes crazy in there still. He still likes that probably the most for better or worse, but he loves running around everywhere. I mean the ones he gets on the boat stuff. He can do no really stop. It's really hard to get him out of here.

03:25 Electrical because when my kids were growing up and they added the port exhibit they loved coming over here to run the Gantry cranes and I said, let me show you the real ones are piled all the kids back in the car on the way home and we drove over to the port and it was right after 9/11 when they had started all the new security with three little kids well middle school or a little bit younger kids in the car. We pop over straight through the little Guard Station wave to him and keep on going up to the port to go see the crane and we had a full check. We were all pulled out of the car. They put all the devices under the cars to look for bombs or anything else going on in like we just wanted to see the cranes whipping at the Children's Museum. They have great kids because Growing Up So Close To The River I spent a lot of time back there.

04:25 As a child myself, so I kind of check all that was a great experience for them. But then I remembered when they graduated to what I'd say downstairs, which is so much more for older kids and maybe the second floor of the museum the big bubble witch we've just taken out on still so upset about but we will have bubbles back right with Julia and talk about yourself as tall as you are no matter what so you and I run into each other and some other Civic areas, obviously.

05:13 There's the problem of spreading yourself too thin and I think I'm sure you'd agree. But then in spots where we were committed to too much and

05:23 But both of us have focused a lot here in particular. Why would you say you've kind of among all the different things out there that are going on in New Orleans? Why do you feel like you focus on the Children's Museum?

05:38 I really do believe that early childhood education is the key to

05:45 A better adult population down the road whether it's economically development just education Workforce. I believe everything starts there and when Jeff Nagel who used to be on the board showed us the children's brains and all the development steps. I knew I'd almost ruined mine from the start but I think it's the critical component that doesn't get enough money and attention in the state yet. And I think that's evidenced by our crime in our numbers, but I think it's starting to to turn around and needs to continue to be a focus. I also think that it is the best Early Childhood nonprofit in the region. And so if you want to invest time and energy into our project, you should invest in the best to make sure it remains successful in groves. So that's how I got you know, or why I would pick this and cuz you're right. I did let go of other boards to

06:45 Can you once I guess cuz I think this is 12 or 13 years and running. It was a good thing. But what were your first thoughts when you got the phone call to join the board?

07:05 First thoughts were this makes no sense for me. I didn't even have kids. I wasn't engaged. I was a single guy that I just moved back to New Orleans and it was like, you know is on the some economic development organizations some other things that were sort of easier to draw my narrative into than this and so is a little bit confusing, but my second thought was that

07:39 It was a place. I definitely would want to focus and I think the reasons are the same as what you just said. You know, what I was doing the White House recovery work after Katrina.

07:51 There are all sorts of problems. We were constantly trying to solve it just felt like you were sticking your finger in a damn that you know, you weren't going to be there was no 100% when there was no, you know, you couldn't be 100% confident that anything you were doing would have real lasting impact except.

08:12 Some of the work that was going on in education had so much more of a hopeful feel to it and it occurred to me. I think it my first thought was the grocery store in the end of the bubble and stuff like that in my second thought once I'd investigate it further was that this place and its role in the early childhood development is so much more than you know than what meets the eye and in and not just the obvious things like the program that we do out in the community. But also what actually happens in here, which I'm getting so much of a better view of it's It's kind of tricking in a way a Sweden well-intended way the tricking a little kid into being interested in things that help their brains grow, you know, and it's it's fun to watch my son who would normally just be running around a circle and hitting a bad into something be running around that same Circle, but he's talking about

09:12 What is it that the way the eyeball Works daddy with that thing over there? You know, how does this work? And he's over in the section over here doing the electrical circuit so that the fan runs and you know, he doesn't know that he's doing something more than playing. But anyway to me that was the way not just to stick a finger in the dam. And to think maybe you could possibly be right about something but I think I feel really confident were right about this and that it does have a real lasting impact on the community and I think that's why

09:45 When you first join the board, were you amazed at the Outreach or the difference in amino? I've always believed that people don't realize how far the reach and how far into the community it goes. Was that surprising to you? It's been a constant sort of not a frustration, but it's been a constant Focus ever since of why don't we do a better job of letting people know that we do all those things. I'm actually we were just talking about it yesterday me the whole imls thing had nothing to do with the grocery store in the bubbles in the toddler area. It had everything to do with this project in the community and I somehow we still don't people around here still don't understand anything about that.

10:31 Would I have struggled with working development is getting that message out because with such a beautiful facility where you walk in on the weekends, and it's a lot of paid admissions. It's all most viewed more as a privileged kids playground versus what we really are. And so I think that's going to be our greatest continuing challenges. We look for additional funding is making sure the community knows all the resources all the way from the mayor on down to the users at the end who might be the parents that don't know their kids are getting the service at school. So it's do you feel like the new location in City Park will in itself do anything to help the privilege kid playground versus the downtown location. Do you think that

11:21 Might help us get that word out better. I think the grand opening will make people come. So we've got a one-year shot to reach more broadly. But I think the fact that it will be a bigger scope with more offerings will potentially help us get that message out there already Partnerships with nonprofits. It will bring more underprivileged kids in and so the key and the challenge for us will be to get to their parents.

11:53 Is there have you thought about what we can be doing in terms of I mean not advertising the wrong word but but marketing and leveraging our development efforts into

12:07 Getting this message across more effectively in the new Museum in the end as a tangible thing what I'm thinking about does there need to be more?

12:16 Dino displays showing what we're doing in the community and opportunities to partner and get involved with us or does that attract too much away from?

12:26 The experience in a place like that.

12:30 I think it's a balance cuz if you marketed it every single school would want something and everybody has a need. I think it's what can we you know, we do have limited resources. And so the specialty programs where we would go into high schools with high pregnancy rates and help educate their and put on programming for kids and the after-hours teach fathers that had been deadbeat dads how to play with your children and get involved in to get a GED we can only do so many of those and so we have over marketing would maybe extend their self too thin so I'm not sure it's a marketing campaign is much as strategic alliances and getting out there because I think we have been over tapped in the past from time to time and rally through it just like we talked about our community service.

13:30 We rally through it, but then you had to pull back and do what you do really? Well and so the question is since I think we are delivering other nonprofit relationships much better and we have all these formal Mo use in place to work with more nonprofits through that we can get the message out more broadly and help more people.

13:53 The deadbeat dads thing that you brought up as interesting as a topical right now. I don't know if you saw that.

14:01 So familiar with the band Stone Temple Pilots are pretty big in the 90s. So anyway, they look their lead singer just passed away in the last couple of weeks. And if you'd asked me and 1990, whatever I probably would have said that over under on this guy was maybe 30 he live to the age of 48. He had all sorts of complications and buried story drug issues in any way. He just recently passed away and his wife wrote this kind of shocking letter on behalf of her children to Rolling Stone. The basically said don't glorify him. Like they're all these great memories. He was he was an absent father. He was you know, terrible with his kids don't don't magnify this guy anyway, so that that that kind of in my head I was thinking about what we do in terms of

14:55 The getting fathers involved in the process that I bring my kids in here and it feels like there's a vast majority of of mothers and children versus fathers with children. Do you think there's more we could be doing there too, or I guess I don't even have a great sense as the board chair what we're currently doing. But do you think we could do do more?

15:16 It's reaching out to somebody who doesn't want to be a part. That is the true Challenge. And so when we did the program.

15:26 Which was very miserable cuz we knew how many came back with children because they got a free membership and we knew how many at least signed up to take the GED whether they took it and passed it. Is it a different issue but they you know, I took a class and then took the GED so is measurable and successful because maybe they hadn't been taught by the generation before them. But the reason they were here with court-ordered so they had gotten in trouble and then they probably had not paid alimony or done. What was there that got them here and so it really needs to go back to a community Network because if someone doesn't want to be engaged they're not going to be just cuz you say hey if a program come learn to play with your child, they're going to tend to do something else, but it was very successful and they did come back with their children, you know, whether they

16:26 Still are where those people are. We don't know today, but over a. Of time we knew that they took actions to

16:36 Be more engaged with their children and better their lives, which if they better their lives, they're more likely going to be

16:44 More engage with their children and is that when did we went to the museum that was several years ago and it was after hours after I had sessions here and then it was a requirement to take the GED in a requirement. They were educated on the value of it and they could do it was a measurable of whether or not they signed up to do it now. So, you know, they the dads were counseled and talk for the first part of the night while the children played with

17:30 Louisiana Children's Museum employees, and then in the second half of the night the parents join the children with the employees and learn to play and go to the exhibits and things that might be totally natural for you cuz your father took you to a museum and played with you or at least walked through and even how to interact with an exhibit.

17:52 Not everyone knows how to use this place the first time they go through even the grocery store.

17:59 What's the parent do in their mother?

18:03 Funny that's my least favorite place a shopping like the happiest show grab a card or a stroller or whatever and said that place is just having for her. Hello there what they see in the real world and they are here and do it. I think.

18:31 Fascinating stories are the ones where people came here and had an experience and then said I'm going to be that when I grow up and that since this didn't exist when I was a child it's hard for me to imagine but they're newscasters who are newscasters because their favorite exhibit was the channel for video and those people have come back come up the stairs to the business office and said, I just want to tell you my story, you know, or the people who loves stuffy and played with stuffy and looked at his organs who come back and said, I knew I wanted to be a doctor Riverboat pilots from the port and so it's really kind of interesting to see that playing in an exhibit can have such an impact on a child where they know what they like because they touched it and a child's like version what happened?

19:29 Where was it was right. It was right up here right outside of this room. And it's the proud to call it home exhibit now part of that in the architecture exhibit which you know, as we were sitting here after Katrina was so much fun to think about what we had because everyone in the city had walls were they turned out the sheetrock? And what's Behind the Walls and how does it make it work? And it's a great Learning lesson because I don't think the vast majority of town knew not only what was in their insurance policy what was behind the walls until they had to rip out all the carpet and all the sheetrock and see how the electrical Ran So that experience was kind of the start of the architecture exhibit and how it all happens. Which again is a really need exhibit all the way up through electricity.

20:28 Count kind of sad my kids were grown by the time that one came on or maybe if you're joining we can all go together to the museum this weekend and take care of your children. Good at one thing. They were talking a lot about and you're somebody that you know is I've tried to fulfill the current role that I'm in that deeply depend on for guidance. And one of the things that were talking about right now is what is the long-term vision for what we want to move to into City Park, you know, what is the operations of the museum that fulfill a bigger objective, you know, are we just trying to do what we are doing here or we trying to do something different?

21:14 In your mind 5 years from now. What do you think the best children's museum Early Learning Village? Looks like what is its kind of Three core objectives?

21:28 I would it would look similar in physical Museum.

21:35 Except that we get the beautiful Green Space of sitting Park which we in a really don't have any options in downtown, New Orleans.

21:43 The big difference that I would like us to be in three to five years is truly the premier go to place for early childhood education because the formal programs don't start until 5 or 6 and early childhood starts prenatal.

22:03 And goes up so to be the resource but to also leverage those resources to reach more broadly know to teach the teachers to bring the other programs. I think one of the AHA moments I had when I came on the board from being in the business world with competition was the Children's Museums don't really compete, you know, if we do a great exhibit when it kind of gets a little stale here will package it up and rent it to other museums or they all get together and talk about great exhibits and they all go back. So if you go visit and I visited a lot of children's museums around the country, there are a lot of very similar exhibits and so why recreate the wheel if you do something well anything Children's Museums have always shared very well, which was a A-ha moment. So if we have done something to leverage all childhood resources

23:03 In a community to make it a better place what we should be in three to five years and as colon Powell when he said this is the best model of ever seen we can take this city to City to city and if we really can't have everyone in our region focused on what is best it'll cost less because you'll have to have less different organizations doing it with fewer people because your leverage the best practices at each organization whether it's a children's hospital or Parenting Center where the library if we've captured the kids can we bring literacy programs in if we've captured so it's really

23:45 What I would like to see it different is how many organizations are buzzing in and out in collaborating for the benefit cuz if that works it goes back to your other question. We can reach more kids in the community and do more programming with less resources. And that would be a beautiful thing. We're not a very rich community.

24:07 So it's a combination of sort of the the new facility.

24:12 The business model if you will have how Children's Museums work.

24:18 Is it standing out relative to Boston or standing out relative to other Children's Museums? Do you know is it is it becoming the best in the country? And if so what you know?

24:31 Is it the facility that would make it that way or the fact that were cuz cuz the model is similar as you just models working at everybody. The facility will help. Yeah, because we are so constrained within the square footage of this wall and

24:51 I mean, you've got a one in a three-year-old when you come and it's pouring down rain. Do you want to park three blocks away and Wendy downtown and love them here. It's going to be a luxury of space that we do not have and resources and I think it's going to be unique the will be able to teach.

25:12 Children are what we are limited here because the environment is such an important part of our community and I think each community that could replicate this would do something important to them. Even if you went out west and you got all the water dam some electricity. I'd love to make a project out of that. You know, I hated science projects when I was in 4th grade, but I love them.

25:40 Yeah, I found myself here looking at schools and I was asking why what about the science program here at first to land in my we got in the car on the way home and my wife is like we a lot more in the science when you're younger or no, not really, you know, but I'm fascinated by it now and I was I was thinking while you were talking one of the criteria that I've had in my head is that at some point in the next 3 to 5 years the absolute brightest minds or just taken example some preeminent Early Childhood learning expert decide to move from

26:18 Name it to New Orleans to be a part of the Early Learning Village. Do you stood for see that as an objective or do you think it's possible?

26:30 If you do, I think the national board were putting together would have that person wanting to be a part of it. Maybe not moving here. I think it's hard to get people to move. But when we did our first conference on Early Childhood a couple years ago, and we had folks from probably a dozen states fly in to be a part of it Reggio Emilia's group from Italy fly into be a part of it. I think we had three countries and a dozen plus States represented.

27:02 That is when it put you on the map. That's when they say there's something here and you can be a convener cuz if you can convene all the best and brightest Minds to come together on a regular basis, you can leverage it. So yeah, I think that would be really cool. I don't know if they'd move here. But if they came here every time we see it people like to come back and stay here. So should we be thinking about an annual Early Learning conference that we hold at the new facility where you could bring people and we will have the newest and the best exhibits and a fabulous facility to do it plus the new facility will give us more space. We already collaborating work with other nonprofits, but it will allow us to collaborate with more, you know, even from the kitchen. We don't have a place to eat here. We have a couple of vending machines.

28:02 And that collaboration with a project that really helps, you know older youth at risk. So it's it's the facility will make a difference but the logic and the vision isn't significantly different.

28:22 Yeah, it's talking through all this it's never looking at our budget and we haven't really done a ton of vision driven budgeting. It's usually looking at spreadsheets most nonprofits as you know, as well as I do kind of operate that way you're trying to just get the numbers to balance out and talking less about what how each dollar furthers you towards support of your mission or achieving certain objectives for that year. That's something I'm excited about doing we're a little behind for next year's budget and that's

28:59 Regrettable, I think that I'd you know getting into it in the first quarter of next year and saying, all right, let's let's go back to what we're actually trying to accomplish there and it's in the thinking about. All right, if our objective is this is PBM the preeminent location that we bring all the best Early Learning thinkers together once a year for a great conference, you know actually take to pull that off. Let's start thinking about what kind of personnel we would need and what kind of support we would need to start thinking that through. Anyway, I think it can be a fun process because it could be and I thank you start with those key like you said mines in the

29:42 In the world and I don't even limited to the country who are focused on early childhood and get those folks committed and then the rest in the money Along come come along its would have been amazed at 4 years having worked on other boards with much larger budgets is how much gets done here for so little money in a small budget of a couple or a few million depending on the year and the programming that's going on and I think that's a phenomenal.

30:15 A statement that it has been that successful because years ago we looked at other Children's Museums budgets. And first we were jealous and said, wow, what we could do if we had 10 million or 12 million dollars a year, but you stepped back and said wow. Look how much were doing was somewhere between 2 and 3 but it should be a goal and it's going to be interesting to see what endowment we create going into the new world, but it should be a goal to raise more money and have a little more robust programming once we will have the greater collaboration there. That's great, but we don't have 12 million dollars. It's going to cost.

31:10 But you know as a manager of a business as well, and I know you probably experienced something similar. You've got that Pride that you look at the numbers and and what your margins are and how you cut costs. And then you look at the eyes of your employees and the strength at their you're putting them through the opportunity to provide more for that budget or to increase someone salary or to email create a position that makes life easier for certain people in your organization's and bring someone in

31:51 It's a tough balance and you know here that's a part of the deal we do so much with so little how do we without hurting that as an objective?

32:05 Do more to support a larger objectives that we have?

32:13 And I know it's a struggle of a question, you know, we talked about could we even take the offices at one point and put more exhibits in and move the staff? Somebody send me close by. Do we need more staff just to run it. So it's those are going to be the things that when we have space to grow.

32:40 Will be really fun discussions and questions and then the funding will be the backbone. That's the business side of it. They have the board there to help with does the adjust.

32:55 How well we execute this project this glimmering?

33:00 Property in the middle of the city that attracts diverse communities and we do start doing a better job of selling all the different things. We do. Does that help us. Can we raise funding better in this community in particular where it's been a slugfest and you've been arm, you know, Mike Tyson probably above above anybody trying to fight that battle and keep the museum funding. Does that get easier?

33:28 I don't know if it gets easier. It makes us win more frequently. So it is not a community full of Fortune 500 companies. It's not an extremely wealthy community. In fact, it's a fairly poor Community, but we were talking about it. If everybody just gave $10. I mean like certain tax issues. We could be a much greater budget. If it were needed it goes back to your first question. How do we reach more people and they have to see the value proposition and I think this will enable us to let everybody see the value proposition and and then everyone will want to be a part of it. I think the grandmother's club that their start playing.

34:17 Some of the other

34:20 Clubs, if you want to call it within the museum, I think that's huge and a great reach out because you talk about your experiences. I wasn't able to have experiences but now there's going to be a grandmother's Club starting up of people who first brought their kids here and started the museum. So I think each group is you go on it's all about networking and keeping people attached because people don't always have children and so how do we make it an affinity facility to the whole Community is the challenge and I think they're working on it.

35:00 That might be a good good place to to pause if that works.

35:12 He's able to do so much.

35:25 Do you have other similar organizations of

35:30 I'm thinking of them in line.

35:33 Are there any other practices or approaches that you can have contributed to the success that you keep in your framework? Are you keeping your strategy for doing that that you would share with other organizations that you?

35:43 Makes it possible to to be so successful at doing so.

35:48 You know for years you hear nonprofits, we're other organizations talk about Mission creep and it is real and you can create any Dilbert comic you want out of it and so forth, but

36:02 If I said the one thing that I would bring to somebody else's leveraging.

36:08 What you don't do well with someone who does it well, and I think that works in Economic Development. I think it worked with your recovery work that you have to play honest fair and you know

36:27 Be realistic on what you can add value to and what you can't because if you can't look in the mirror and honestly say I don't do this. Well, let me get help then you're going to spend more energy time and resources to attempt to do something you don't do and I think that's just leverageable anywhere and I think most of the community did not think this concept first came up to collaborate most people told us it would never happen. And the truth was it was a monetary. It was a fiefdom in a monetary issue. So I think if we could do it anybody could do it, but they have to be honest in every aspect of it.

37:14 Yeah, what are your thoughts Taylor? No, I agree. I think in my experience.

37:22 Nonprofits are completely delivered die by.

37:28 A passionate effective leader, I think you know in business you can have a company that does a good job of turning cash and you can kind of watch have someone that can watch the trains make sure everything's running on time a business that's growing usually needs some more dynamism and passion time to convince people to invest in their future into work hard and but you can't have both in the business Community for a non-profit. It feels like the ones I've been involved with that don't have that passion in that dynamism in the leadership.

38:07 Are tart are doomed and I feel like that's another great. You know, I that we've had people working for less than

38:19 They could make other places because they believed in the mission and they're driven by Passion and I without that I don't know, you know.

38:29 Barber cut a long time ago in my opinion right? I have one last thing. I want to share the first board meeting I ever came to we went into the conference room and the board meeting started and all of a sudden School group came in and we had a new exhibit directly above the conference room until you could barely hear anything cuz all you heard with the footsteps above you and it went from that mindset of this is really annoying. Maybe we should do seas meet him somewhere else to go. Thank goodness. We know it's going well. There's a measure it, you know, it's crying it's you know feat it's happiness. It's laughter. You can hear every single thing going on and I think that's part of the pulse of you know, getting in there and Noah in the community and seeing it but the mindset literally in the first meeting from wow, this is really annoying and distracting to do isn't this awesome. Look how many kids are up there and you can hear all the happy oyster.

39:30 You know what a 60 Minute. Was kind of wild because it sounded like a buffalo herd came in smack in the middle of this meeting and it was kind of a neat experience in the good segue back to the beginning of why we do this, you know in banking and in in a manufacturing the metrics that we look at to determine whether or not we're succeeding or not smiles and laughter and footsteps and fun things like that there a little bit dryer.