Jerrie, In my experience with small museums, it might be hard to find consistent answers to most of your questions….each museum seems to take advantage of whatever help and funding they’ve been able to get, and that varies with what funders are willing to pay for. Almost always, however, care and management of the collection is the responsibility of the entity that owns it. In general, municipalities seem more willing to pay for the educational components and the exhibits if they are seen as attracting tourism or serving the community. At our local museum with somewhat smaller budget: What is the number of full-time staff and part-time staff? Staffing: there is one full-time staff, a “Museum Manager.” The entire exhibit about once a year except for asmall permanent exhibit on the history of the town. Exhibits are installed on a contract basis with local people, some grads of local Museum Studies program (i.e. not the expensive professional exhibit contractors); all else is done with volunteers. There is no collection manager or curator, which is a huge detriment to the community and the collection. From where do the funds for personnel costs come? The City provides some of the staff cost through hotel/motel tax money. All other funding comes from memberships and fundraisers and some grants. Who owns the museum’s collections? NFP owns collections Who owns the building? City owns building. Do you charge for school group visits? No. There is no real educational program, but volunteers do school tours. Do you charge local groups to hold meetings or programs at the museum? If so, how much? No space for meetings If the local government does not own the collections, what kind of help or support does it give, if any, to the museum? The City provides building and major maintenance for $1 a year. In the end, it seems to me to boil down to how much a City or community values its museum, and how much it understands the need for and value of professional level collection care, educational programming and exhibits. Lucy Sperlin _____ From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jerrie Clarke Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2012 4:34 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Seeking information about small museums and their funding.... The Sheldon Museum is facing a significant cut to its personnel appropriation when the fiscal year begins on July 1. This small local history museum and archive has a budget of around $250,000 and whatever grants we can obtain for projects. It has a staff of one full-time director and six part-time positions with varying hours (4 to 10-hours a week janitor to ¾- time operations coordinator), seasons and responsibilities. The Borough owns the building and gives an annual appropriation for personnel costs. The collection is owned by Sheldon Museum and Cultural Center, Inc. Operating expenses are paid by the museum with funds from admissions, store, donations, and grants. The cut will make it necessary to eliminate a position, the collections and exhibits coordinator position. It was either that or the Educator. Both are ½ time positions for less than a full year. I’ve also thought of splitting the loss between the two positions and seek grants to compensate. In discussions with the Mayor and an Assembly person, I was asked about other museums -- What are their budgets? Who owns the collections? Etcetera. Would you please answer the questions below? I would like to see how other small museums are funded and what kind of financial and other support they have. You can send them to me and I’ll compile the results for the list so that there aren’t so many posts going to all of the inboxes (assuming that my questions are answered). What is the number of full-time staff and part-time staff? From where do the funds for personnel costs come? From where do the operating costs come? Who owns the museum’s collections? Who owns the building? Do you charge for school group visits? Do you charge local groups to hold meetings or programs at the museum? If so, how much? If the local government does not own the collections, what kind of help or support does it give, if any, to the museum? Thank you, Jerrie Jerrie Clarke Director Sheldon Museum PO Box 269 Haines, AK 99827 (907) 766-2366 fax: (907) 766-2368 www.sheldonmuseum.org _____ No virus found in this message. 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