I've been talking to a friend of who is the director of a small museum (1 fulltime, 5 part-time and seasonal staff) in a small town.  The museum building belongs to the city.  The city pays some maintenance on the building, and for the staff salaries.  The collection belongs to the museum, a private non-profit organization.  It was recently deeded over to them by the local historical socity.  All activities and collection work is paid for with grant and other fund-raising monies, entrance fees and the giftshop. 

 

The city has been experiencing a recession for a few years now and is always looking for ways to cut back on the budget.  A couple of the city council members would like to stop all city contributions to the museum's budget.  It has already been decreased a few times in the past several years.  I'm trying to help her come up with some good reasons to give the city council to convince them not to defund the museum.  The school loves the museum and uses it, and of course one of the things to be cut would be the education program.  One council member (surprisingly, a retired teacher) told the museum director that it didn't help to be passionate about it.  Everyone is passionate about something.  The skateboarders are passionate about obtaining funding for a skateboard park. 

 

I tried the List Archive, but can't get it to work for me.  I even tried to do a search on the 'archive' to see if an old e-mail would give instructions.  Nada.  This topic hasn't come up for a while, so maybe it's fine to address it again.  You can reply to me so the posts appear on-list, and I'll forward them to my friend.

 

Thank you,

Jerrie

 

Jerrie Clarke

Technical Assistance Outreach

Office of Museum Services

Salt Lake City, Utah