Museum Strategy

Support I Value the Arts

As arts lovers reading this blog you may have heard of the budget cuts that threaten the British arts sector since the annoucement of a 25% - £61 Billion / 74,4 Billion euros- spending cut spanning a 4 year period until 2015. It is 15 billion more than previously announced and right now a lot of state subisdised arts organisations in the UK are waiting for the cuts to come into effect  this October.

Whatever is everyone's opinion on subsidised art, whether it is crucial for art to blossom or whether it hinders raw creativity, I think the campaign "I Value the Arts", launched by the National Campaign for the Arts and which has gone viral in the past days will appeal to the sensitivity of each and every person whose life are made better by a museum, a gallery; a concert hall, a theater and many other institutions. It is about showing that you are not only attached to the arts but to the real richness they bring to your life as opposed to being a mere occasional diversion from the stresses of everyday life.

I could not exhaust the subject of how art and arts organisations matter in people's lives even more in times of crisis in one very short blog post. But I will also add that art is not only about personal richness but about a country's wealth and prestige. Quote from the  Arts Council England website

" the art budget is tiny, it costs 17p a week per person- less than half the price of a pint of milk. In return we have world-class artists; a sector that gives Britain an international edge as a dynamic place to live, work and do business; a sector which fuels the creative industries and generate future jobs in one of the fastest growing parts of the economy; and a sector with a proven track record of regenerating towns and cities and contributing to a cohesive and engaged society."

You have many ways to show your support ; by adding the I Value the Arts visual identity on your website, email and social media accounts. This is a swift yet efficient way of showing you do care and that arts are part of your life. We send regard and support from France. 

Museums are “Revealers” for their audiences

I am now back from Communicating the Museum and am finally able to publish this article, which, if short, has been expected by some people from the audience back in Vienna. I will, by the way, definitely publish more on that, so this is just a start to the conversation.

On day one of the conference, the inaugural speech on “The audiences of the future” was made by Françoise Serralta, founder of one of the most important prospective agencies in the world, PeclersParis.

Not an arts professional, but an arts passionate, Françoise presented what are, according to her, the trends for future museum consumption as well as the socio-types that will shape visitor profiles in 2020. I can only let you imagine the potential interest for the arts organisations represented in the room…

There may have been a bit of a culture clash though, as Françoise’s presentation was no bullet point affair: it was an in-depth, ideas- and reference-packed presentation, making it difficult for some delegates to “process” it into something that can be directly applied to their own audience-development strategy.
I personally did follow it, so it seems, with not too much difficulty, perhaps helped by not having to wonder about some thinkers brought up in the presentation. But then again, I am French so this may explain why. Or not. It seems to me that above all, what I felt was the most important point in Françoise’s speech was that museums’ role is the future is going to be even more meaningful, with people craving a refuge, a place where they can express themselves or a threshold towards higher aspirations. In short, museums will be big on audiences, even bigger than today. This seems like quite a simple and applicable idea to me.

Why is that? I know you have heard this a trillion times now, but this appears to be because of the way that recession is deeply reshaping the way we relate to arts and to places for arts. Recession is etymologically linked with the term “revelation”, which points to the fact that during a period of economic crisis, audiences rediscover their emotions and spiritual aspirations and get back in touch with them. What was then hidden by comfort is unraveled again, as risk and danger are getting more present in our lives.

We are in a digital world, yet we are by no means digital people: we are essentially made to desire and to recreate new forms of art through this desire. We are the famous “desiring machines” that French philosopher Deleuze identified as a driving force within every human being – that is, within every art consumer. Hence the fact that even in a digital world, we are certainly not becoming digital people and our cravings remain the same, if not more powerful and unbridled as before. So arts places have to stand up to that very high level of expectations and not be afraid of risk-taking.

Museums are increasingly places for magic, spiritual emotions and transcendence. They represent the opportunity for something that is hidden in our everyday life. In times of crisis, that which is fundamental is more important than ever: Life, Death, Sex, God… I leave you to ponder what is the core of our lives and existence.  Practically, Françoise’s speech dealt with the key idea discussed throughout the conference: what is the deep reason why people come to museums, and consequently, what are the missions of the museum going to be in the next ten years?

In his second speech, “Developing an audience-focused mind”, Andrew McIntyre also stressed the fact that if visitors’ motivations were mainly of social and recreational concern, then the profit made while visiting an exhibition was of a more emotional and spiritual nature. It would be interesting to contrast this with the speech Molly Flatt of 1000 Heads gave last year in Malaga, about museums being places made for social interaction. Are times slightly changing?

This gives museums the greatest of opportunities to change people’s lives but also the greatest of responsibilities to live up to audiences’ expectations, it seems to me. 

I am meeting Françoise for an interview the blog in the following days. What a fantastic opportunity to ask questions about trends in exhibitions programmes, clarification on the different visitors socio-types and so on.

So, being a delegate or a non-delegate, what would be your questions to Françoise? You have exactly five days, so please leave a question via Twitter using #ctm10 hashtag, Facebook, my email address or this blog.

Claire

The CultureBusiness aftermath

Hello everyone!

I am taking a minute to post on our forum CultureBusiness which took place last Thursday 10 December at the Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine in Paris. 130 participants from 12 different countries took part in a full day of questioning the future of the funding of culture in light of the rise of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the making of budgets today. Don't do cocktail parties for your launchings anymore, bring in some meaning for your communities, the message seems to be as from now.

But what exactly is CSR? Is it unavoidable today and how can it really make a difference in your communication strategy? In building CSR-based projects, how do you gain world exposure but also get in competition with sports, environment or social solidarity organisations? Can culture compete and show it is as much a part of basic human development as any other area?

These are the questions which were raised during two fantastic keynote speeches,"CSR and Social Solidarity: the Next Positioning of culture"by Michelle Wright, Head of Culture at Four Communications and "The Changing face of Sponsorship: a Return to the Core Values of Brand and Social Responsibility" by Jane Marriott, Director of Development at the Royal Academy of Arts and Head of the RA Trust. Of course there will be blogposts  about these talks soon.

At  Culture Business we also debated along with sponsors and cultural organisations on what are the difficulties of as well as the ingredients for a successful partnership. There was also a workshop on how to negotiate a partnership  by Danish coach Malene Rix and it all ended with a "Speed-meeting" session, a succession of appointments between sponsors and arts organisations to build fruitful partnerships at the beautiful venue that is the Conciergerie in the heart of Paris. Here are some pictures of the day sessions, to show you what intense brainstorming we have been at! See you in a few days for more in depth analysis.  

Photos of CultureBusiness will be online on Flickr soon. Thank you to the people who followed us on Twitter on #culturebusiness, discussion continues on sponsorship issues anyway. The conference package, synthesis and presentations will be available soon and free for participants. For those of you who did not attend the conference, please contact me.

Talk to you soon.

Being a Fundraiser in Culture Today: 3 Questions to Elke Kristoffersen from BOZAR, Brussels

At the start of the new artistic season at BOZAR, we managed to catch Elke Kristoffersen a respected funding professional in between meetings.

Elke contributed to develop the image of the Center for fine Arts in Brussels  better known as BOZAR in Europe, having led the funding team for four years now. She attended the CultureBusiness  forum last year presenting the partnership she developed with Sony. She is one of the CultureBusiness committee members this year, unsurprisingly, as her focus is largely on strengthening cultural institutions internally and externally in the Funding area. 

Hello Elke. Could you tell us a little bit more about your job?

I am in charge of the BOZAR funding team at the Center for Fine Arts - BOZAR- in Brussels. This department was set up to raise funds to help finance the artistic projects as well as help find partners for what is called the Masterplan – the renovationproject of our Art Deco building.

We communicate on the crucial role played by culture as one of the pillars of our identity and development, which means that we conceive it as part of a wider process. By doing so, we create the conditions for lasting partnerships that are in line with the values that are shared by our sponsors and partners. We advocate coherence in support with respect for the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) policy defined by our partners. Punctual corporate partnerships are also set up through project sponsoring, corporate hospitalities as well as hall rental for conferences, seminars, ect,  all with the greatest respect for the artistic program and building. Last but not least, we also develop and nurture the support of private individuals who support the Centre for Fine Arts.

 Is there a specific way of becoming a fundraiser today?

It is a relatively new profession on our continent and mostly an import from the Anglo-Saxon society, but  it is at last starting to be fully recognized. I read that the study entitled Fundorama led by the French Fundraisers Association and the  CerPhi (French research center in philanthropy) found that only 5% of the fundraising professionals work in the cultural sector.

At BOZAR we have been developing it for several years now, the true success lies in the passion for the project you work for and the understanding of the partner’s needs as well as the possible synergies with your project. BOZAR is definitely an institution to be passionate about. 2002 was a turning point for The Center for Fine Arts: the  merging of the various artistic departments, the set up of an efficient governance model under one director general Paul Dujardin and the creation of the BOZAR brand, were the key ingredients for the success of BOZAR today. A small funding team was created, which I have had the chance to successfully develop for four years now.

As for myself, I studied in Toronto - Canada, then worked in media and advertising for 13 years, which was a thrilling experience, but not nurturing and substantial enough for me, which led me to work for the cultural sector, a passion since childhood. My past experience in media was definitely a plus, as the majority of corporate funding revenue today is closely connected to marketing and communication strategies. It is however my wish to further develop the individual and Maecenas support in line with the CSR strategy of many companies and foundations.

You occupy a key situation in a major Belgian institution. What are the challenges and the needs of your activity today,and why going to cultureBusiness represents strong added value for cultural institutions?

It really has become a daily renewed challenge to reach our objectives.  When it comes to the Center, the money we raise in our department is crucial to balance the final artistic budget. A lack of money from this side would quite simply jeopardize the existence of some events. It is also very important to have the support of the various artistic department directors, they are at the source of the projects and will bring extra insights that can make the difference as well as show an integrated approach to funding for BOZAR.

We need to privilege long lasting and strategic collaborations to ensure that our sector receives   continuous support, especially in the current economic reality. What’s more, we have to bear in    mind that for many businesses and firms, especially now, being able to measure precisely their    Return on Investment (ROI) on such partnerships, still is key, meaning that cultural institutions      have to be able to internally respond to this need. This of course doesn’t rule out  promoting the   institutions’ intangible, non monetary values which are also an important part in the partnership     and of course, an essential part of my job. It is all about keeping a subtle balance.

Taking part in CultureBusiness will help institutions develop their knowledge of Funding and Fundraising which has become key today for our sector and it will offer interesting cross border networking possibilities.  Exchanges of best practices and case studies during the conference create conditions to rethink the way we work, and could even lead to international collaborations, which is something BOZAR is very interested in, as a lot of our artistic productions (exhibitions for example) are hosted abroad and international collaborations are an intrinsic part of our artistic programming. There are relatively few platforms of this kind able to reach out to people on an international level. 

BOZAR is on Twitter

>> http://twitter.com/BOZARbrussels

Interview by Claire Solery

James Chung at the ICOM AGM - demographics, challenges and bright spots for museums during the crisis

Last week a couple of us from AGENDA helped with ICOM’s (the International Council of Museum’s) Annual General Meeting in Paris. It was a four-day event during which ICOM delegates bashed out new resolutions, voted on the location for future meetings and played host to some fascinating speakers. 

My job was to take notes during the sessions and write up a synthèse later. I was lucky enough to be designated the conference’s best session – a panel debate between James Chung, Jacques Attali and Alan Riding entitled “What is the global economic crisis changing for museums?”

James Chung’s presentation was especially interesting. Introduced as a “futurologist” from Reach Advisors, he was pretty quick to dismiss this title. His talk focused on concrete social and demographic trends developing around the financial crisis and what they mean for museums.

Chung described the financial crisis as a “cyclical external shift” but said that museums are currently undergoing a “fundamental shift” in terms of visitor engagement. His outlook for museum funding was pretty bleak. He drew a comparison between the current crisis in the US and the situation in the 1990s in Japan where, after huge museum expansion in the 80s, the 90s saw a drastic drop in governmental and corporate support with budget cuts of up to 40% and widespread closures as Japan entered a 10 year deflationary economy. 

According to Chung, US museums are currently facing a huge number of challenges, the biggest being that museums rely heavily on corporate and individual philanthropy with 40% of all contributions coming from the (collapsing) financial and real estate industries. The days of extraordinary windfall are over and there is no doubt that museums will suffer as a result.

However, he found a surprising number of positives in the current situation. The first bright spot was that admissions and membership revenue are still mostly holding up, especially for “hyper-local” museums, children’s museums and science centres. On the other hand, larger art and history museums are struggling more because of their higher reliance on endowement.

The second was the opportunity that current demographic changes can give to museums in terms of attracting visitors:

1. Women – Women are now more likely to earn college degrees by 1.5% and are already out-earning men in the USA (due to male income growth being heavily reliant on the financial industries). This generation of women will be the key economic driver in reshaping consumer markets in the 2010s   
2. Age Shift – One eighth of the current US population is over 65 but within 25 years this figure will rise to one fifth in the USA (and one quarter in France, UK, Canada and one third in Italy, Germany, Japan and Hong Kong). Older visitors means more visitors. And these older visitors will be baby boomers, a demographic which has changed every era it’s moved through fairly dramatically – now is the chance for museums to change their approach to this group.      

In fact, this was the key message of Chung’s lecture and one we’ve seen over and over since we started blogging (in our podcast with Nicole Newman for example) – the USA is currently in a “jump-ball economy” (great basketball analogy, everything is up in the air) which makes this a really good time to shake things up and change exsiting practices and patterns. 

Alan Riding made quite a thought-provoking comment in his closing remarks – during the Great Depression, governments across the board imagined culture to be part of the solution to the economic problems and many funded cultural programmes. This is not the case anymore, there is hardly anyone advocating for museums, and cultural institutions were all but shut out from the recent US stimulus package. He said that in Britain there has always been a distracting belief that culture must have some “social engineering” aspect or economic reward whereas in fact we should all really be enjoying “culture just as culture”.

You can read more of James Chung’s findings through his work at Reach Advisors on his blog, Museum Audience Insight, definitely worth a read.

Image: Jumpball by bsheets

Podcast with Nicole Newman, Head of Development at Somerset House

Download Museum Strategy Podcasts - Nicole Newman, Head of Development at Somerset House

Click on the link above to listen to the first installment in our new series of Museum Strategy Podcasts. We recently travelled to London to talk to Nicole Newman, Head of Development at Somerset House. We started off by discussing how the search for sponsorship has changed in the last year for Somerset House and for other cultural institutions. It’s something we’re hearing time and time again from the leading professionals in cultural sponsorship; the crisis should be seen as an opportunity to improve current practice and find innovative new ways of building long-lasting and fruitful relationships. We also got onto the topic of the annual CultureBusiness Forum which Agenda organises and for which Nicole heads the organising committee. We hope you enjoy listening! Make sure you stay tuned, there’ll be more along soon. 

Bouncing back thanks to the crisis

You can read this post in French by clicking here

CultureBusiness is an international forum that brings together people from the cultural and the corporate world. It first took place last year and gathered 200 professionals from 10 different countries. Last year, the crisis was already in the back of everyone’s minds at the forum during which we were trying to draw the outlines of the future of cultural sponsorship. 

A few days before the recent committee meeting for this year’s CultureBusiness conference, I read the results of a survey conducted by Admical entitled “What is the impact of the Crisis on Sponsorship?” The survey discusses the French corporate response to the crisis and I have been fascinated to discover a lot of similarities between what was said during our committee meeting and what was said in the survey. It questioned 300 businesses of all sizes, whether they engage in sponsorship activity or not. Three points especially struck me as being central ones.

The first is that culture is being hit hard by the crisis, but now is an excellent opportunity to reshape its image. According to the figures published by the survey, 73% of sponsorship budgets remain the same. In 91% of cases where there is a reduction in sponsorship budget, the reason is the current financial context as opposed to a larger long-term sponsorship reorientation. But in theses cases, culture will definitely be the sector that will be the most affected by cuts, with a decrease of 22% in budget, compared to 4% for relief-related projects and 11% for environment. We can assume that this is partly due to the image of culture, linked, whether right or wrong, to prestige and luxury. But culture is definitely more than a simple added value; it is actually one of the main pillars of human development. Cultural sponsorship needs to be perceived as about more than just exclusive VIP events.

The second important point is that “transfer of skills” sponsorship will definitely grow much more important during and in the aftermath of the crisis. Transfer of skills mainly refers to partnerships based on the sharing of human resources and know-how rather than a simple financial arrangement. Last year at CultureBusiness, it was said that this mutation in sponsorship would be accelerated by the crisis. Those impressions were definitely proven correct by the figure provided by ADMICAL, stating that while only 37% of sponsorship activities can currently be considered as “transfer of skills”, this will increase by 37% in 2009, compared to just an 11% increase for classic logo and money-based sponsorship.

And last but not least, sponsorship represents a unique opportunity for corporate businesses during the crisis. It is perhaps a fact which is widely known but too often ignored that right now in France, 87% of businesses that have some sponsorship activities consider it to be an internal factor of cohesion and 83% believe that it creates meaning and added value for their corporate communication strategies. Those facts and figures, we believe, should dissuade the corporate world from cancelling partnerships with the cultural sphere, as businesses are at the heart of social development and this doesn’t stop in tough times but should be an ongoing process. Here in France, the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), we believe, is going to be as relevant and meaningful as ever in the months to come.

Picture: pbo31 (some rights reserved)

The Great Sponsorship Makeover

Here is the first of our posts on sponsorship for cultural institutions and how the financial crisis is affecting the search. Claire analyses a very French point of view…

As France has responded better than a lot of other countries to the crisis, I find it relevant to look for what the cultural leaders here have to say about art, culture and how we can overcome financial hardships in terms of finding sponsorship. This is how I came across a column written by Alain Seban, Head of the Pompidou Center in Paris in Les Echos, a notable Economics newspaper. In it, he discusses how the financial crisis will consolidate the need to look at sponsorship in very new ways.

The article clearly takes a very French attitude. Seban is extremely quick to denounce “the excesses of unleashed capitalism” and the era “of easy money-making and the frenzy for contemporary art.” He keenly advocates the neccessity of shoring up “ public power, as well as  businesses taking into account new types of logics and ethics other than sheer profit-seeking.” Public power is the good alternative and business is implicitly unethical. This attitude is perhaps a little radical but on the whole he makes some really interesting points.

First of all I am thankful to Seban for not speculating once again as to whether culture will suffer a hard blow from the crisis. The crisis is global; it’s clear by now that no one is escaping. Instead, he offers a long-term analysis which, as Head of France’s greatest contemporary Arts Center, he is bound to be concerned with. I appreciate the way that he has injected substance and meaning into a debate which currently seems to simply panic about financial cuts and a shortage of money.

Seban believes that the crisis does not hinder the search for sponsorship but rather gives an opportunity for a total change of the system, with an emphasis on social responsibility which should benefit cultural institutions: “We are not considering a ‘crisis-driven sponsorship’, funded on a small scale – which we believe to be superficial and inefficient – but a full sponsorship makeover, sealing a true socially-driven partnership between cultural institutions and firms.”

His discussion about how you can, and must, work with other sponsorship fields to create partnerships is particularly thought-provoking. According to him, cultural institutions should by now have stopped ranking relief-related projects, environment, sports and culture on a scale of 1 to 4 and getting depressed because they are languishing at the bottom of the competition.

I can only recognise that the new trends he mentions – such as the necessity of creatively merging culture and art with environement, aid projects or sports instead of letting them stay in their golden towers – already exist and are more under the spotlight than ever in this climate. Working on renewed and more integrated partnerships was the way forward before the crisis, and I think still is. In this respect, Alain Seban definitely has a point.

Yet the article gives way to new questions: if we are to consider a merging of social, environmental and relief-related projects, what forms are they to take, concretely speaking? Can charity trusts or fondations support museums? For an organisation such as the Fondation de l’Abbé Pierre, funding cultural institutions would be inconceivable because it falls outside of its legal remit. But what about the relationship between relief organisations and culture for example? Yann Arthus Bertrand’s recent exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris, 1 Billion Others, enjoyed a very successful partnership with Médecins du Monde, who provided financial aid and fascinating speakers throughout the exhibition.

If museums allow themselves to think outside the proverbial box and look to new socially-driven sponsorship relationships, they will inject more and more diveristy into their programmes and visions. As Seban says, “a society open to the questions raised by its artist is more dynamic and likely to evolve, to challenge itself and to face the future.”