For Profit ventures are clearly a conflict of interest to museums that
are  non-profit educationally institutions (virtually all?).  Allowing
for-profit
ventures into your halls is a very good way to announce to the IRS your
books should be looked at and your board of directors should be
dismissed.

The risk for something that is clearly a money-maker for someone else
other than the museum is far too great.  The director who terminated the
policy of allowing for-profit ventures from his/her new museum saved its
existence and its professional reputation.

I would recommend that those interested in working with established
for-profit businesses, in increasing membership, visitors, etc.,
establish viable and ethically responsible  marketing departments in
their museums.  At the past WMA Conference in Sacramento,  a gentleman
from the Gene Autrey Museum presented the marketing plan used with Von's
Supermarkets as a means to advertise and increase visibility and
interest when the Autrey Museum had their show on the California Gold
Rush.  What he spelled out as their several tiered plan was immensly
successful and worth looking into.

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