Some of the largest museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC do
indeed have endowed curatorial positions or internships--would be great if
the community could support their smaller, local institutions as well.

However, putting on a development hat for a moment, endowing positions may
not be the sexiest use of funds that museums can promote to their donors.
The rule of thumb is that $1million in investment returns a reliable $50,000
in interest per year.  Most funds have a rule that half (or a quarter, or
whatever) of earned interest must go back into the fund to enable it to
continue growing, so the $50K is generally cut to $25-40K in actual cash
available to spend.  So, if you were a donor that could afford it, would you
want your $1mil and your name to be attached to a staff position that nobody
sees except other museum professionals, or to be attached to say, a gallery
or courtyard that thousands of visitors per year might see in perpetuity?
The altruistic donor might, but the typical donor with $1M lying around
might want a bit more bang for his bucks.

Typically what might happen is that a donor is on the string to give about
$10 million, and to sweeten the pot a high-visibility position (maybe the
museum director, perhaps a high-profile curatorial job) is named for that
donor and some of the $ is set aside.  Also, endowed positions tend to
appear when someone has held that position for a long time, is likely to
hold it for a long time, and who pleases the donor.  There is a story that a
certain donor endowed a curatorial position because s/he liked the curator,
who eventually retired prior to the donor's dying and s/he didn't end up
liking the successor, and it caused some bad blood between the museum and
the donor for the next several years.

I'm not saying this is the ideal situation--it's just how it works now.
Again, perhaps the key is to do everything we can to promote investment in
people (generally 50% or more of a museum's overall operating budget).
Believe it or not, I have seen great improvements over the past 15 years
since I've been professionally involved in museums.  It's not something that
happens quickly.

Lori, best of luck.  We all were struggling graduate students once and have
made our own choices.  It's hard to believe I opted out of university
teaching because I thought museum work had more opportunity...but the
situation remains that more qualified people are graduating each year than
leave the field through retirement or normal attrition.  I am glad we are
NOT the corporate world, which somehow can sleep at night after firing
someone because someone younger and more fiery has come down the pike.
Luck, determination and seizing the moment plays a huge part in being
successful in this business.

Julia Moore
Director of Exhibitions and Artist Services
Indianapolis Art Center
http://www.indplsartcenter.org



-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of Lori Allen
Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2001 10:16 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Endowed positions


What a great idea!  If the universities can do it, why can't we?  If a
person is personally interested in a particular area, then s/he could endow
a position to further that area.  Thanks for another great idea.

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