Last week, I posted a roundup of great On Point episodes about museums, and last week they had one to add to the list:
Tag: future of museums (Page 4 of 5)
Quick post of an article that caught my eye from the recent newsletter from the Center for the Future of Museums:
275,000 Groups Lose Tax Exemptions After Failing to File Paperwork With IRS
The CFM estimates that’s about 1,000 museums. Some of those museums, of course, haven’t existed for years. You can actually see the full list here. (There are at least five or six museums in Massachusetts, for example.) Organizations were given three years to comply with the new regulations, so you can’t really argue that this was a surprise.
For some of the nonprofits that are still active, and didn’t get their paperwork together, this could be a devastating blow. They’ll be allowed to re-apply for charity status, but not all of them will make it.
Is this kind of accountability a good thing? I’m not sure the IRS is going to recoup vast amounts of taxes from this exercise, and you could argue that targeting nonprofits, who don’t always have the resources to hire tax lawyers and accountants, isn’t entirely fair. Especially since big corporations, who are in theory taxed at as much as 35%, often find all sorts of loopholes, and in the end pay less in income tax than anywhere else in the world. In fact, lost of them don’t pay taxes at all.
One of the AAM advocacy points is the argument that museums actually can be economic boosters in their neighborhoods. Cultural centers often are – see this great report from NPR about an arts center in Omaha, Nebraska, that’s bringing $100 million to its neighborhood.
No real conclusions, here, just lots of questions and things to consider – which is exactly what one hopes for from a newsletter about the future of museums.
PS – if you’re not on the mailing list for the CFM, you’re missing out. Go, run, and sign up.
If you haven’t been following the AAM’s Facebook feed – or any of their other communication methods – you might not know that today and tomorrow are designated as Museum Advocacy Days. The AAM, through its website Speak Up For Museums, is promoting a number of ways to get in touch with your local representatives and make a case for why museums are vital in their communities.
There will be a number of events down in Washington, D.C., but for us students who might not have the resources to jet down there to participate in the workshops, what can be done at home?
Lots!
– You can catch up on your reading by leafing through the AAM’s Advocacy Materials website – it’s a great collection of PDFs with highlights of the how and why of advocating for museums.
– You can watch the archived webinar about museum advocacy that the AAM did a few months ago. (And read our own Kris Bierfelt’s highlights overview if you don’t have time to watch the whole thing.)
– You can also watch the live feed of the programming in Washington, D.C. through the AAM’s website here.
Come on back tomorrow, and we’ll have even more ways you can participate in standing up for museums.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation is live-blogging their analysis of President Obama’s proposed budget for next year. They’ll be updating throughout the day as they discuss areas of the budget that relate to historic preservation and public funding for the arts. If you want to do your own research, there’s an interactive breakdown of the budget on the White House website.
For those who have been following the buzz about the budget through other news sources, this budget is an attempt to drastically scale back federal spending in the face of an escalating deficit. Not twenty minutes ago on NPR I heard what seemed like a good summary of where it will go next: essentially, Democrats think it’s way over the top and Republicans think it doesn’t go far enough. Which is to say, this document is still due for a lot of debate and revision.
Either way things shape up, it probably doesn’t look good for federal funding for museums. We’ll be posting wrap-ups this week, as well as some interesting thinking about new business models for museums. The future isn’t looking so bright for the traditional public money dependence that got a lot of museums through the 20th century.
The AAM Facebook feed just congratulated Hancock Shaker Village on receiving a $1 million grant from the Kresge Foundation.
Read the original article. There are some really, really interesting things going on in there amidst all the business-speak.
“[The grant] recognizes the living history museum’s work as a visionary organization pursuing transformational projects designed to shift its business model and to serve as a field-wide example of leadership.”
Here’s what I see when I read that: grantmakers, and those who are interested in helping museums with money and resources, don’t want to see museums rest on their laurels. The museum is “visionary,” “transformational,” and a “field-wide example,” and that’s why it just got a check for a million dollars.
“Appropriate levels of capitalization that allow an organization to grow or reinvent itself is standard in the for-profit sector, but has not routinely been considered best practice in the nonprofit sector. Kresge wishes to reverse this trend by supporting cultural organizations that have completed the thoughtful, exploratory process to reinvent their business models. ” – Alice Carle, program director at the Kresge Foundation
Venture capital firms exist to throw cash at good ideas that need a push. (The hope is then that the good idea will take off and offer a substantial return on the initial investment.) I love that the Kresge Foundation is looking at nonprofit funding in the same way. Too often really brilliant ideas – that may succeed or they may flop – are implemented on a shoestring budget that practically guarantees their failure. When a great idea fails, is it because it was a bad idea or because it wasn’t supported in the right way? Maybe one. Maybe the other. You never know unless you analyze its failure honestly.
“The Village will use half of the Kresge grant to seed its Building Reserve Fund and half to research and launch promising new business initiatives. “We are taking steps to move away from the outmoded museum business model of dependence upon admission and gift shop revenue,” said [Ellen] Spear, [President and CEO of Hancock Shaker Village].”
In this and other sections of the article, the museum’s programs, outreach, and education efforts are clearly outlined in business terms. They’re business models, initiatives, and product development. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Maybe both. Depending on admission and gift shop revenue isn’t a long-term sustainable economic model for a museum. But does it somehow violate the spirit of a museum to engage directly in naked capitalism?
In the end, though, huge congratulations to Hancock Shaker Village. Receiving a grant of this magnitude is a big vote of confidence. They know what they want, they know how to get there, and now they have the resources to take that path.
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