I don't mean to be argumentative, but taking this press release (it is not an article but the official communication from the institution ) at face value, it seems the Higgins Armory's biggest, most insurmountable problem is the lack of a deep endowment. (in their own words) This seems to suggest that with a bigger endowment they would have been less likely to have to close and move their collection.

 Isn't that an argument for MORE, or at least better, traditional forms of fund-raising, at least in this instance, based on what we know?

What am I missing?

I don't know anything about the Higgins other than what is put forward here, so maybe there is information that will change the conclusion I put forward in this post. Please share. Otherwise, it seems to me this is a good cautionary tale about not covering the basics in fund-raising not about looking for newer models.

Matthew White

On Mar 8, 2013, at 11:04 AM, Deb Fuller <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> I just read this article about the Higgins Armory closing. One
> sentence really stuck out at me: “Higgins’ biggest challenge is our
> lack of a deep endowment, but we’re strong in virtually every other
> facet of museum operations,” says (trustee) Maas.
> (http://higgins.org/integration-worcester-art-museum)
> 
> Now I understand that museums need money to survive and the Higgins
> was in an old building with c. 1930s HVAC and thus needed a lot more
> money just to mitigate that. But in today's economic climate where
> stock markets just aren't what they used to be and large donations are
> fewer and fewer between, are the old models of museum economics the
> way to go?
> 
> I've seen many crowdfunded projects (Kickstarter, Indegogo, etc.)
> raise well over their asking amounts by relatively few people in an
> equally relatively short amount of time. The obvious one is Amanda
> Palmer's $1 million+ Kickstarter for her latest album from around
> 25,000 backers. Another big one was The Oatmeal's "Let's Build a
> Goddamn Tesla Museum" which raised over $1.3 million to buy the
> Wardenclyffe property for the Tesla Science Center in NY from about
> 34,000 backers. Another project asked $17,000 for an art book for a
> beloved online game that was closing and he raised it within a matter
> of hours. Total funding for that project was over $114,000 from 1314
> backers just to create an art book for an online game. Now these
> kickstarters all gave out perks from a mention on the website to a
> private concert and kickstarter/indegogo and other crowdfunding sites
> do take a percentage of the money for processing fees so the total
> amounts for the projects weren't as much as the amount raised. Still,
> when's the last time you had a fund-raiser that got over $100K?
> 
> Are museums starting to look to new economic models for fund-raising
> and support? If so, how successful are you at it? Do you see it as a
> sustainable way to keep your museum going? Are there any studies about
> this?
> 
> Just curious. I'm also a little sad to see museums closing or
> threatening to close. Since we're supposed to be some of the most
> creative people on the planet, I'd think that we could come up with
> creative ways to keep our museums open in some fashion or another.
> 
> Deb Fuller
> 
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