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| Museums feeling the pinch of stressed economic climate |
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Who among us doesn’t enjoy a day at a good museum? As antique collectors and aficionados, we are often content to spend a rainy afternoon strolling through hushed halls filled with treasures. Some of us use museums as a collecting tool: We go to learn more about a silversmith’s pattern, a potter’s mark or a carpenter’s history. Many items showcased in museums are the masterworks of craftsmen whose pieces we also happen to own or collect. We also might be seeking possible future temporary or permanent homes for our own collections. And some of us are just natural lovers of antiquity and can think of few better ways to spend a day than among old stuff. Unfortunately, the treasures of days gone by are not immune to the woes of the present. Due to the current economic crisis and recession, many of our favorite museums, large and small, are hurting. Their rescue might require drastic and radical measures.
Many factors have contributed to the museums’ distress. Traditionally, many of the nation’s largest museums and arts trusts have issued bonds in order to raise money, either with relatively safe municipal bonds or more daring auction-rate bonds, whose interest rates are set through auction on a sometimes weekly basis. In 2008, interest rates on both kinds of bonds spiked, and the museums’ debts became even greater. In April 2008, the Associated Press chronicled the J. Paul Getty Trust’s increasing problem: “Rising interest rates brought on by turmoil in the financial markets boosted payments, and the organization got socked for an additional $650,000 in fees earlier this year that it hadn’t budgeted for.”
As well, museums have been sorely hurt by a decrease in endowments and donations. Even regular givers, squeezed by their own shrinking investment portfolios and disheartened by the gloomy economic landscape, have limited their philanthropy. According to Adrian Ellis in his commentary for The Art Newspaper, museums have recently seen drops of 30-50 percent in endowment income: “Most fundraisers in the arts freely acknowledge how much the pyramid of giving has narrowed in the past decade, with a greater reliance on an increasingly diminishing number of very wealthy donors.”
Organizations are also seeing attendance numbers shrink as the public’s budget grows tight. Some museums are seeing attendance drops of nearly 20 percent. In addition, as businesses tighten their belts, they are less likely to book museums for special events.
These distressing factors have led to equally distressing measures. Across the board, museums have had to implement layoffs, furloughs, admission cuts and even shorter hours.
Even the “big boys” are not immune – the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, one of the most hallowed treasure troves in the world, announced on March 13 that it would be cutting approximately 250 jobs – about 10 percent of its staff.
Museums without the Met’s $220 million annual budget have found the predicament trying, to say the least. Readers of AntiqueWeek are no doubt familiar with the story of the Museum of Ceramics in East Liverpool, Ohio. The museum, lauded for its amazing collection of 19th-century Lotus Ware porcelain, lost 93 percent of its funding in 2008, and was saved, almost miraculously, by the organization of a new foundation, slashed admission fees and reduced operating hours.
However, director Sarah Webster Vodrey is optimistic about the museum’s future. She hopes that crucial funding will come from the same landmark piece of legislature that much of the country’s economic hopes are pinned to.
H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 – itself signed into law by the president at a museum – will allow museums to benefit from stimulus funds. However, this did not come without a fight – following much ado about a Las Vegas mob museum possibly receiving stimulus money, the U.S. Senate voted to exclude museums. The American Association of Museums responded by bringing in hundreds of supporters to Washington for Museum Advocacy Day in late February, and museums were reinstated as possible beneficiaries of the bill (zoos and aquariums did not make the final cut). The bill includes $50 million to go to the National Endowment for the Arts to help keep jobs in the nonprofit arts sector, and $25 million to help the Smithsonian Institution. In addition, local governments will receive money to help their communities as they see fit – opening more doors for aid to struggling institutions.
In addition, museums are going to need to change the ways they fundraise. They might benefit by seeking smaller amounts from a wider group of people. Perhaps they can take a cue from last year’s presidential campaigns – as Ellis writes, “Interestingly, the success of President Obama’s electoral campaign in using Web-based social networking to secure smaller donations is the talk of the charitable sector internationally.”
It’s vital that museums stay afloat and alive during these trying economic times. Aside from being repositories for the world’s treasures and educating the public about history and culture, museums are a valuable asset to the economy.
According to the American Association of Museums, “Museums employ more than a half-million Americans, spend an estimated $14.5 billion annually, and rank among the top three family destinations. Visitors to cultural and heritage destinations stay 53 percent longer and spend 36 percent more money than other kinds of tourists.”
Vodrey would agree – the Museum of Ceramics draws in a few thousand visitors from around the country every year, and they “stick around,” pumping much-needed and valued tourist dollars into the local economy.
As lovers of old things, we should consider the importance of museums to our lives. In order to survive, many museums are going to need to rethink how they receive funding and how they present themselves to their communities. New ideas, new ways of operating and new approaches to community outreach could not just save museums’ existences, but strengthen our own relationships with those institutions. As Ellis writes, “The global recession that we have entered will not just knock the froth off things; it will permanently reconfigure the cultural landscape.” |
| 4/2/2009 |
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