Tyler Green’s tweet today about art museums acting like corporations rather than charities got me to look at the full series of tweets on the subject. He is angered by the fact that instead of stepping up to support museums in a time of crisis, the billionaire members of boards are voting for mass lay-offs of staffs.
In brief, his argument seems to be that while museum boards are comprised of people who make the largest individual donations to museums, they are not the largest sources of support for those museums.
He notes that many charities have board members who represent the membership or community the organization serves, but institutions like San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) don’t have any.
Many art museums fail to represent their non-billionaire-class givers on their boards.
Example: I can't think of a major art museum that has members' reps on its board.
Take SFMOMA, where 9% of revenue comes from member dues. I bet no trustee kicked in 9% of SFMOMA's revenue.
— Tyler Green (@TylerGreenBooks) June 24, 2020
Oh btw, SFMOMA takes in 12% of its revenue from those it serves. That 12% has no board representation.
Overall, 21% of SFMOMA's revenue comes from the little people, audience + revenue unaccounted for in its governance.
San Francisco's 1% doesn't want them in the room.
— Tyler Green (@TylerGreenBooks) June 24, 2020
All this is worth serious consideration as our organizations seek to move on to the next normal. Those who have supported our organizations in the past with their participation may no longer feel safe engaging with the general public. There is an opportunity to start working toward oft expressed ideals of engaging a broader audience with whom you haven’t had the time and resources to initiate a conversation. Because they are increasingly likely to be your new audience.
Their numbers may not be as large as your old audience, but social distancing rules have reduced your top capacity so you have some cover to explain the smaller crowds.
I wrote about Nina Simon’s talk on this effort earlier this month.
But perhaps most importantly in the context of Tyler Green’s posts, it is probably time to broaden the membership of the board. This is likely to necessitate a shift in corporate/board culture. Even if your board isn’t comprised of billionaires, it is highly likely that the group dynamics of the board are going to feel alienating to any new members chosen to represent the core demographics served by your organization.
Agree with you one hundred per cent, Joe, though in all honesty, it’s getting tougher and tougher for arts organizations to find anyone who wants to be on a board these days. There are, of course, any number of reasons for this.