A New Economic Model for Museums?

Andrew Taylor’s blog post, Rethinking Arts Economies and Arts Exchange, introduces Stolen Chair Theatre's new initiative to support new works. Instead of grants and traditional subscriptions, they propose a community support system modeled on Community Supported Agriculture (CSA).

Like the CSA model, Stolen Chair hopes to build a membership community, a "CST", which would provide 'seed' money for the company's development process and then reap a year's worth of theatrical harvests. The organization has received a grant to create the model as part of The Field's Economic Revitalization for Performing Artists (ERPA) initiative.

Writes Taylor, “Is unprofitable theater (or other arts endeavor) a charity, a community resource, an entitlement, a labor of love, or some combination thereof? Whatever we choose as our cluster of definitions, it will be helpful to align our business models and our resource strategies accordingly.”

Just 8 Days Left....

...to email us your entry about what inspires you about museums!

That's right, we're looking for your wordles, haikus, photos, videos and you need to get them to us by July 31st.

Amazon gift certificates will go to four lucky, lucky people!!!

AND, your inspirations will help us here at MANY frame our strategic plans for the coming five years.

We've been posting entries on the homepage of our website. Oh, yeah, we'll do that for yours, too.

Photo: magnetic poetry by surrealmuse

Root Causes - Real Solutions

On Monday, the Albany Times Union published commentary from MANY regarding the legislation stipulating that collections cannot use proceeds from deaccession to pay operating or capital debt. You can find it here.

The legislation does not address the very real issues of how museums should generate revenue. That is not its purpose. Once using proceeds is taken off the table as a revenue generating option, it leaves us to really focus on addressing the creation of safety nets that can stablize museum operations and help these important institutions to flourish.

Among the solutions cited in the commentary are:

• A revolving loan fund that strapped museums could tap into to buy time to restructure and figure out their next steps.
• A check-off box on the state personal income tax that gives residents the opportunity to make a contribution to an arts fund. (That legislation is pending.)
• Access to the state's health insurance program and aggregated energy purchasing to help lower two big chunks of operating costs.
• Comprehensive board and leadership training.
• Let's also look at the state's current grant reimbursement system, which can keep nonprofits waiting months or years to receive project funding, forcing them to borrow funds and take on added debt.

These are just a few potential solutions -- all of them are achievable and any one of them would go a long way to helping institutions steward their educational and collecting missions.

How Museums Inspire Me

The first of our Wordles and haikus have arrived! We here at MANY look forward to your thoughts about how museums inspire (or challenge) you.

A haiku by David Palmquist, Head, Museum Chartering, NY State Museum:

The deaccessioned

work of art screams

but no one hears

From Lisa Delmonico, Director of Development, Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden (NYC):

Museum tagline:

"Washington did not sleep here,

and neither can you."

Visit the MANY website for more.

Deliberating Deaccession

Posted by Senator José M. Serrano

Although I am a frequent blogger, this is actually my first time delving into the guest-blog-stratosphere, and I am honored to do so on the MANY website. As the new Chairman of the Senate Committee on Cultural Affairs, Tourism, Parks and Recreation, I am focused on exploring ways the State Legislature can best support and promote the tremendous cultural and natural assets within the State of New York.

Of course, this is not an easy time to be a proponent of arts and culture. On the one hand, the State is facing a massive fiscal crisis with looming budget cuts across the State. On the other hand, we know that New York’s creative sector will play a vital role in our economic recovery.

Cultural institutions, such as museums, make an enormous contribution to the State economy by stimulating tourist activity, creating jobs, utilizing other local businesses and generating tax revenue. In other words, it makes good financial sense to support the arts in New York. Not to mention, the contribution that the arts make to our quality of life and the health of our society which is immeasurable. This isn’t just political rhetoric, if you take a look at my legislative grants (AKA member items) you can see how serious I am about supporting the arts. Not only did I provide funding for a variety of art organizations, but I also took the unprecedented step of allocating $250,000 to the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) for grant-making purposes.

Museums throughout the state are grappling with enormous financial problems. Unfortunately, Museums are being forced to lay off staff and manage their collections, buildings and programs with fewer resources. In some instances, museums and other cultural institutions have been driven to consider deaccessioning and then sell collection items to raise needed funds. No matter how few times this has happened, I am deeply concerned about the effect this could have on the long-term health of our cultural institutions and what this means for the cultural heritage of our state.

I recently convened a committee meeting to discuss legislation (S.4584/A.6959) related to museum “deaccessioning” that I have introduced (along with co-sponsoring Senators Hassell-Thompson, Little, Montgomery, Morahan, and Schneiderman). To help us understand the intricacies of the bill, the committee was joined by Assembly sponsors, Assembly members Brodsky and Titone. Representatives from the Museum Association of New York, Everson Museum, Hudson River Museum, and the New York State Museum were on hand to offer their perspective on the fiscal crisis facing museums and the proposed legislation. All of our guests did a phenomenal job helping us to hash out the particulars of the bill. As a result, my colleagues and I have identified several flaws in the bill and are diligently working on some necessary revisions.

The fiscal crisis may be temporary, but the long term effects of unfettered deaccessioning will be long lasting. This legislation will place some necessary limits on deaccessioning without being overly restrictive. While changes to the bill are in the works, the essential goal of the bill will remain the same---help us maintain the cultural heritage of the State of New York in a time of deep fiscal crisis.

Just as I was able to work with the museum community on the issue of deaccessioning, I look forward to working closely with all members of the museum community on future issues. Together we can ensure New York remains the premier cultural destination in the world.

Photo: Statue sunbathing in the new Greek/Roman room at the Met by ext212, flickr

Staffing Cutbacks and Hiring Freezes on Rise in NYS' Museum Community

Pre-Recession Facts

17,000+ the number of people employed in the New York State’s museums and heritage organizations

3.1% projected employment growth by the New York State Bureau of Labor Statistics for museums until 2016

$1 Billion+ the operating expenditures of New York State museums, the majority of these expenses are returned to the state’s economy in the form of wages, purchases, and sales taxes.


The Labor Situation Now

In polling conducted by MANY of its membership in January and March 2009:

· institutional operating deficits are significantly on the rise (from 36% of reporting institutions in January to 53% of reporting institutions in March)
· staff cuts and/or freezes are now in effect at nearly half of reporting institutions
Staff reductions are running between 10-20% at institutions across the state. Furloughs and salary cuts are two measures some museums are using to avoid layoffs.

The vast majority of museums in New York State are small, historical societies and historic sites. Many of these institutions employ part-time professional staff, such as curators, educators and tour guides. These employees may be the first to be laid off because of their part-time status or they may be forced to leave because they cannot afford to stay in a part-time situation. Wrote one museum director, “I am very afraid that we will lose the talented recent Cooperstown graduate who is our part-time education director. She has mentioned that people who work in low skill jobs such as warehouses earn more than she does.”


The Impact

· reductions in museum programming that benefit New York State residents
· a “brain drain” of talent from the field to other fields where employment may be more stable, pays more and offers benefits

New York's Museums Respond to a Difficult & Changing Market: A Quarterly Report

by Joan Baldwin

A lot can happen in three months. Last fall when MANY approached its members about the plunging stock market more than a few said there was belt tightening going on, but maintained a wait and see attitude. All that seems to have changed with the New Year. To monitor changes from rough to dire, MANY has developed an Economic Health Index Survey for New York’s museums, polling 37 member organizations on such areas as visitation, government support, operating deficits and the like. Results from the survey will be reported in MANY’s enewsletter quarterly throughout 2009.

The news, based on the January 2009 survey, isn’t good. For 40-percent of the responding organizations school visitation is down, a victim no doubt of dwindling state and local budgets. In line with that 17 or 53.1 percent report that state or federal support has decreased. A quarter of the group (25.8 percent) has also cancelled programs, while 11 of them have experienced staff cuts or freezes. Twelve organizations or 38.7 percent report an increase in their operating deficit, and that same group (38.7 percent) reports a decrease in their number of employees. While 25.8 percent of respondents said they had scaled capital programs back.

After a number of articles appeared in the national press about the “death of the gala,” MANY asked specifically what responding organizations were doing in terms of their annual fund-raising events. Roughly 20 percent reported no change in plans. Either they had already held their event and emerged unscathed or they felt confident enough to go forward. A few respondents were more direct. One said, “Our primary focus is insuring all that we do is on mission. We are not cancelling events and programs, just being visibly cost-conscientious while trying to still attain the "wow" factor. It's important to remain the "shining star" in our community, especially during the rough road ahead.” Another quipped, “Galas should die a natural death. They are ineffective, time consuming ways to raise money and virtually all organizations would be better off if they morphed fundraising emphasis to ASKING MAJOR DONORS FOR MONEY FOR MISSION. I call it the "Willie Horton School of Fundraising".

The only good news the group reported was that 40.6 percent said that their general visitation had increased, while roughly a third or 10 percent reported their annual appeal contributions were up as well. And on the staff side where many respondents said the cuts will be (or have been) the most difficult, 41.4 percent reported no change in staffing.

It’s been a tough autumn for New York’s museums. Wall Street’s September roller coaster ride sent CEO’s, finance committees, and staff leaders back to the drawing board to prepare for what may be lean times in the museum world.

Asked to describe how the state’s 1,500+ museums react to major economic downturns, Anne Ackerson, Museum Association of New York (MANY) director, said “They’re like a bellweather.” In surveying MANY’s member institutions, Ackerson reports belt-tightening going on across the state. And while most organizations are holding their own, they predict that what’s happened so far is the tip of a very big iceberg. Several directors said, “Talk to me in a month.” Others felt they could ride out 2008, it’s next year they are worried about.

Of the two-dozen organizations questioned this week by MANY, six reported their visitation was up, although several attributed it to the popularity of a single exhibit. And several urban museums reported that they are still benefitting from the weak dollar and European travelers. That was the good news. For small to mid-size organizations—some with budgets under $250,000—it doesn’t take much to slip from bad to untenable. Several of MANY’s constituents in Erie and Monroe counties as well as in Manhattan reported delays or possible cuts in funding from state or local sources—in one case by a year. One director who did not want to be identified, wrote, “I received your email as I was composing yet another letter to our county legislature urging their support for our highest recommended funding level in the 2009 budget. I am imagining I’m not alone in this effort.” Another reported that county funding was already down by 5-percent while two New York City organizations suggested that while they were currently protected by multi-year general operating funding from the Department of Cultural Affairs, they could not predict whether (and by how much) those funds might be cut.

In larger institutions that are supported by endowments, the belt-tightening started months ago. One director of a medium sized art museum said his finance committee reduced the museum’s budget by 10 percent last January. Even so, he suspects government and foundation support will be down significantly. His institution isn’t alone. At a number of medium to large museums across the state, finance committees trimmed sails in advance of the storm. One Hudson Valley historic house reports that it’s established 2009 budgets anticipating a 15-percent decline, a 25-percent decline, and a worst-case-40-percent decline. At the moment they are betting on the 15-percent loss.

Museums are also feeling the pinch in personnel. One state site reported that its seasonal budget has been cut in half while a major Long Island museum is about to slash its budget for the second time in less than six months. The director reports that the upcoming reductions will mean layoffs. Upstate an Otsego County organization needs to close a 10-percent gap caused by loss in endowment and the early fall’s spike in heating oil. It reports that closing the gap isn’t likely without affecting staff salaries. Several directors in Manhattan and Upstate report that hiring freezes are already in place while others said they would enact salary reductions in order to save jobs.

Many institutions, large and small, have already felt the loss of patrons’ discretionary income. Only one museum in Albany County reported that sales in its gift shop were up while several said that spending at fund raising events was way down and patrons had to be coaxed to spend like they did only a year ago. A Brooklyn historic site director said, “Our annual gala takes place in November. If we don’t make our revised goal, that will tell us a lot. There are only so many things you can cut at a small institution.” In a few cases on Long Island and in the Lower Hudson Valley directors reported fund raising events themselves were cancelled. And no one is looking forward to annual appeals—letters asking for end-of-year-gifts—which traditionally go out during the last quarter. As one director quipped, “2008 will be a picnic compared to 2009. Our donors will hold on to the end, but last out is also last in.”

Photo:  Visitors at the Guggenheim Museum, NYC by charmante