FUNDRAISING LESSONS FOR THE NON-FUNDRAISER

(Fun)draising | Samantha Summers

---

In my three years of writing this column, I have mentioned once or twice my belief that as museum professionals we must all understand fundraising in order to understand our institutions. This is true for a number of reasons. Knowing how fundraising works, and how your institution does it, can tell you a great deal about your institution. Knowing who is giving to your institution can tell you much about your audience. In addition to this, and most relevant to us today, is that there are a lot of lessons to take from fundraising which have applications in other areas of museum work. Today I would like to share with you four of the most important pieces of fundraising advice which will help you in other areas of the field.

Bear with me, because I know a lot of people find talking about money gauche. All the same, there's a lot you can learn from your colleagues who talk about it all the time. (Image source.)

Talk so people want to listen.

At the end of the day, we all have to remember that our field requires an audience. Whatever we do and say has to be helpful to them and has to make them want to listen. Now, this isn’t to say that you have to coddle an audience or dilute your message. In fact, I would make the case that fundraisers are some of the most frank, blunt people in the museum world—pandering isn’t actually part of the job. What this does mean, however, is that you have to tell hard truths carefully. Fundraisers are great at this (after all, "I need a substantial amount of your money to keep my institution going" is a big pill to swallow). Chat with them about how to talk about difficult things—I promise they'll have insights into how to make people listen even when you're navigating a complicated exhibition. As the saying goes, if a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound? If an exhibition is put on and nobody came, did it even have a message?


People are complicated.

This one is of particular relevance to me, as my thesis investigates how museums break off relationships with major donors whose ethics are called into question. Simply put, the hyper-wealthy don’t just crack eggs to make omelettes, they then patent the process and sell it. Then they often given some of the profits to museums, to help them continue their important work. Fundraisers have to understand how to let people be flawed and still participate in the museum. They also have to know where the hard lines are drawn that make someone anathema to the institution. As other museum careers deal with problematic artists or dubious artefact sources, they might want to pick a fundraiser’s brain on how to navigate that line.


The museum wants to exist in fifty years.

This is a tricky one. Many people go into the museum field because they love art, history, education, activism, or one of the many other things that museums can embody. It can be hard to acknowledge that museums in Canada are largely underfunded and need to raise capital in order to exist at all. Fundraisers are intimately familiar with this—they’re on the frontline of bringing in a huge part of a museum’s budget. Other museum professionals will see the need to prioritize profit impact their work when they’re asked to change the tone of a label, scrap an exhibition because of the potential bad publicity, or work with an artist who is famous but problematic. The museum is in it for the long haul, and sometimes that means compromise in order to maintain long-term stability. Chat with your fundraiser if you’re worried about a change you’re being forced to make for this reason. They also care about the museum’s mission, have probably had to compromise a number of times, and can relate.


There are a lot of ways to love a museum.

One of the most exciting parts of fundraising is helping people do things that matter. People want to help museums, but with so many different lived experiences out there, it can be tough to find ways for people to participate in the museum in a way that feels authentic for them. Be it a $20 annual donation on a special anniversary, funding a new education program, or a legacy gift (a donation made to an institution in a will), fundraisers are masters at coming up with unique ways for people to be involved in an institution. They are also masters at making people care in the long-term, so they return and contribute over and over again. If you’re looking at increasing engagement or diversifying your education portfolio, talk to a fundraiser. They’re full of ideas on how to help people find joy in being part of your community.


There are of course many more lessons to be taken from fundraising, and fundraisers must also be constantly learning from the other members of the museum. Talk to your fundraisers, find common ground and common learning, and you will see your institution flourish. Plus, I promise we’re friendly, welcoming, open people. It’s literally our job to be.

RESPONDING TO COVID AT THE AGO

(Fun)draising | Samantha Summers

---

When COVID-19 closures began back in March, the GLAM community had to quickly evaluate how it approached philanthropy. With Canadians increasing their giving to front-line workers and directing it away from the arts, GLAM institutions had to put serious thought into what their needs were and how to support their donor community. I sat down with AGO Chief Development Officer Kate Halpenny to learn more about how the AGO acted quickly to address our new normal.

The AGO at dusk. (Source)

I’d love to hear more about how you’ve tackled the pandemic.


It hasn’t been easy, for sure. I think we all feel like this is the great leadership challenge of our careers. Hopefully we’re rising to it. I don’t know how other organizations are tackling it, but right from the get-go the AGO senior leadership team really shifted gears to work very closely together on a daily basis, to tackle every issue coming our way. It’s a very large organization and museums are very complex environments to work in. It’s been really great that the museum sector has a very strong network between the directors of the museums, and they’ve been on regular calls together to figure out strategy. In Toronto there’s been quite a strong connectivity between all the arts organizations, because we’re all facing similar situations.


How has this impacted development, specifically? I imagine there are opportunities and challenges created by this.


Yet to be determined. It’s an evolving question. What we found in the first months of the severe lockdown of the pandemic was that there was a shift amongst philanthropists to the front-line, with incredibly generous support to hospitals, poverty organizations, etc. It was a wonderful thing, and I think in the arts we all recognized early on that was not the point in time to be asking for gifts. It was the time to be there for our donors, be empathetic to their individual circumstances and what they’re going through, because everyone is going through this in a different way. We focussed on connectivity with our donors, so we were not just communicating with them, but engaging them with all that we are as an institution. Interestingly, our fiscal year ends March 31st, so we were pretty concerned that we weren’t going to be able to achieve our goals. We were very, very pleased and grateful that our donors really stuck with us, and everybody that had an outstanding commitment was able to meet that. We’ve done multiple budgeting scenarios. Things change. We found our major corporate partners have been amazing, really supportive. I think that on the corporate side, people are hanging on right now, but given the length of time this is going on there’s a potential for more job loss, potentially companies going bankrupt, they’re very tenuous in terms of future commitments. I wonder if the reverberations of the pandemic will be felt in the next fiscal, even, and not just this fiscal. Time will tell. The other softness will be in our annual giving. Those are gifts where people might be on a tighter budget, versus a major foundation that has to carry on with their giving. It’s changed our perspective on things. Definitely new strategies, and we have some projections but we don’t have a clear sense of whether it’s going to be possible. 

Interior shot of the AGO. (Source.)

And the same issues are playing out at every level in the sector.


We have to be really careful in what we’re asking right now and be super sensitive to the situations people are finding themselves in. We can’t assume that just because someone gave over the past few years they can this year, we need to be having those conversations. We’re just now going out to start doing major gifts requests, we’ve put a pause on them for a while, so it’ll be interesting over the next couple of months to see what happens from there.


This is the time to care, then.


I believe, particularly in the arts, the donor community is a real community. The communities that come together around art forms are really passionate. They’re people who are committed over long periods of time. This is a time to say thank you for all of that long-standing commitment.


You’ve touched on how the goal posts and the plans change every day. Seeing all of this play out, has it impacted or changed how you see or understand development in the sector?


It’s been a bit of a shake-up. I think we’ve had a couple of decades now in Canada where we have been very focused and reliant on major gifts, and really reliant on a very small segment of philanthropists in our city to be giving. I feel like right now we really need to have a more robust strategy. It can’t just be focussed on that. The whole fundraising pyramid, the whole goal has always been to bring people in at the bottom and bring them up, and the resources are focussed on major gifts. We need to look at how to expand our donor bases a lot more. The most interesting aspect of the time we’re in right now is that we have the pandemic, but layered on top of that we have this significant social change that’s happening, and the AGO certainly feels quite connected to that change. That’s begging many questions as well around the way we sustain ourselves through philanthropy. I think we’re all going to be reshaping our business. Like glitzy events. The arts are quite famous for incredible events, but maybe we can have another kind of special event. 

Interior shot of the AGO staircase. (Source.)

The AGO is coming out with endless social media materials, which have been really impressive.


That was a seismic shift, moving online that quickly. We really went for it. We wanted to shower people with content and to carry people through that time when everyone was at home and couldn’t go anywhere. As we look forward to the rest of this fiscal [year], the online piece is going to be much more significant than the in-person piece. I think we will always now have an online component to our work that engages people. We want them to come to the museum, but they can also engage from home.


What’s your favourite thing that has been achieved through your work at the AGO?


The AGO is an incredibly dynamic organization. There’s so much Toronto art history at the AGO, but it’s also so forward-thinking and progressive. We have a vision right now that’s all about opening up our doors and being as relevant to the Toronto that is now and will be in the future and everybody who lives here. Also, trying to lead more global conversations that can happen through art. That’s powerful. For me, as a development person, I’m most attracted to a really strong vision. There are so many brilliant people who are doing fascinating things at the AGO. To have so many voices at the table all the time to figure out what we’re doing is pretty rich. For all the people on our fundraising team, they would probably say the same thing. There’s never a dull moment, and we feel like we’re fundraising for exhibitions, for collections, for programming, but really? We’re fundraising for our art to be the voice of our time and to be this central meeting ground for people to be inspired by the power of art, but also to dialogue with each other and to figure out our world and how we’re going to respond to it. What better case for support can you have as a fundraiser? I get to think about that every day.

THE UNCONVENTIONAL FUNDRAISER

(Fun)draising | Samantha Summers

---

Well, Musers and shakers, I come to you today hat in hand. Between work, school, and finding an internship, I did not have time to interview anybody this month for (Fun)draising. Fear not, however; as the wisdom goes, whenever you don’t have an article ready, write a listicle. It is in this spirit of last-minuteness (hello, midterms) that I humbly present The Unconventional Fundraiser.

I am often asked how I see my degree in museum studies being practical in a fundraising scenario, especially considering there are degrees and programs specifically designed to prepare people for a career in fundraising. I usually respond by saying that museum studies is about learning to tell a story that matters in a way that makes sense, and what is fundraising if not telling a story that matters in a way that makes sense to a potential donor? Rarely, however, do I hear my fellow museum studies colleagues (and professors) asking about the relationship between fundraising and their future museum careers. It is uncommon in this program to turn the popular understanding that fundraising supports museums on its head, and to ask instead how museums can support fundraising. Enter: this month’s column.

I have written before of my view that the Master of Museum Studies program doesn’t give enough attention to fundraising and development. Despite the fact that development initiatives will impact nearly every student who leaves this program and gets work in the field, many students are left unaware of their relationship to this facet of museum operations. But folks, one day you will all have to fundraise, whether it’s in your job description or not. Just as it isn’t just the collection manager who is interested in preventing items from breaking, maintaining the financial stability of an institution is (directly or otherwise) everyone’s business.

Unconvinced? Or perhaps sick at the thought? I present to you this quick and dirty guide illustrating the relationship between fundraising and nine popular museum careers, to demonstrate that you, too, are a development professional.

This is what administration looks like in action. (Source.)

Administration
How fundraising impacts you: Lots of your work includes processing donations, creating documents and contracts for donors, and arranging events to celebrate donors.
How you fundraise: You provide the foundation on which fundraising happens, and do lots of the technical work (room bookings, contract creation, tax receipt issuing) which allows your institution to process donations. Also, many institutions will house their development team within the administration.

Archivist/Librarian
How fundraising impacts you: Donors are sources of support for your archive or library, and in some cases may even give you material to add to your collection. As archives and libraries are often small in museum institutions and largely underfunded, you rely on donors for a good deal of your budget.
How you fundraise: Fundraising campaigns will often turn to institutional archives and libraries to find information and images for use in campaign materials, which you supply. Furthermore, you may be asked to show donors or potential donors around your workspace, to show them items from the archive, or to work with them in donating their own archival material when relevant.

Collections Manager
How fundraising impacts you: Fundraising helps support building operations, which impact your ability to care for your collection. Furthermore, donors may gift objects to your institution, increasing the size of your collection.
How you fundraise: As collections manager you work with material donors frequently, meaning that you already have established relationships with individuals who are invested in supporting your institution. It isn’t uncommon for that interest to be translated into a financial investment, so maintaining those relationships even after an individual material donation is key.

Welcome to communications. You live on your phone. (Source.)

Communications Manager
How fundraising impacts you: Fundraising is central to your role. Reaching out to new communities and communicating messages about events and promotions is all part of fundraising.
How you fundraise: Every new person and community you reach means a pool of new potential donors. Furthermore, lots of the messages you circulate will be very literally to do with fundraising through the advertising of things like donor drives.

Conservator
How fundraising impacts you: Not only does donor money help you get all the materials and equipment you need to conserve the items you work with, once in a while you might get a massive donation of conservation materials from a donor (as was the case for the John M. Kelly Library conservation studio last year, when I worked there and a local bookbinder donated literally all of his bookbinding materials to the studio).
How you fundraise: Keeping artifacts looking their best makes the institution look its best, which will help attract donors. More science-inclined donors may also want a chance to visit your lab, which will mean meeting with them and showing them around.

Curator
How fundraising impacts you: Your exhibitions are often supported with funding from corporate sponsors, if not individual donors. Without this financial support your exhibition team would be smaller and you would have a smaller budget for loans and acquisitions in support of your latest exhibition.
How you fundraise: You may be required to provide personal guided experiences of your exhibitions for donors and potential donors will be attracted to your dynamic, engaging exhibitions. Every single person who steps into your exhibition space is a potential donor, and your exhibition can make or break their decision to support your institution.

In education, you will spend a lot of time with tour groups (like this one!). (Source.)

Education
How fundraising impacts you: Donor financing is behind a lot of the programs you run, and if you feel like thinking a bit more abstractly, all those volunteers you manage are donating the value of their time.
How you fundraise: Your programs speak to the priorities of the institution, giving potential donors an idea of how their own priorities might fit into your institution’s vision. You might be asked to arrange tours, workshops, and talks for donors.

Front of House
How fundraising impacts you: You staff fundraising events, and have to know all about what is happening at the museum at all times to ensure a smooth visitor experience.
How you fundraise: From helping people sign up for memberships and patron programs to operating the gift shop, every interaction you have with visitors is an opportunity to increase income.

Management
How fundraising impacts you: Donors are a major part of your community, with many of them sitting on the Board with which you work. A solid portion (approximately ⅓ in a standard Ontario museum) of your operating budget comes from donors.
How you fundraise: A good chunk of your work involves meeting and developing relationships with important donors and sponsors. This ranges from inviting them to events to inviting them for private dinners with members of your staff whose work is of interest to the donor.

Still unconvinced? Or did I miss your future career, and you want to know how it fits into fundraising? Drop me a line @medievalist_sam on Twitter and let’s chat.