I absolutely agree that some accounting or project managemnent skills are a
huge asset.  When I took over the curator's position at my museum, there was
a large exhibit-in-progress that had dragged on for nearly 3 years, missing
deadline after deadline.  Moreover, when I asked a simple question: "How
much has been spent, and how much was budgeted?" No one here, including an
accounting department with 6 or 7 employees, could provide that information!
What was originally planned to be an exhibit built for $100,000.00 had
already cost them $285,000.00; they had no idea what bills were outstanding,
etc.  The previous curator, a fine wildlife artist and biologist, had no
project management skills.  It took me two solid weeks, about 100 hours, to
reconstruct the budget.  When I asked our accounting folks why they hadn't
kept better track, they replied "To us, that's a relatively small amount of
money; we rely on the curator to track it."

Also, I agree that you need a good budgetary grasp when talking to potential
donors.  I had the experience recently of talking to a very wealthy donor; I
had been assured that what we were asking for was small potatoes compared to
what this person was used to giving away.  He asked a few simple questions
about the cost of building exhibits; what I learned later was that he had
already talked with 4 or 5 of the top exhibit design and construction
companies, and had very detailed knowledge.  Had I tried to snow him, or had
I not known what I was talking about, I'm sure we would never have gotten
anything from him.  Just because a donor has millions doesn't mean that
he/she won't want a few thousand spent wisely.

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).