Financial Models – American Alliance of Museums

Collecteurs: Social Responsibility and Accessible Art

By Evrim Oralkan

Regular readers of this blog know that I’m always on the hunt for museum-like organizations that live just slightly outside the traditional museum sphere. Such business can illuminate public demand, explore new business models, and test …
From For-Profit to Nonprofit: Evolution of the International Spy Museum

By Elizabeth Merritt

Next up in my exploration of museum business models, a conversation with Tamara Christian, president of the International Spy Museum. The Spy Museum is the first museum I’ve found that has operated as both a for-profit and a nonprofit …
The Museum of Sex: What’s it like to be a for-profit museum?

By Elizabeth Merritt

I’ve long wanted to learn more about the very few museums in the US that operate as for-profit organizations. Why did their founders choose not to go the more common route of incorporating as a nonprofit? Are they actually making money? …
Is It Time to Break Your Museum’s Organizational Mold?

By Mark Sundlov

Over the course of the twentieth century, and into today, museums have witnessed dramatic changes in their organizational and funding environments—some driven from within the museum field, others from outside of the field. It’s clear that …
Building a National, Distributed Museum

By Elizabeth Merritt

It sometimes seems like every new museum with national ambitions wants to be located in DC. Near, if not on, the National Mall. This despite the difficulty of succeeding in the shadow of the fabulous, free Smithsonian museums (a challenge …
To B Corps or not to B Corps—A Case Study

By Elizabeth Merritt

Some people think that because museums are nonprofits, they are not allowed to make money. Cue my mantra: nonprofit is a tax status, not a business strategy. A financially successful nonprofit can use surplus income to improve services, …
Companies with Benefits, Part 2: B Corps or not B Corps, that is the question

By Elizabeth Merritt

Tuesday I blogged about Benefit Corporations—a relatively new kind of “hybrid” legal structure for mission-driven for-profits. Today’s post is about B Corps—companies participating in a certification program that measures their impact on …
Companies with Benefits, Part 1: Benefit Corporations

By Elizabeth Merritt

I’m going to ask you to bear with me as I engage in some deep, extended geeking about business models in coming weeks, via a series of essays and guest posts exploring changes in business and philanthropy that are reshaping the niche …
Build it and will they come? Co-working considerations for Museums

By Elizabeth Merritt

Tui Te Hau At the [2017] AAM Annual Meeting, I hope to see you at the session I’ll be moderating on the emerging trend of museums running business incubators and co-working spaces (Sunday, May 7, 4 pm). One of the newest of these …
Monday Musing: Orphan Collections

By Elizabeth Merritt

A Facebook post the week before last from staff at the natural history museum at the University of Louisiana in Monroe caused a stir in the museum world. The post shared a directive from university administrators announcing that if an …