First of all, susan biggerstaff, is that name for real?  I love it...it has
so many meanings.  Anyway, in New York City there is a long-lasting (over
100 years old) tradition of public private partnerships between the City and
the museum.  There are currently 34 participants in this partnership,
ranging from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Jamaica Arts Center.  It
includes most of the City's largest museums, notably excluding MOMA,
Guggenheim, and Whitney.

Each museum has a separate agreement with the City, and the common elements
include:

1) The City owns the buildings
2) The City pays for some portion of the operations
3) The City appropriates money for both operations and capital in the annual
City budget, with no commitment as to level of support or which functions
they support, tho there is general agreement that the operating funding goes
towards operations and security.  This ranges from nearly 70% of the budget
in smaller organizations, to less than 10% in the larger.  The money is
appropriated through the City budget process, which is a whole nother story.
4) The institutions are responsible for programming, exhibitions,
collections
5) The institutions have private boards of directors and are private 501 c3
organizations.  Usually city officials sit as ex officio members of the
Boards.

It is a remarkably successful and under-recognized partnership, and accounts
for a good deal of the richness of the City's cultural life.  It is well
worth studying, though I doubt that it could be readily replicated...its
historical antecedents are too complicated.


Eric Siegel
Director, Planning &
Program Development
The New York Hall of Science
http://www.nyhallsci.org

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