Another great way to encourage donations is a really good and succinct sign or display that gives visitors a handful of bullet points about all the really important
work you do and how much preserving and sharing your collections demands in terms of resources. A really good sign like that, which you can read quickly, rather than just “suggested donation” and an amount can be a lot more impactful. Hopefully that tugs
on both heart strings and people’s sense of reason (this stuff doesn’t magically happen for free, right?) and will bring in more than just charging admission.
Jodi Lundgren
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Sean Blinn
Sent: Thursday, March 05, 2015 10:54 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MUSEUM-L] free admission
Our historic site never charged admission, except for fundraisers. About a year and a half ago we started charging $10 for special program events. I didn’t see much change in admission numbers for those special programs; the numbers depended
more on whether people thought the program was interesting. We also had fewer people sign up for a free ticket and then not come to the event. We received no negative feedback about adding a charge for special programs.
I would think eliminating admissions fees might depend on how much you charge, your location (if you’re in an area that’s hard to get to, eliminating fees may not bring people in), and other factors. And, of course, how much of your revenue
comes from admission fees and whether you can afford this experiment.