The survivors
With resilience the word on everyone's lips, John Holt talks to some of the museum leaders who are finding new working models in these tough financial times
Some have closed their doors for good while others have sold off artworks, shed jobs and scaled back services in a bid to keep their venues open for business.
But it’s not all doom and gloom when it comes to museums making ends meet in tough financial times.
This survivors’ guide looks at how some institutions in the “squeezed middle” are not only keeping their heads above water but also finding a fresh purpose and a renewed strength in adversity.
They’re concentrating on being better at what they’re good at rather than trying to be all-things-to-all-visitors. They are more flexible with the money they have and are looking beyond the constraints of the cultural sector for inspiration.
Some are merging services to free up resources while others are using moneyspinning assets to subsidise the non-profitmaking activities that are valued in their communities.
“Being able to adapt to changing circumstances is very important. We went through difficult times two years ago with declining visitor numbers and we responded by cutting costs and bringing down the break-even point in terms of visitors needed to afford the run the place properly.
We are constantly fine-tuning what we do, measuring the commercial performance and checking if, for example, the marketing is astute rather than just hopeful.
Resilience is about optimism, energy and priority of purpose while always keeping in mind you’re doing something of immense value to people’s lives. It is particularly important that it comes from the top in an organisation.
To that end, we formed the Museums and Resilient Leadership Group to discuss the challenges leaders face. We mix with interesting people from other fields – business, politics, arts and the entrepreneurial world – to find out what makes them tick and to see if any of their success stories could be transferable to museum life.
Running an independent museum keeps your pencil sharp and makes you focus on the customer… and we call them customers because we feel ‘visitor’ is too passive. I do fear, however, that there is still a bit of resentment and a feeling out there that museums earning their own money can be a dirty thing.
But I think that people choosing to spend their time with us at weekends and bank holidays rather than in B&Q is heart-warming stuff. We’re not cheap – nearly £16 for an adult – but they’ve accepted our proposition. The feeling that you’re giving them something of value is a huge motivation to do even better.”
“I think we have to find a new funding paradigm for museums based on the circumstances of individual institutions… asset-based development that takes into account what you have and what you can do and offer that is unique.
In addition, the dread that some people harbour about a visit to a museum still haunts the sector. Younger people particularly are still picking up on the media cliché that museums can be worthy but are not a lot of fun. We must strive to address this damaging stereotype.
The recently refurbished Colchester Castle, for example, features son-et-lumière projections and new tablet technology that enables you to unlock layers of interpretation according to your own personal interests, as opposed to a single historical narrative.
We’re also exploring partnerships with humanities departments to provide the museum equivalent of teaching hospitals. This will be an enhanced learning environment not just for ourselves but also for the next generation of professionals.
We can offer a truly vocational and intellectually rigorous experience rather than simply providing lectures at a university, many of which seem to be a bit behind with museum practice and thinking.
I think the key to resilience is to ensure the support of your governing bodies that provide the core funding. The merger of the Ipswich and Colchester services seven years ago was a very sensible move that gave us the capacity to do more and enjoy a greater degree of specialisms across two locations.
The Colchester refurbishment has a direct relevance to the planned development of Ipswich’s high-street site into a multidisciplinary museums and arts ‘campus’.
Rather than having a once-in-a-career multimillion-pound capital project where experiences are gained but never applied again, our people can cost-effectively transfer the practices from one site to the next.”
“One of the big benefits of being a charity is that we have more autonomy about how to use our money; we don’t have to have those difficult conversations about simply cutting this or closing that.
For example, shortly after our Stockwood Discovery Centre was redeveloped, it became clear that the cafe franchisee was thinking of pulling out because it was something of a fair-weather business. Our management team decided we could run it ourselves and a business plan was quickly drawn up.
We didn’t have a trust board meeting scheduled for a couple of months so I rang the trustees, who said ‘go for it’. I dread to think how long that process would have taken and how heavy the bureaucracy would have been were we still part of the local authority.
We struggled for a while but now the café is serving great food and making a surplus that supports other elements of the site.
Times like these call for very different skills and as we already had people on the executive team who knew all about museums and libraries, our trustees’ strategic acumen enables us to think more broadly about bringing in more income.
Our council recently asked us to consider closing one museum and an arts facility but we instead decided it made more sense to shut two small libraries and extend that service into the community centres we also run.
Having to think of positive possibilities can be very liberating. But moving from local authority to charity status is not a sticking plaster for all ills.
If councils divest themselves of services purely because they think they’re unaffordable and a bit of a nuisance, it’s not really going to work.”
“We’ve been wholly independent since we were established in 1967 and we’ve adapted our model to suit changing times and needs.
Our aim is to be an educational and conservation charity with the more profitable bits paying for the socially inclusive elements that don’t make money.
It’s all about priorities. The Ironbridge site appeals to lots of different people in many different ways and there are a lot of funders and partners, too. It was an advantage for me to arrive here in 2007 with a different perspective gained from my previous career in finance.
We have improved our retail side with the development of branded product lines. The conference and banqueting business has grown and weddings are big for us.
Even charging for car parking was a huge help. Positive messaging is a must. We’re very busy on the fundraising front but have more to do in attracting individual support rather than simply that offered by trusts and foundations.
Scenario planning is important and our staff are kept informed of what we’re doing and encouraged to play a full role as they’re the people that make the place pleasurable for visitors.
In the past, we’ve been guilty – like many other museums – of chasing money and then wondering what to do with it. Now, we decide what we want to do and then seek the money to do it.
But no one here is complacent enough to think that because we’ve been successful in the past everything’s going to be fine in the future. We will keep adapting.”
“Many museums have a mixed economy made up of local authority money, arts council cash and some earned income.
The first two are under pressure as never before so it’s in their interests to address and improve the third. They have a sense that their customers might be prepared to put their hands in their pockets but how do they convert the footfall into actual revenue?
Typically in the museum service, particularly among frontline staff, there are people with some truly outstanding ideas about how to be more responsive and creative; the issue is about creating the kind of environment in which they can try and, if necessary, fail. This is good enterprise.
The problem with the public sector, however, is that no one has traditionally been able to do anything without a business plan. That’s fair enough up to a point but a 50-page strategy document can have a deadening effect on responsiveness and enterprise.
Museums should get into the habit of really trying stuff, dropping the things that don’t work and doing more of the bits that do… and that calls for something of a change in management culture.”
“Auchindrain is a 22-acre site of national importance, what Unesco describe as a ‘relict cultural landscape’ containing vernacular buildings and man-made features. It was the type of place the Highland Clearances got rid of but this was the one that got away.
We have been close to death’s door, financially speaking, for all our 50 years but we have recently persuaded the Scottish government and Historic Scotland that we are worth funding, and we have an initial agreement for two years to help keep us going.
This is with the provision that we continue to demonstrate that we couldn’t be doing more in terms of spreading the word about the site while keeping the support we need from the state to an absolute minimum. Self-sustainability is hardly an option.
We’re not the Roman Baths in Bath, or an attraction on the outskirts of Edinburgh talked about in drawing rooms as a place you have to see on a Sunday afternoon.
We’re in the back of beyond, it rains a lot and even if we could attract 60,000 visitors a year, the site’s facilities and its small historic buildings couldn’t handle them.
We can’t afford to ‘Disney-fy’ or launch ourselves into curatorial la-la land because the historical message and spirit would be lost.
There’s a grittiness here, which, unfortunately, the wrong kind of visitor loathes so much that they leave nasty reviews about us on TripAdvisor. On the other hand most of our visitors absolutely love the realism and atmosphere – and leave five-star reviews on TripAdvisor.
We’re keeping going. Just this last weekend, for example, I managed a group of Scouts who came to work on our footpaths – and have a huge adventure – while our part-time staff were in the whisky tent at a large food fair with a display including the remains of an illicit still from our collections, to drum up visitor trade.”
Resilience will be a major strand at this year’s Museums Association conference, 9-10 October, Cardiff
But it’s not all doom and gloom when it comes to museums making ends meet in tough financial times.
This survivors’ guide looks at how some institutions in the “squeezed middle” are not only keeping their heads above water but also finding a fresh purpose and a renewed strength in adversity.
They’re concentrating on being better at what they’re good at rather than trying to be all-things-to-all-visitors. They are more flexible with the money they have and are looking beyond the constraints of the cultural sector for inspiration.
Some are merging services to free up resources while others are using moneyspinning assets to subsidise the non-profitmaking activities that are valued in their communities.
Andrew Lovett, director and chief executive, Black Country Living Museum, Dudley
“Being able to adapt to changing circumstances is very important. We went through difficult times two years ago with declining visitor numbers and we responded by cutting costs and bringing down the break-even point in terms of visitors needed to afford the run the place properly.
We are constantly fine-tuning what we do, measuring the commercial performance and checking if, for example, the marketing is astute rather than just hopeful.
Resilience is about optimism, energy and priority of purpose while always keeping in mind you’re doing something of immense value to people’s lives. It is particularly important that it comes from the top in an organisation.
To that end, we formed the Museums and Resilient Leadership Group to discuss the challenges leaders face. We mix with interesting people from other fields – business, politics, arts and the entrepreneurial world – to find out what makes them tick and to see if any of their success stories could be transferable to museum life.
Running an independent museum keeps your pencil sharp and makes you focus on the customer… and we call them customers because we feel ‘visitor’ is too passive. I do fear, however, that there is still a bit of resentment and a feeling out there that museums earning their own money can be a dirty thing.
But I think that people choosing to spend their time with us at weekends and bank holidays rather than in B&Q is heart-warming stuff. We’re not cheap – nearly £16 for an adult – but they’ve accepted our proposition. The feeling that you’re giving them something of value is a huge motivation to do even better.”
Bill Seaman, museum, arts and culture manager, Colchester and Ipswich Museums
“I think we have to find a new funding paradigm for museums based on the circumstances of individual institutions… asset-based development that takes into account what you have and what you can do and offer that is unique.
In addition, the dread that some people harbour about a visit to a museum still haunts the sector. Younger people particularly are still picking up on the media cliché that museums can be worthy but are not a lot of fun. We must strive to address this damaging stereotype.
The recently refurbished Colchester Castle, for example, features son-et-lumière projections and new tablet technology that enables you to unlock layers of interpretation according to your own personal interests, as opposed to a single historical narrative.
We’re also exploring partnerships with humanities departments to provide the museum equivalent of teaching hospitals. This will be an enhanced learning environment not just for ourselves but also for the next generation of professionals.
We can offer a truly vocational and intellectually rigorous experience rather than simply providing lectures at a university, many of which seem to be a bit behind with museum practice and thinking.
I think the key to resilience is to ensure the support of your governing bodies that provide the core funding. The merger of the Ipswich and Colchester services seven years ago was a very sensible move that gave us the capacity to do more and enjoy a greater degree of specialisms across two locations.
The Colchester refurbishment has a direct relevance to the planned development of Ipswich’s high-street site into a multidisciplinary museums and arts ‘campus’.
Rather than having a once-in-a-career multimillion-pound capital project where experiences are gained but never applied again, our people can cost-effectively transfer the practices from one site to the next.”
Maggie Appleton, chief executive, Luton Culture
“One of the big benefits of being a charity is that we have more autonomy about how to use our money; we don’t have to have those difficult conversations about simply cutting this or closing that.
For example, shortly after our Stockwood Discovery Centre was redeveloped, it became clear that the cafe franchisee was thinking of pulling out because it was something of a fair-weather business. Our management team decided we could run it ourselves and a business plan was quickly drawn up.
We didn’t have a trust board meeting scheduled for a couple of months so I rang the trustees, who said ‘go for it’. I dread to think how long that process would have taken and how heavy the bureaucracy would have been were we still part of the local authority.
We struggled for a while but now the café is serving great food and making a surplus that supports other elements of the site.
Times like these call for very different skills and as we already had people on the executive team who knew all about museums and libraries, our trustees’ strategic acumen enables us to think more broadly about bringing in more income.
Our council recently asked us to consider closing one museum and an arts facility but we instead decided it made more sense to shut two small libraries and extend that service into the community centres we also run.
Having to think of positive possibilities can be very liberating. But moving from local authority to charity status is not a sticking plaster for all ills.
If councils divest themselves of services purely because they think they’re unaffordable and a bit of a nuisance, it’s not really going to work.”
Anna Brennand, chief executive, Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, Shropshire
“We’ve been wholly independent since we were established in 1967 and we’ve adapted our model to suit changing times and needs.
Our aim is to be an educational and conservation charity with the more profitable bits paying for the socially inclusive elements that don’t make money.
It’s all about priorities. The Ironbridge site appeals to lots of different people in many different ways and there are a lot of funders and partners, too. It was an advantage for me to arrive here in 2007 with a different perspective gained from my previous career in finance.
We have improved our retail side with the development of branded product lines. The conference and banqueting business has grown and weddings are big for us.
Even charging for car parking was a huge help. Positive messaging is a must. We’re very busy on the fundraising front but have more to do in attracting individual support rather than simply that offered by trusts and foundations.
Scenario planning is important and our staff are kept informed of what we’re doing and encouraged to play a full role as they’re the people that make the place pleasurable for visitors.
In the past, we’ve been guilty – like many other museums – of chasing money and then wondering what to do with it. Now, we decide what we want to do and then seek the money to do it.
But no one here is complacent enough to think that because we’ve been successful in the past everything’s going to be fine in the future. We will keep adapting.”
Peter Latchford, chief executive, Black Radley public sector consultancy
“Many museums have a mixed economy made up of local authority money, arts council cash and some earned income.
The first two are under pressure as never before so it’s in their interests to address and improve the third. They have a sense that their customers might be prepared to put their hands in their pockets but how do they convert the footfall into actual revenue?
Typically in the museum service, particularly among frontline staff, there are people with some truly outstanding ideas about how to be more responsive and creative; the issue is about creating the kind of environment in which they can try and, if necessary, fail. This is good enterprise.
The problem with the public sector, however, is that no one has traditionally been able to do anything without a business plan. That’s fair enough up to a point but a 50-page strategy document can have a deadening effect on responsiveness and enterprise.
Museums should get into the habit of really trying stuff, dropping the things that don’t work and doing more of the bits that do… and that calls for something of a change in management culture.”
Bob Clark, director, Auchindrain Trust, Argyll
“Auchindrain is a 22-acre site of national importance, what Unesco describe as a ‘relict cultural landscape’ containing vernacular buildings and man-made features. It was the type of place the Highland Clearances got rid of but this was the one that got away.
We have been close to death’s door, financially speaking, for all our 50 years but we have recently persuaded the Scottish government and Historic Scotland that we are worth funding, and we have an initial agreement for two years to help keep us going.
This is with the provision that we continue to demonstrate that we couldn’t be doing more in terms of spreading the word about the site while keeping the support we need from the state to an absolute minimum. Self-sustainability is hardly an option.
We’re not the Roman Baths in Bath, or an attraction on the outskirts of Edinburgh talked about in drawing rooms as a place you have to see on a Sunday afternoon.
We’re in the back of beyond, it rains a lot and even if we could attract 60,000 visitors a year, the site’s facilities and its small historic buildings couldn’t handle them.
We can’t afford to ‘Disney-fy’ or launch ourselves into curatorial la-la land because the historical message and spirit would be lost.
There’s a grittiness here, which, unfortunately, the wrong kind of visitor loathes so much that they leave nasty reviews about us on TripAdvisor. On the other hand most of our visitors absolutely love the realism and atmosphere – and leave five-star reviews on TripAdvisor.
We’re keeping going. Just this last weekend, for example, I managed a group of Scouts who came to work on our footpaths – and have a huge adventure – while our part-time staff were in the whisky tent at a large food fair with a display including the remains of an illicit still from our collections, to drum up visitor trade.”
Resilience will be a major strand at this year’s Museums Association conference, 9-10 October, Cardiff