BrandingFire Blog

Downtown St. Joseph, MO

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StJoeNews.net published an interetsing story on Sunday, June 29th titled “Museums look to the future“, noting that St. Joseph, Missouri has a number of good museums (including the Patee House Museum and Jesse James House Museum), which is both a blessing and a curse. Culturally, it’s great for the city, but the museums are having to compete with each other for limited visitor dollars. Many are starting to look harder at the possibility of getting government tax support. One museum director said museums will need to receive 28% of their income from government support. That’s a staggering number. Nearly a third? Other people the reporter interviewed wouldn’t give numbers like that, but they generally all agreed that government support is needed.

And the thing is, this isn’t just in St. Joseph. It’s like this all over the country. Museums are generally struggling to make ends meet and the task is getting harder as the economy staggers along and gas prices skyrocket. But is the answer government tax support? Raising admission prices? Corporate sponsorship? A combination of these tactics? Or some other solution? I think all history-related organizations are going to have to start getting creative with ways to bring in money. I also think they’re going to have to reevaluate their organization from the top down. Are you telling a good story? Are you telling a cohesive story? Are you working to personalize the story so that it engages your audience? Are you approaching your finances from a business standpoint (even if you’re a non-profit)? Notice in the St. Joe story, this quote:

“If they (the museums) are going to last, you have to operate them as a business.”

Terry Oldham, director of the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art.’

Another good point made in the story is that one of the most costly expenses for many museums is simply finding good help. Volunteers are extremely helpful, but they’re hard to find and not always available, the way paid employees are. Good help is not only hard to find, but it can be expensive.

So, is your organization looking to the future and wondering how to handle rising costs and dwindling customers? Have you found any ways to start dealing with the money crunch? What is your organization doing to bring in more dollars or protect the dollars you already have?

I ran across a nice site called Cultural Heritage Tourism run by (again) The National Trust for Historic Preservation. On their site, they list the Five Principles for Successful and Sustainable Cultural Heritage Tourism. It’s worth a read. The third principle - Make Sites and Programs Come Alive - really hit a cord for me.

According to an AAM 2006 study, median annual attendance for different types of museums is as follows:

• Arboretum/Botanic Garden   106,235
• Art Museum                          59,822
• Children’s/Youth Museum       78,500
• General Museum                   43,500
• Historic House/Site                16,000
• History Museum                    10,750
• Natural History/Anthropology  62,803
• Nature Center                       52,850
• Science/Technology Museum 244,589
• Specialized Museum               20,000
• Zoo                                     440,502

Notice the bottom of the food chain is History Museum & Historic House/Site. We have our work cut out for us!

According to the American Association of Museums (AAM), there are an estimated 17,500 museums (of all types) in the U.S. The AAM says they only know of two attempts to count U.S. museums and this number is from the most recent.

The AAM membership directory lists 389 historic home/site members.The directory lists 1,254 history museum members. It is unknown how many, if any, of those may be duplicated in both lists.