In the world of small museums, location and audience significantly influence expenses, rendering a one-size-fits-all approach ineffective. However, gaining insight into the various types of expenses museums incur can shed light on common challenges and their causes. The non-profit financial Form 990 categorizes expenses into five areas, providing a framework for understanding spending patterns. Our goal is to simplify the concept of museum spending and guide museums toward prudent budget management by exploring these key expense categories.
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Brucemore Encouraging Membership with Members
Detail from Brucemore’s membership brochure.
At last week’s workshop on historic house management in Iowa, I discovered that Brucemore, a historic house museum in Cedar Rapids, is encouraging membership with testimonials from members. Inside a tri-fold brochure (pdf), three members—an artist, volunteer tour guide, and a neighbor—share what they like about Brucemore and how it’s made a difference in their lives and the community.
Angela Billman, Actress, Brucemore Member
When I was 14 years old, my family took me to the Classics at Brucemore to see Romeo and Juliet. The experience introduced me to Shakespeare, outdoor theater, and inspired me to become an actress. The estate enriches the community in so many ways and inspires people every day.
It’s a clever idea because it shifts from the site promoting itself to members promoting the site. It’s people connecting with people, not a faceless organization talking to the general public, which is the most effective way to raise funds and build membership.
Notice, too, the contemporary graphic design that uses sans serif typefaces, photos placed at an angle, tint blocks, textures, and three-dimensional elements (such as the paperclips). This moves it away from the Times Roman typeface, fixed grid of photos, and goldenrod paper that’s far too common at house museums.
If you’re revising your membership brochure, you might want to consider these techniques to make your content and design more attractive and engaging.
How Museums Can Optimize Revenue Through Dynamic Pricing
Optimizing revenue by increasing pricing for special exhibits or peak times (e.g. weekends) is widely adopted in the performing arts (e.g., matinee vs evening performances at the theater) but rarely used by museums. A few museums, however, are beginning to experiment with dynamic or demand-based pricing to maximize their revenues. For example, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art increased their price $2 for the last four weeks they were open before renovation began and received no complaints. In 2008, the EMP Museum dropped its admission fee from $30 to $15 and it did not affect visitation, so in 2011 they increased prices and in 2013 they moved to 2013 to dynamic pricing. During the last 3 weeks, they earned an additional $15,000.
In “What Price is Right?”, a session at the recent AAM annual meeting, Heather Calvin (Museum of Science), Jill Robinson (TRG Arts), and Jessica Toon (EMP Museum) discussed how museums can use demand-based pricing strategies to set admission prices, service fees, discounts, and membership dues. It was a wide-ranging presentation so I’m sharing the highlights here to Continue reading
Engaging Places 