At the Bata Shoe Museum….

 … everything is about shoes.

 

From its building–inspired by a shoe box–designed 

by Canadian architect Raymond Moriyama

in downtown Toronto Ontario, 

 … to its window display created from 3-D printed shoes forming the 10 provincial and territorial flowers in honor of the anniversary of the Canadian Confederation,

… to a 42 foot wall of faceted glass with images of shoes; shoemakers, and shoe parts, 

… to shoemaker’s leather used for signage, coat-check, and the reception desk,

… to shoes to try on,

… to seating ,  

… shoes are everywhere.

Old shoes, new shoes, famous shoes, our shoes are displayed, celebrated, and reflected everywhere. 

Even the BataShoe Museum’s community initiatives are around shoes: The Storyboot Project, The Warm the Sole Sock Drive, and The Shoe Project

Consolidating the Gains: After the Museum Doors Open

Minnesota Children's Museum 1995. (Photo credit: Jeffrey P. Grosscup)

The ribbon has been cut and the doors to the new museum swing wide open welcoming friends, members, supporters, neighbors, and the curious.  

Opening day festivities are well attended. The new spaces are awe-inspiring; the exhibitions sparkle. Fundraising is virtually complete and the punch list has been pared to a manageable length. Systems have been tested and tweaked. Media campaigns have drawn the hoped-for attention. Donor and member events have been great successes. The rounds and rounds of prototyping caught the bugs early. The community discussions that inspired the vision for the big museum project still feel inspiring. Years of planning now seem like a blur.

Twenty years after opening day at the “new” Minnesota Children’s Museum (http://www.mcm.org) on September 16, 1995 these impressions are still with me along with the many lessons I was fortunate to learn about planning and opening a museum. Yet, as memorable as the opening was, the following year and the lessons learned navigating it were even more enduring.

The Big Lesson 

Those lessons cluster around a single message. No matter how resounding a success everyone thinks and says the opening and new museum are and how amazingly well the first months go, the critical task is to retain and consolidate the gains made through the expansion and over the first months of operations.

This challenge also comes to mind now as I read and hear about recent openings at the Do-Zeum, San Antonio’s Museum for Kids; Austin’s Thinkery; The Broad Museum in Los Angeles; the Mid-America Science Museum (Hot Springs, AR); the Children’s Museum of Sonoma County; the new wing at the Columbus Museum of Art; and the Children’s Museum of Southern Minnesota.

Whether doubling the physical footprint, building a wing for exhibitions, converting space for events, adding a large-screen theater or opening an extensive outdoor area, a large capital project has changed the museum. The transition from planning to opening to running a new institution is one of both planned and unexpected challenges that can make consolidating the gains more challenging than might seem.   

Every new such venture is originally fueled by enormous passion. Working with a shared vision of a building, a fresh visitor experience, new amenities, and stronger exhibit experience makes coordination and alignment of the museum’s efforts relatively easy. Once that milestone has passed, however, the view ahead is fuzzier. The territory in which a museum now finds itself is new. Familiar signposts, patterns and benchmarks from the past are either irrelevant or in serious need of updating. The temptation is great to feel the museum has arrived and that efforts getting there have the momentum to surge forward. The first months or even year after opening, known as the benefit period, won’t last forever and can disappear unexpectedly.

Along with the sense of enormous pride and accomplishment among staff, volunteers, and trustees on opening is relief and deep exhaustion. And yet, during any long-term project, a museum has cultivated partnerships, shared its aspirations broadly, actively invited the public into its life, and deliberately stepped into the limelight. The action is just beginning.
 

Retaining the Gains

Just what are the gains that need to be consolidated? During the course of planning, a museum has assessed the need to expand or renovate, made a case for support, cultivated community good will, projected attendance, raised funds, planned exhibits, developed new programs, brought on additional staff, set up new systems, and trained staff. From a new physical footprint to a new community footprint, it has quantified intended gains in areas across the museum and that the museum itself will have on the community. It has set new attendance targets and identified new audiences to reach. It has projected growth in expenses as well as income; set development goals; structured admission and membership; added new earned income activities; and calculated economic impact. New exhibits with new themes, topics, and learner impacts fill galleries and require on-going maintenance and repairs.

Consolidating gains typically means capturing the lessons learned; stabilizing financially and operationally; determining where to work harder to improve on what works; shoring up areas that lag behind; making the most of available momentum; and recognizing new opportunities. The museum shifts from promises and projections to targets and tracking. In this period of time, the museum has an opportunity to operate and serve from a higher platform. To do so, it needs to meet some consolidation challenges.

Consolidation Challenges 
Consolidation Challenge. Develop new baselines for benchmarking performance in key areas. In a new, larger, or renovated building, old benchmarks don’t work. Because square footage, attendance, and admission fees change, ratios for tracking key financial indicators and performance change. To know how the museum is doing and how it can do better, new data is needed, as is the time for collecting data, observing seasonality shifts and multiple cycles, and comparing actuals with projections.

Consolidation Challenge. Retain and support staff, especially key staff. With the expansion, the museum has added staff with new expertise while existing staff carry important organizational knowledge. Through training, the museum has invested in staff across the museum. The focus now is to retain and grow this expanded capacity during a period of transition. After a major project, people leave for various reasons. Temporary staff and contractors leave as work is completed. Permanent staff may be ready to move on, find a new challenge or change of pace. The same goes for trustees. Be kind.

Consolidation Challenge. Engage the audience and community at a higher level and in targeted ways. Many, if not most, projects begin with community input to assess the need for expansion, generate programmatic ideas, and prototype exhibits and programs. During the long process that follows, however, there’s little feedback from audiences. Upon opening, a flood of audience feedback, good and bad, pours forth. At this point, a museum needs to make the most of this feedback; be responsive and connect with visitors; and reinvigorate its community engagement strategies.

Consolidation Challenge. Focus on new opportunities to grow impact. Greater museum visibility, a sense of optimism, and increased capacity combine to catalyze new and larger opportunities for greater impact. A museum may enjoy a new position on the learning and cultural landscape, have a new seat at the table, or be able to set a new table around its priority interests. With an eye on delivering significant long-term impact, a museum should build on the strongest partnerships, work in areas of emerging expertise, and develop larger initiatives that align with community priorities.

Consolidation Challenge. Become the new museum. Expansion has changed the museum. It is a new institution with a new identity created through multiple changes starting with its building, possibly a new location or name, and on-line presence. A new logo, brand, and perhaps name have been unveiled, differentiating the museum from its former self and other venues. Now is the time to fully inhabit the promise of the museum through guest and learner experiences, text panels, the tone and spirit of interactions with staff and volunteers, and everyday moments.

Consolidation Challenge. Plan for a new future. The big museum project has been all about a new future for the museum, a future that has arrived and is already quickly receding. It’s time to rethink the museum’s future and get out in front of what’s coming next. Through strategic planning, a museum can reinvigorate its vision, look ahead, and build on the gains to generate new ways to better serve the community.

Related Museum Notes 
• Growing Site By Site

• Vision, Process and Position for the Big Museum Project
• Starting on a Higher Rung

Pay as You Will: An Experiment in Free Admission

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A little more than a year ago, I wrote about a big idea the Children’s Museum of Tacoma (CMT) was putting in place. In January 2010, in the thick of developing a strategic plan and in the midst of an expansion involving a move, Executive Director Tanya Andrews presented her board with seven big ideas. Big Idea #3 was going to Pay as You Will, or no admission fee.

The decision for CMT to go to Pay as You Will–or no admission fee–was motivated by an interest in easy access to the Museum for Tacoma families. A community scan conducted as part of strategic planning indicated the need. Pierce County where Tacoma is located is one of the poorest counties in Washington. In numerous areas within the city children experience multiple risk factors. Two military installations, one a mega-base, are located in Pierce County. About half CMT’s visitors were visiting the museum for free or reduced fee on Free Fridays, with library passes, or on free Market Play Days following the Farmer’s Market.

For Tanya and her board, however, 50% free or reduced admission did not add up to access. Tanya explains  “When low-income families come on Fridays during free times, it further segregates our community. But when Mom A and Mom B are here and they share a love for their child, they have that in common. Where else is there a natural gathering of young parents? If any museum should be free, it should be children’s museums.”

In presenting Big Idea #3 to her board, Tanya asked, “If I told you that all you had to do is replace $50,000 in earned revenue from admissions and CMT could drop admission, what would you choose to do?” There was no hesitation; the board voted to adopt a Pay as You Will plan.

Planning on Multiple Fronts

Implementing Pay as You Will was part of a larger set of decisions and actions. Introducing Pay as You Will leveraged CMT’s reopening at a new location, with new exhibits, and a larger, 8,000 square foot, facility (up from its previous 4,000 s.f. building). Replacing $50,000 in admission revenue as well as reaching a higher percentage of total earned revenue (from 30 to 70% of budget) would come from membership, birthdays, programs, café revenue. Membership was enhanced to be more attractive to people interested in convenience and to those interested in a purchase with a philanthropic benefit.

CMT made sure people knew about Pay as You Will. Callers heard about it on the recorded message along with directions and hours. Multiple screens on the website highlighted and explained CMT’s admission policy. Staff was prepared for a conversation with visitors and gently encouraged them to make a donation.

A Strong Start

As reported here 9 weeks into the plan (January 14 - March 16, 2012), initial results from Pay as You Will not only met, but exceeded targets–intentionally conservative ones. In just 9 weeks, the Museum received more than $50,000 in admission contributions. One-in-four general visitors (almost 90% of non-member visiting families) contributed at an average of $11/family or $2.82/person. Membership was almost double projections. As important, the Museum was welcoming families from more ethnically and economically diverse backgrounds in the area.

Fast Forward to June 2013

Six months into its 2^nd full year, CMT appears to have escaped the dreaded “sophomore slump,” that drop in attendance that typically follows an opening year of being new with the attendant buzz. CMT has landed just under-and-over its early first year returns in several areas which may be assumed to be the natural and inevitable variations in attendance and income every museum experiences.

• Growing Attendance. In its first 12 months at its new site, CMT served 123,022 visitors in its galleries, down (a scant) 1.5% from the projected 125,000. Attendance did slow after its first 9 weeks when serving 160,000 visitors in 12 months looked possible. These figures compare to 39,350 annual attendance at the old site. Comparing the first 19 weeks of years 1 and 2, CMT has experienced a small (less than 4 %) decline in gallery attendance from 53,489 to 51,496 visitors.  
   
• Keeping up Revenue. Admission revenue in the first 12 months was $193,381. Revenue for the first 19 weeks of year 2 has stayed close to what it was in year 1, dipping somewhat from $90,128 to $86,525, an average a few pennies per visitor less. Nevertheless, it is 70% more than the $50,000 gap that Tanya had used in framing Big Idea #3 to her board. 
  Member Relations. Membership has doubled since the Museum opened its doors at its new site and tripled over its previous level. Member visits continue at about 20% of total attendance. Renewal rates have been climbing to 23%, up from 11% previously and, hopefully nearing CMT’s goal of 30%, the lower end of the industry standard.
   
• A More Diverse Audience. Now around 50-60% of families visit from zip codes considered lower income, up from around 30-40% of families from these same zip codes. Twenty percent of visiting families self-identify as military families and that, Tanya says, is “huge” in Tacoma. In Pierce County, veterans are 10% of the population.
   
• Intangible Returns. Two other benefits have been picked up through observation, anecdote, and word-of mouth. Front desk staff notice that those who decide to pay at the admission desk and give $30 or $40, do so joyfully because they decide what to give. And locally, Pay as You Will has enhanced CMT’s stature with the bold step it has taken to respond to and serve the community. 

As Committed as Ever

CMT’s commitment to easy access for children and families from across the community is long-term with Pay as You Will as a long-term experiment towards realizing that commitment. Set it up as a 5-year experiment, CMT is half way through year 2. The Museum doesn’t expect to make a solid business decision until it is has at least 2-1/12 years of results to consider. But no one, Tanya says, is talking about going back to charging for admission.

Pay as You Will has been an effective strategic experiment. It is increasing access and creating connections across the community while allowing the Museum to achieve its financial goals. It is also opening up new territory for CMT’s future, bringing bigger questions to the forefront for the Museum to explore: What are we now able to see, deal with, and obligated to do to become the museum our community needs us to be? What’s our role in making this a thriving community for families with young children? How can we help boost the attachment and resiliency of children in military families?  

Successful on multiple fronts, Pay as You Will is allowing the Museum to more fully inhabit its larger purpose in serving its visitors, community, and itself.

Museum Notes From the Road

Recently, I have been traveling a lot, even more than usual. In just under two weeks, I visited museums in 4 states from coast to coast. Along the way, I spent time in 7 museums in different roles, attended a national project advisors' meeting, and walked New York City's High Line, something I have long wanted to do. I was headed for three more museums and a planning meeting before deciding to make a quick exit ahead of last week’s East coast storm. I sure am glad I did.

Observing the vitality and listening to what’s happening in so many museums–large and small, in towns and cities, across the country–and in quick succession is quite amazing. The variety and intensity alone require many deep breaths, time to thumb through notes and photos, and moments to recall, reflect, and share. Before too much fades away and with a reminder or two about where to explore more, here are some notes from the road.

Partners in Play

Three Seattle area children’s museums have been conducting exploratory research to look at how parents and caregivers see their children’s activities as play and their own role in extending and supporting it. Last fall, Lorrie Beaumont of Evergreene Research and Evaluation, and I interviewed caregivers and trained interviewers at the Children’s Museum of Tacoma, Imagine Children’s Museum, and KidsQuest Children’s Museum to conduct interviews. I wrote about some of my early impressions on an earlier post, Parent Voices, New Insights. Now, using the results of nearly 100 interviews, the three museums are beginning a new round of research. Three action research projects are ramping up and exploring questions that emerged from the exploratory study. Action research is an iterative, reflective process looking for improvements, or action, around everyday, real situations. More often used in school settings, it is well suited for museums and other informal learning environments. It's a great approach for exploring questions related to practice or emerging from research and is an excellent professional development tool. Look for a future post on action research as well as for dissemination of this work by the museums at conferences and on-line.

Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI), Seattle

When I hear someone propose developing a scavenger hunt for a museum, I am drawn to the idea. I like to imagine pairs of children or family groups combing through a gallery, alert for possible clues, furrowing brows about another way to read this clue, and exchanging ideas. I also tuck it away, wondering how well it will actually work in the bustling museum setting and for whom. I was pleasantly surprised on my visit to MOHAI to be paralleling the trail of two 8-ish year old boys enthusiastically scavengering their way through the museum with a set of cards. I noticed their intensity, listened to their conversation, and rejoiced in their sense of accomplishment when they yipped, “Yay! We built a railroad” after pounding in spikes. A few exhibits later, I heard one say to the other, “We have to ask questions.” The other replied, “Yeah! Gotta have questions.” The imperative captured my attention and that of others around us. This is precisely the enthusiasm and immersion we hope for and, in this case, in somewhat older children. While only a sample of 1 (or maybe 2), their enthusiasm reassures me of the potential for children to be actively engaged and excited in searching and discovering.   

Children’s Museum of Boston

It’s been more than 30 years since my fist visit to Boston Children’s Museum and I have been many times since. On this visit, I was impressed by how much the Museum has stayed the same even as it has changed. Approaching on foot from the T’s South Station, I navigated the streets by feel and was delighted to see the big white “Hood” Milk Bottle from across the channel, welcoming and guiding me. Changes in the neighborhood and on the Museum’s plaza made the milk bottle seem different and the same, a dynamic that persisted throughout my visit. A new entry experience flows into a familiar hive of activity around the four-story climber. Legacy exhibits including Construction Zone, Japanese House, PlaySpace connected by a wide corridor of activities for Chinese New Year. Bubbles and Raceways enjoy a new context in Science Playground. One thing that had not changed was the number of highly engaged parents in PlaySpace, including dads, many comfortably occupying the resource room; I noticed they do seem younger than 30 years ago. This mix of enduring and new BCM experiences is fitting for a museum celebrating its 100 birthday.

Math Core

As an advisor for Math Core for Museums, an NSF-funded project of the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM), I participated in the project meeting at the Museum of Science (Boston). This project has an interesting focus and structure. Its four museums (SMM, Museum of Science, North Carolina Museum of Life and Science, Durham, and Explora, Albuquerque) have been developing a set of interactive exhibits that engage learners, especially middle school students, in experiencing and understanding ratio and proportion physically as well as cognitively. The project has an interest in long-term math environments and repeat visits. Selinda Research Associates is conducting a longitudinal evaluation of the project and at the meeting, Deborah Perry provided an overview of the evaluation that is underway.

Like past advisors’ meetings, this gathering of evaluators, exhibit developers, researchers, and advisors generated  lively discussion, valuable observations, and questions about the project and about museum practice and learning experiences more generally. Why, for instance, has repeat visitation been studied so little? Children’s tendency to build towers and houses with blocks before and often instead of focusing on the intended math activity was noted several times. The thoughtful, succinct, and quotable Paul Tatter observed that, “Learning is not an event,” yet we plan and evaluate learning as if it were. The idea of designing for persistence was thrown out inviting thoughts about what that might look like. Conversations from the advisors’ meeting are continuing.

Children’s Museum of the Arts

This New York children’s museum is not as well known as its New York peers, but deserves to be. It’s a fresh iteration of the Children’s Museum of the Arts I last visited about 20 years ago. Reopening in October 2012 after a relocation and expansion in a new SoHo location, it’s a smart hybrid of a children’s museum and art museum with a thoughtfully playful and seriously arty style infused into both its experiences and design. I am impressed. Still compact at 10,000 square feet, CMA uses its children’s art collection, artist-in-residence programs, artist-led programs, hands-on explorations of art materials and exhibits, and extensive outreach programs to children from a wide range of backgrounds. It’s committed to highly facilitated experiences by artists in its art labs, media lab, clay bar, and video-making and animation station. I especially loved the giant, highly utilitarian, octopus-like sink-and-water station in the center of the art lab that is inviting and visible from the street.

  

New York Historical Society/Jon Wallen

New York Historical Society

This was my first visit to the New-York Historical Society Museum and Library (NYHS) across the street from the American Museum of Natural History and Central Park. The set of interactive touchscreens in the newly designed Robert H. and Clarice Smith New York Gallery of American History were fascinating and as elegant as the gallery itself. Fortunately I had been alerted to the new DiMenna Children’s History Museum in the Jan-Feb 2013 issue of Museum. History exhibits for children are challenging and, until recently, there have been few, if any child-centered, interactive exhibits. As this recent NYHS exhibit, Chicago History Museum’s Sensing Chicago, and Minnesota Historical Society’s Then, Now, Wow! seem to indicate, the moment for children’s history exhibits has arrived. Since I plan to write soon on history exhibits for children that I have seen, I’ll leave that until later.

Loving the High Line

A public park built on an historic freight rail line elevated above the streets on Manhattan’s West Side, the High Line might be prettier and softer when green and warmed by sunshine than in the bleak mid-winter. It could not, however, be any less amazing as a brilliant found opportunity to open up the city and rediscover public space. Meandering through the 1-1/2 mile park high above the street, following old tracks, moving between plantings, and walking along paths punctuated by art is a novel, joyful feeling. Openings between buildings afford amazing views to the Hudson River. On the High Line, the city does not just close in up above and over head. It also spreads out down below and far into the distance.

Big Idea, Small Museum

To boldly go...       (Photo: Children's Museum of Tacoma)

 

A bold idea began taking shape at a Children’s Museum of Tacoma (CMT) board retreat in January 2010. In the thick of developing a strategic plan and in the midst of an expansion involving a move, Executive Director Tanya Andrews presented her board with seven big ideas. Big Idea #3 was going to a pay as you will, or no admission, fee.

To contextualize their decision-making, Tanya shared information from a community scan. Pierce County where Tacoma (WA) is located is one of the poorest counties in the state. In numerous areas within the city children experience multiple risk factors; two military installations, one of which is a mega-base are located in the County. Tanya asked, “If I told you that all you had to do is replace $50,000 in earned revenue and CMT could drop admission, what would you choose to do?”

It was, Tanya said, the quickest vote ever. The board decided to adopt a pay as you will plan.

Being Free

Being accessible to audiences regardless of economic, educational, and ethnic backgrounds, is something museums value and strive towards. Like the Children’s Museum of Tacoma, they also value and strive for financial stability. Balancing the two is a real challenge. Many museums have weekly free days and reduced admission for school or community groups. Blue Star Museums offer free admission to military families. Access programs with free memberships or free admission for low-income families are distributed through partner organizations.  Designated funds within the annual fund,  gala income, and sponsorships such as Target Foundation’s free days grants help address the financial stability side of increasing access.

Working with its funders, CMT had been offering Free Fridays, library pass, and free Market Play Days following the Farmer’s Market. About half CMT’s guests were visiting the museum for free or reduced fee. That, however, didn’t add up to access.

The idea of free museums has long been a topic of discussion. Elaine Gurian has championed dropping the charges. In her 2005 article, Free at Last: A Case for Museums Eliminating Admission Charges in Museums, in Museums, Gurian argued that, “…general admission charges are the single greatest impediment to making our museums truly and fully accessible.” Free admission, however, is not unknown. The Smithsonian Institution is free to visitors as are national museums in the UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Museums like the Minneapolis Institute of Arts that receive city tax revenue have free daily admission; government support helps make this possible.

In choosing to drop admission, in this case without government support, CMT committed itself to a bold idea, something Anne Ackerson recently wrote about on Leading by Design. In “The Powerful Force of a Big Idea,” she rightfully point out, “Big ideas are critical fuel for the nonprofit engine.” Children’s Museum of Tacoma is running with a big idea that is fueling its new future.

Seeing Things Differently

CMT is much larger in its ambition to be accessible to its audience than its physical footprint might suggest. From 1996 through 2011, CMT’s home was a 4,000 square feet storefront in Tacoma’s Theater District. In January 2012, CMT opened in a renovated 8,000 square feet (SF) facility with 6,000 SF of exhibits. The museum is now much more visible in the Museum District, an area the Mayor calls the “front porch of the community.” Located on Pacific Avenue, the downtown’s main drag with the University of Washington-Tacoma at the end of the block, the museum is steps away from a stop on the free light rail.

At its previous site CMT served 45,000 visitors annually; half paid reduced or no admission. Annual admission income was $50,000; this was part of CMT’s 30% earned/70% contributed income ratio that compared to the roughly 50/50 mix for many children’s museums. CMT has always struggled with earned revenue, Tanya says.

As part of its 2010 retreat, the board focused on finding a new way to balance the challenge of earned revenue, a goal of financial stability, and a commitment to serving low-income families. It interpreted the high rate of free admission as evidence of serving low-income families, rather than as low earned revenue. It identified barriers to access where the museum might have some control; cost was one.

The board also looked at opportunities presented by the capital campaign CMT was conducting for its expansion project. Building on the six million dollar capital campaign, the board decided to raise another million dollars to make up for the admission revenue the museum would forgo with Pay as You Will admission. After considering several scenarios, the board decided to pay a fixed monthly amount to cover the museum’s rent from its million-dollar fund, drawing it down over ten years.

Setting Things in Motion

Groundwork for this initiative included research and talking with funders. Tanya checked with Janet Rice Elman, Executive Director of the Association of Children’s Museum and with other museums to learn about free museums. She found some public museums that are free; CMT was the only private museum going free.

A conversation with a funder, Key Bank was critical in moving the plan forward. Key Bank had been funding the museum’s library pass program and was looking to have a greater impact. Over the course of two years and multiple conversations, Key Bank came on board with a gift of $250,000 towards the million-dollar goal.

Tanya honed a set of talking points merging mission, values, a sense of experimentation, and gut feeling. Although resistance to the idea was slight, she was prepared when a lead donor pushed back on the concept. He understood free days, but didn’t agree with museums giving things away for free. Why should he support this? Tanya explained, “When low-income families come on Fridays during free times, it further segregates our community. But when Mom A and Mom B are here and they share a love for their child, they have that in common. If any museum should be free, it should be children’s museums.” (The donor did give a large gift to the capital campaign which Tanya thinks he was going to do anyway.)

Equally bold as deciding on Pay as You Will admission, the museum decided to increase its earned revenue contribution from 30% to 70% of the budget. Contributing to that increase would be membership, more birthday parties and programs, and café revenue.

With Pay as You Will, CMT recognized membership needed to be attractive. In revising its membership program, the museum decided to appeal to two segments. Some families would purchase memberships from a philanthropic stance of wanting to help others.  Others would be interested in purchasing convenience and exclusivity. CMT enhanced membership benefits with member-only play times, free parking, and express entrance that bypassed orientation.

The museum works hard so visitors know about Pay as You Will admission. Callers hear about Pay As You Will on the recorded telephone message with hours and directions. Multiple screens explain, mention, and highlight CMT’s admission policy on the website. Yet, in spite of publicity generated by CMTs opening and free admission, many families still don’t know about it. Staff is prepared for a conversation when visitors arrive. Proud of being a free museum, all staff have their own story about Pay as You Will that might go something like, “Our museum is special; you can pay as much or as little as you want.”

Good Results and Counting

Across the board, indicators suggest the plan is working. Results from 10 weeks of Pay as You Will not only meet, but exceed CMT’s target, an intentionally conservative one. The museum had budgeted $10,000 from voluntary admission donations for the 20 weeks from January 14 to the end of its fiscal year, May 31. In half that time, the museum has received five-times as much–$50,000–in admission contributions. One-in-four general visitors (almost 90% of non-member visiting families) contribute an average of $11/family or $2.82/person.

Projected attendance for the first 12 months was set as a range from 100,000 to 125,000 visitors. Based on attendance so far, CMT is on track to serve 160,000 to 175,000 visitors in the first 12 months. Membership has almost doubled above projected.

Equally important, the museum says it is welcoming families from more ethnically and economically diverse backgrounds in the area. A zip code survey, now underway, will provide additional evidence of what neighborhoods are represented.

Every museum that opens or re-opens is challenged to estimate how long the initial benefit period will last. A combination of being new and being bigger-and-better typically generates greater attention. CMT must also distinguish between the effect of Pay as You Will and a new venue in a bigger facility in a more visible location. Donations, membership, attendance are likely to drop off; when is a question yet to be answered.

Every new or expanded museum also must work with all new benchmarks in planning its first budgets. CMT is doing so currently in developing its FY13 budget. January - May actuals provide real, but still anomalous figures in place of pre-opening projections. Museum leadership has the opportunity to decide how to allocate January-May surplus and project earned revenue for FY13.

Learning as You Go

Big ideas should be appreciated and monitored for their experimental spirit. Tanya views Pay as You Will as a work-in-progress. I consider CMT’s bold move a strategic experiment. Calling for or wanting free admission is one thing. Figuring out how to do it and making the transition to a completely new way to serve the community is quite different. Many things must align: values, getting board and staff to commit; funder understanding and support; a revised business model; and an implementation plan including marketing and staff training.

CMT’s commitment to Pay As You Will is five years, and hopefully 10. After five years, the board intends to review the broad initiative and decide whether and how to renew it and ramp up for the next five years.

I plan to check-in with Tanya in the coming year. I look forward to hearing about and sharing what CMT is learning, how donated admissions keep up, and how it allocates its contributed admissions. I invite you to come along.