Société Internationale des Bibliothèques et des Musées des Arts du Spectacle

A Pauper's Guide to Riches

Margaret Benton

Theatre Museum, London

Winds of Change - New Technology

Helsinki, 31 August - 6 September 1996

Once upon a time, curators and librarians had jobs for life and were encouraged to spend their time cataloguing and caring for their collections within the hushed walls of academe. Subject expertise was valued and rewarded rather than service delivery. Today, however, the market-place rules, and we have to acquire its skills if our organisations are to survive.

Economic decline has affected every museum and arts institution, but performing arts museums and collections seem to suffer more than most. Indeed, if Britain is typical, they are amongst the least well endowed of all museums, galleries and libraries.

Today, however, government purse strings are drawn tight, and hard-luck stories or pleas for fairness fall on deaf ears. The only effective response is to face facts and get smart.

Since the Theatre Museum opened in 1987, its operational budget has remained static, decreasing in real terms to such an extent that it does not allow for even basic collections management work. Nevertheless, a major reappraisal of activities and a much more business-like approach has doubled staff productivity and revenue and raised over 㮵 million in cash and kind from external sources. We have huge problems to overcome and success cannot be guaranteed, but the improvements are already visible. We cannot offer you an instant "get rich quick" solution, but the guidelines we have been following do provide a way of coping with cuts. To mitigate the effects of major reductions in budget, we therefore recommend that you:

• Find out who your users are and what they want
• Improve your effectiveness and relevance
• Increase visitor figures and admissions revenue by better, more popular displays and events
• Increase revenue through improved commercial exploitation of the collections and facilities - corporate hire of facilities, photographic service, charging from information services, franchising use of images
• Sell yourself effectively
• Cultivate supporters
• Produce a clear plan
• Embark on a well-thought through fundraising campaign.

Who are your users?

Visitor figures may be a crude performance indicator, but they are what matter most to potential funders. Funders need to be re-assured that a sizeable number of people and, particularly their target markets, use your services. So make sure you keep accurate records, but visitor figures alone will not tell you who your visitors are, where they come from and what they like. For this you need to commission professional market research. This is expensive, but can pay for itself in the long-term. Professional research into the British Theatre Museum's potential market, showed us and potential funders that we could attract four times the number of visitors we currently attract if we were radically to improve our displays. It is also revealed that a substantial, largely untapped potential audience existed in ready-made markets in the form of theatre-goers and schools and colleges. It is a lot easier and less expensive to persuade those people with an existing interest in your subject area to visit your Museum than those who do not; so these are the audiences the Museum has decided to target in its displays, workshops and marketing.

Market research told us that 60% of Museum visitors are female, that most of them are tourists, theatregoers and schoolchildren and students. We learnt that visitors most liked the live demonstrations of make-up and stagecraft, the guided tours, visitor participation, the videos, costumes and the popular exhibitions geared at the family rather than the specialists. None of this information came as a surprise, but it confirmed our views on improvements that are needed and shows potential sponsors that we have taken a professional approach to our visitors. Even those of you without exhibitions will find that reliable information about your research users and enquiries can help support funding applications for your libraries and documentation centres.

How effective are you?

However impressive your fundraising document and management plan, potential funders will judge them against your current effectiveness. Can you convince people of your relevance? Do you provide value for money?

Staff are the major cost to most museums and libraries. Do you need everyone on your staff? Can some services be cut? Might staff-restructuring and a change in priorities produce better results? Over the last five years, we have carried out a major staff restructure, every post has been analyzed and services streamlined. The Theatre Museum, for example, cut evening theatre performances in its Studio Theatre. They cost the Museum a far greater sum in security and front-of-house staff overtime than the revenue they raised, and were hardly essential in a city so rich in theatres. With the money saved, the museum has paid for a daytime events and workshop programme for schools and general visitors, which is both more cost-effective and has greatly improved the visitor experience.

Can you contract out some of your services? This can save on pensions and other costs and provide a more flexible workforce. We have already contracted out our cleaning, and security will be the next service to be market tested. We are considering, for example, whether or not to replace uniformed security guards with actor-guides with a gallery interpretation role as well as a security function.

Increasing revenue

Like most museums, we are dependent on government for our main funding, but external sources of revenue are becoming increasingly important, and, in particular, paid admissions to the galleries.

The top priority is to invest in development planning and also in the Museum's displays and marketing. With detailed development plans, the Museum will be able to make better use of its development committee and submit effective funding bids. The first problem is to attract the initial, much needed investment.

Improving the Product

New exhibitions and displays:

Visitor numbers and revenue are directly related to the quality of a museum's galleries. New exhibitions and displays keep a museum fresh and alive. They increase visitor figures and revenue, improve the museum's profile and create a good environment for fundraising. Effective displays, however, are very expensive in staff terms as well as cash. We have cut most small academic displays because of the disproportionate amount of staff time they consume for the number of visitors they attract. Instead, we are concentrating on a few, large exhibitions with popular appeal and educational value that will, hopefully, make a major impact on the visitor experience and are more likely to attract sponsors.

Wherever possible we try to involve the theatre industry in our displays. Our exhibition to celebrate Purcell's Tercentenary was a collaboration with the Royal Opera House, the Chatelet Theatre and other companies to portray contemporary productions of Purcell's operatic work through a mix of costumes, designs, photographs and videos. The result was a lively and relevant display that improved our relationship with the theatre profession and brought in more visitors. We are currently working with the theatrical costumiers and theatres to produce a low-cost but, we hope, spectacular exhibition on stage costume.

We have found an instant, low-cost way to improve the presentation of ageing galleries by introducing animator-guides who take gallery tours and run demonstrations and participatory workshops in our Studio Theatre. Paid for by evening commercial hire of our galleries, they enhance static displays by involving visitors in the processes of stagecraft and adding the human dimension that is central to all performance. They also create extra revenue by providing a peg to attract groups of tourists, theatregoers and educational groups. Introduced just 6 months ago, they have already increased our admissions revenue by 33%.

Selling yourself

Be positive. If you tell people all your problems, this is all they will remember. They have got to be sold your vision. You also need a simple, clear and appealing message. The title Theatre Museum or National Museum of Performing Arts is hardly going to attract throngs of people to your door. To many the very word "Museum", brings to mind dull objects inside dusty glass cases with captions in minuscule typeface on yellowing labels. We therefore invite visitors "to discover the magic of the stage" with promotional images that sell the glamour and excitement of live performance. If all our galleries still don't live up to this image, well, they will one day, and the first thing is to bring people into the Museum.

Word of mouth is the cheapest and most effective form of advertising. Are your existing visitors and users satisfied with the service they receive? Do you seek their views, try to respond to their needs? A simple visitors' book requesting comments can be very revealing. Customer care training for all staff can improve the visitor welcome. Are you also visitor-friendly for disabled people. Have you asked disabled groups to check out the accessibility of your facilities?

Even without a marketing budget, there is a lot you can do to sell your museum or collection at no cost through the press and joint promotions with theatres and travel trade. Ensure that the press are informed of new developments, major acquisitions, innovative new projects. Make sure that what marketing budget you have is directed to your main markets - theatregoers, cultural tourists and schools. We have found that small promotional leaflets distributed to hotels, stations, coach tour operators and schools, bring us the most return.

Located in a central tourist area, over 50% of our visitors are passing trade. It is vital therefore that we find the money to provide more eyecatching exterior signage and displays in the windows and main foyer to encourage the casual passer by to enter the Museum. This is a much better use of money than, say, a short-lived poster campaign.

Other sources of revenue

Other useful sources of income are shop sales and corporate hire, while minor sums are raised from reprographic services and educational events and seminars. Potential sources of revenue include charging for information services and the franchising of images.

Corporate hire

Museum galleries provide unusual, attractive venues for corporate entertaining. We provide a professionally managed service, with a team of trained ushers and reliable outside caterers, with the possibility of additional museum entertainments - make-up demonstrations, Gothic horror workshops and the like, and have no difficulty in earning sufficient money to pay for our gallery animators and events programme. These receptions also bring in a new type of client to the museum, who may chose to return with their families.

Shop and Cafes

Surprisingly, few museum shops or cafes make money. Those that do are usually part of museums with at least half a million visitors a year and a commercial business manager. We got rid of our cafe because it took up valuable display space, barely covered its costs, and was not an essential requirement in a tourist district full of cafes. Its peace, so appreciated by customers, was a good indication of poor turnover.

Consider seriously too whether you can afford the staff costs to run a professional shop. If not, let out the space to a franchise or reduce the number of items for sale, and manage with just one member of staff to run the shop and admissions desk. Also be careful about buying too much stock or producing your own lines without professional advice. The Theatre Museum, when it opened, commissioned the production of a wide range of postcards of images from the collection. Nearly 9 years on, it still has many thousands of them. The Museum's vast stock of wonderful theatrical images may have considerable commercial potential, but, in future, we plan to let some one else with more commercial sense and far more sales outlets than us, take the risk.

Exploiting the Collections

In addition to commercial franchising, there are other ways to exploit the collections. With over six million photographs alone, we should be able to make a considerable profit from our reprographic service. To do so, however, will require investment in both equipment and can only be progressed on the basis of a through business plan. Similarly, we could charge for our research and public enquiry service, which is the most expensive part of our operation. A reader's fee would be very unpopular and would not make a great fortune, but it might make enough to pay for an additional member of staff to keep the study room open longer hours. It is all a question of balance and priorities and realistic business plans.

Fundraising

Fundraising has become a major industry. It is also becoming increasingly difficult. Not only is there less money around but there is far greater competition from other arts organisations and charities seeking help from the same commercial sponsors and trusts. Despite this, the Museum is making as much money from fundraising as we do from all our other commercial services.

Why do people give money?

Few will consider supporting you unless you can provide proof of a not-for-profit status, an attractive, well thought-through scheme that meets the approval of hard-headed businessmen, clear and well presented information, good management and no suggestion of problems, a good track record and well connected or glamorous board members or "friends".

How to attract a funder

Once you can meet all the above criteria, you will then have to think what a potential funder has to gain from your project. No one gives money for nothing. Even a pure philanthropist tends to give to those organisations or projects that appeal to his or her own interests. For a business, sponsorship is normally part of their marketing or promotional effort, and money is rarely given unless there is a substantial commercial advantage in terms of promotion of a brand name or corporate image or penetration of a key market. For example, the television galleries I produced for the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television were the first of their kind in Britain and coincided with the fiftieth anniversary of the BBC and television equipment-manufacturer, Thorn EMI. Our exhibition provided the BBC, EMI and a host of other leading television companies and equipment manufacturers, with prestige, excellent opportunities for broadcast television and press coverage, and promotion of brand image. In return they gave us nearly 㠱 million in cash and kind. Television and media coverage of an activity attracts the keenest sponsors. Others can be attracted by reaching target customers or the possibility of corporate entertainment. For example, the Royal Opera with its audience of rich and well connected patrons, wins on two counts by providing a merchant bank or similar contact with key decision makers and target customers, as well as the possibility for exclusive corporate entertainment. Other incentives include large numbers of visitors, civic or national pride, "in memoriam", association with good causes or, simply, the personal interest of the managing director or chairman.

While we may try to provide as many of these incentives as possible, the reality is that few performing arts museums are sufficiently large or well endowed to produce the large-scale exhibitions with the footfall, the social cachet or the glamour of, say, a major museum or theatre. We do, however, have a major trump card if we choose to exploit it - education. The market is a major target for many commercial companies, foundations and trusts. Education is central to any museum, but performing arts museum cover more facets of the educational curriculum than most. Every school child studies its nation's language and literature and social history, most study music, dance and art and design. All these subjects are encompassed by performing arts collections. Our artefacts, our huge range of images (designs, paintings, photographs and posters) and now our valuable and growing bank of video recordings of performance, provide an exceptionally rich resource. We can and should act as unique informal learning centres for schools and colleges, and, with the right displays and workshops, attract a large audience from all fields of education. Even performing arts collections without displays can produce teachers' packs and eventually "down the line" resource material to schools, colleges and universities. A sponsor who pays for the creation of a CD-ROM of part of your collection, could reach a huge school and college market.

Fundraising mechanisms

However suitable your project, you also need to ensure that you have established the right fundraising mechanisms.

Get professional help

Nowadays the head of any collection must be prepared to get actively involved in fundraising, to cultivate potential funders or donors and to sell your "product" You also need help. Don't worry too much if you cannot pay for an expensive fundraising consultant. What you have and they do not have is a passion for your project. You are well-advised, however, to appoint a fundraiser to your staff. Heads of museums may be good fundraisers, but they rarely have the time to produce immaculate fundraising documents, write all the letters, pursue a wide range of people and, above all, follow things up. Donors need to be thanked, invited to receptions, their names should be publicized both inside the museum and on promotional literature. If you don't provide good return for the gifts or sponsorship you receive, then your source of funds will soon dry up. For this, an effective fundraising team and a donors' database are essential.

Research potential funders

Find out as much as you can about potential commercial sponsors, trusts and individual benefactors through watching television and reading the newspapers. Get their annual reports. Buy a directory of major sponsors and trusts. Subscribe to fundraising magazines. Find out about donors' policies, their interests, to whom they normally give money and the level of their contributions.

The Proposal

Keep it brief, avoid over expensive, glossy promotional documents, and concentrate on the funders' interests. Your proposal should consist of a short covering letter and a more detailed proposal. The covering letter should summarise the proposal, introduce the organisation and explain why the company should be interested in the project.

The proposal itself should provide a more detailed description of the project and the time-scale. It should explain who you are, your track record in such projects and who else is backing you. You will need to demonstrate that you can deliver the project on time and on budget. Equally important, the proposal should list the benefits to the sponsors. Show them market research and the ways they can reach their customers by sponsoring your activity. Outline the promotional material you plan, your marketing budget and your press campaign. Explain the hospitality opportunity, such as a VIP reception to which they can invite clients. Detail how employees could benefit from, for example, free entrance to an exhibition. Finally you should indicate the price of the whole sponsorship package, as well as costing separately individual elements within the package.

Contractual commitments

Be extremely careful as to how you phrase your proposal and what commitments you are making. A conversation or letter can be contractually binding as a written contract. Nevertheless, it is always wise to draw up a formal document that summarizes your agreement. This contract should include who is entering into the contract, the names of the signatories, who owns the project and what logos or trademarks are to be used, and how big. What the sponsor will receive for the sponsorship, whether or not he/she has exclusive rights. What the schedule for the project is and what happens if for any reason it fails to materialise. Finally, make sure you take the advice of professional lawyers and accountants. There will be tax as well as contractual implications and you must be aware of them at the outset.

Cultivation

You can send in your application cold, but you usually get far better results if the funder hears about you through personal recommendation. It is all about networking, and it is essential that any organisation in need of funds cultivates patrons and friends amongst those who are decision-makers, leading business-people, social "movers and shakers" and celebrities.

Friends are important to the museum in a host of ways. They can provide help with your collections; they can promote your organisation and its activities. They can make private donations (one generous donor who is also interested in the Royal Shakespeare Company, helps both of us by funding the Museum to make archival recordings of RSC productions). They can be a source of legacies and bequests to the museum. The Museum still benefits from the interest on the legacy left to it by its founder, Gabrielle Enthoven. A recent legacy of 㠰.25 million has enabled us to appoint a development manager to raise more money for the Museum. Friends can also help you by serving as fundraisers on your development committee.

Enthusiasts and supporters of every kind need to be encouraged. The theatre profession are particularly important to theatre collections, and we go out of our way to encourage their support by providing free venues for press previews, book launches or first night parties and priority access to the collections and research facilities. Our video archive, although still in its infancy, is already proving to be of particular benefit to the profession.

You do, however, need to exercise caution. People expect some kind of reward for their help, if only gratitude and recognition. Make sure donors and sponsors are acknowledged as widely as possible in your displays and your information leaflets. Arrange receptions for them, remember birthdays. It is polite; it shows you are concerned about them as people; it is also essential if you are to retain their support. Furthermore, do not undertake what you cannot deliver. Supporters clubs and membership schemes, for example, require regular mailings of newsletters and special events which take up a lot of resources. Valuable though they may be, we at the Theatre Museum have decided against a Friends Association until we have the staff to run it effectively. Take similar care when accepting help in fundraising. Not everyone can do it, so do not fill up your committee with "names" who do little except attend the occasional meeting. It is particularly important to recruit an effective and influential chair with plenty of business contacts. Remember, too, that theatrical celebrities may not be good committee members or fundraisers, but they can be excellent patrons, providing the necessary glamour to a sponsors' reception.

Our development committee and development manager are relatively new. We are still learning and have a long way to go to reach our fundraising goals. But we have been attempting to follow the guidelines above, and have begun to recoup some rewards. Our next step, once we have finalised a detailed plan for the Museum's redevelopment, will be to establish a major fundraising appeal. We shall keep you in touch with our progress. In the meantime, good luck to you.

21st Congress

URL: http://www.sibmas.org/congresses/sibmas96/hels13.html