The Rise of Museopreneurship: Reinventing the Museum Business Model

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us for today’s webinar with Rachael Cristine Woody. My name is Bradley, and I will be your moderator for this webinar titled The Rise of the Reinventing the Museum Business Model.

Before we start, I would like to provide some information about our company and introduce today’s presenter. Lucidea is a software developing company specialized in museum and archival collections management solutions as well as knowledge management and library automation systems. Our brands include ArchivEra, Argus, Presto, and SydneyDigital.

Now I’d like to take a moment to introduce today’s presenter, Rachael Cristine Woody. Rachael is the owner of Relicura and provides services to museums, libraries, and archives. She specializes in museum collections management systems, digitization technology, digital project management, and digital usership. During the course of her career, she has successfully launched multiple digital projects that include advanced digitization technology, collaborative portals, and the migration of collection information into collections management systems. She is also a popular guest author for Lucidea’s Think Clearly blog and has provided us with many great webinars that are listed on our website, So please feel free to check those out after today today’s session. Take it away, Rachael.

Great. Thank you so much, Bradley, for the introduction. Thank you to Lucidea for hosting us, and thank you for joining us today for this fun topic.

To get started, we’re going to define the museopreneur because it is a a newer term for our industry. We’ll then get into the four different main flavors of how entrepreneurship has shown up in the museum industry. We’ve got some examples, if you’re interested in that particular area, examples for you to take a deeper dive into. And we’ll also spend some time on some of the challenges or concerns to be aware of when entertaining these different aspects of shifting museum revenue stream generation, and in particular, things that we may not be as aware of as museum professionals, but are certainly things to keep in mind for fiscal integrity and, responsibility.

Alright. So defining the museopreneur, the origins as far as many folks can tell, the formation of this term was a twenty nineteen article by QCM CEO, Brendon Sieko.

The definition for this particular term and certainly how Siako introduced it is the embrace of the entrepreneurial characteristics. So thinking more modern business management and strategy, but used to advance the museum business model or really just the museum revenue generation.

And the core shift to keep in mind for the museum industry here is moving, for the majority of museums, moving from a perhaps more passive and financial dependence on more traditional revenue streams to a more active and more strategic, market participation in ways that are certainly more entrepreneurial in their form.

So defining it, and giving it a little bit of an origin so you can understand how this term and, this particular philosophy has evolved for our particular field.

In the late twenty tens and certainly thinking about when Sieko’s article came out in twenty nineteen, for the United States specifically, there was quite a bit of political impact for the political parties in power and impacting the museum industry specifically in ways that had previously been unprecedented and really taking, quite a bit of challenge for us, especially in the revenue generation areas. This was, of course, felt through nonprofits more broadly. But, certainly, as a museum industry, it was something that we were seemingly unprepared for.

We then got into, of course, twenty twenty and globally a challenge for everyone in the museum industry in terms of how the pandemic impacted the actual attendance and physical space use for our museum buildings and for those, events where everybody would attend in person. So thinking about several of our traditional revenue generating models being impacted to the point of perhaps collapse because of the pandemic impacts on that in person, aspect.

And then as we move out of the pandemic, of course, there’s the more modern headwinds now that we are facing. And for the United States, there’s still that political element that is sort of have researched for us, unfortunately, seeing major impact in areas where we traditionally thought were were safe and even permanent, like federal grant access.

And we’re certainly not alone in this. Whether politically impacted or not, funding for our neighbors in Canada and even in Western Europe and Australia, areas where we tend to compare our industry against, they are facing similar, financial issues and challenges in terms of just not having enough to sustain museum operations in a way that we typically relied on.

So for the term itself and to to orient you to some of the the challenges and, concerns when thinking about museums and entrepreneurship, the core concern is really centered on the introduction of entrepreneurism and having that concern that it will impact or derail or knock down a priority the actual museum mission.

And for museums, of course, everything we do, we want to make sure it is on mission. So it’s, not an, invalid concern at all, but it’s also important to keep in mind the reality of introducing, entrepreneurship into the museum industry When evaluating some of these strategies and approaches that we’ll get into later in this presentation, it really needs to be in alignment and in service of the museum mission, and there needs to be a balance. So as we walk through the examples, you’ll you’ll have a better sense of why there’s perhaps a a balance needed or things to keep in mind. But, really,

the introduction in in our pursuit of bringing in these entrepreneurial aspects is really to help with the financial shoring up of the museum and its operations so that it can continue to meet its mission. And in some regards, can be seen as just a natural growth from some of the activities we already do, such as renting out spaces in the museum for private events, which is fairly typical now across the museum industry. That’s not necessarily direct in service mission, but it certainly brings in money to help support the mission continuing. So the philosophy here and something to keep in mind as you think about introducing, the concept of into your particular museum is that it needs to be mission aligned in support of that mission, and it needs to have that balance piece.

So we’re not looking to turn museums into start up companies. We’re not looking to turn museums into companies at all. What we are wanting to do, though, is borrow elements that have been successful in other industries and introduce that as a way to shore up and further make our financial, stability more complete.

So our first type of flavor for museopreneurship is sponsorship and brand partnerships. And we’ve touched on a couple elements of this in our, previous explorations of creative partnerships. This one, it will go a little bit more in-depth. We’re gonna cover three different sort of sub flavors of this. First is fashion and retail product licensing. Second is the high luxury experiential underwriting. And third is community access piece or specifically for corporations that have sort of a community mandate, leveraging those programs in service of broadening museum participation.

So first up, the, fashion and retail product licensing. The strategy here is to open up the collection imagery, specifically the visuals of the collection, and granting permissions and access to consumer retail brands to help inspire and generate actual products that can be sold for retail value. Now the point here is to have it generate steady income. That would be the goal, but experimenting one time as you start out is certainly, recommended, to experiment with. But we’re hoping to have this be a scalable model. Right? That would be the the more sustainable structure is having it not just be onetime revenue but ongoing and making sure that these partnerships include royalty streams or whatever that compensation piece looks like for your partnership with these brands.

So this gets us beyond our own gift shops, which is, good in terms of revenue, but good in terms of also broadening audience and community awareness of our museum and our collections.

Some three examples here, the Van Gogh Museum has partnered with Vans, the shoes, and, co engineered limited edition apparel based on Van Gogh artworks, so licensing the imagery from the Van Gogh collection, and in this case, incorporating it into shoe design.

There’s MoMA with Uniqlo, the continuous, using continuous global masterworks lines, so using it to help inspire their retail and apparel lines at Uniqlo. There’s MoCALA and Levi’s partnership, and this particular one is using what they call themselves contemporary street rare and having the Mocha LA collections help inform and inspire and be included in that particular apparel.

So some very interesting, direct uses or inspired uses, but certainly with that formal partnership of using the museum imagery officially and having the museum be compensated for that.

The next type of sponsorship and brand partnership flavor is the high luxury experiential underwriting. So the strategy here and in these examples is working with these fashion houses, which of all sort of corporate entities, fashion industry has had the longest relationship with museums, historically, and using them not just as static funders for a particular exhibit, but also including them in some of that co creation part.

So examples here, Brooklyn Museum with Dior and Nordstrom. Brooklyn Museum has an ongoing partnership with these two entities. They do major sponsorship of blockbuster exhibitions, but they also participate some of the creation of what goes into those exhibitions.

And the Chanel Cultural Fund, they are actively commissioning artworks. So in this case, necessarily direct museum partnerships with just one museum, but inspiring and supporting some contemporary artists that are more underrepresented to create works and participate in larger museum exhibitions.

The other sponsorship brand partnership is that community access piece. The strategy here is helping to subsidize museum admission to have it be reduced or, in many cases, free and in specific admission windows. So, not necessarily all the time, but perhaps a specific month or a day or a week, except, etcetera. But using that corporate sponsorship to help, in this case, directly align with museum mission and inviting people in, having to be an affordable experience, and getting more folks, introduced and inspired by the museum collection.

Major examples here, one of the big ones, Bank of America, credit card company, works with multiple museum institutions, and they often run their Museums on Us program, which helps to sponsor free admission on specific times, of the year for these museums and their audience to be able to enter the museum for free if they are a Bank of America customer.

The other example, Brooklyn Museum in Perrier, the bubbly water company, They have sponsored for the Brooklyn Museum, experiences that match with the exhibitions and events. So pop up bars, photo, photo footprints, and community festivals, All of those help and are happening inside or adjacent to these museum exhibitions and encouraging more of that experiential aspect with the more traditional museum exhibition or touring the museum artworks.

And thinking about, things to be aware of when considering the strategic approach of, sponsorship and brand partnerships when we’re thinking about this particular museopreneur track, we want to make sure that we’re aware of of legal items, and and these have been hard lessons learned by some pretty big name museums in the last ten years.

First is to implement rigorous legal frameworks to help safeguard foundational public trust. So when we enter into any partnership, we wanna make sure that it is legally informed by our own legal counsel and that it is built to help safeguard the museum and its collections.

We want to mandate independent brand audits for accepting any sort of capital infusions or, money in exchange for some sort of partnership. And this is particularly important to make sure that we are entering into the partnership with a partner that we know we can trust and vice versa.

We also want to include a morality and termination clauses. This is the hard lesson learned here. Thinking about the Sackler name, for example, that was involved in on mini museum gallery walls and the a huge amount of damage and challenges that occurred when the Sackler, family and the company they were involved in had to go through quite a bit of of legal items. And, of course, part of the repercussions and the, demand of justice from the public is that the Sackler name should probably no longer be on museum gallery walls. So that had never before been navigated, and now we need to build in facets into our own agreements so that we hopefully never have to use them. But when we do, it can be a clean break.

And finally, we want to incorporate strict contractual wording, guaranteeing zero corporate editorial control, particularly within our formal exhibition spaces when we’re partnering.

Having some of that inspiration and cocreation, can certainly be fun, but we wanna make sure that it’s within the guardrails and within the alignment of our mission as a museum.

Alright. Second, museopreneur approach, thinking about the museum space. For this one, we’re gonna talk about private events and ultra premium hospitality items. We’ll talk about commercial film, television, and media shoots. And we’ll also talk about culinary, coworking, and incubator leases where museum space is shared with completely different types of, industry and how that hybrid helps to work together as an ecosystem.

So up first, the private events and ultra premium hospitality.

Many large major museums are already doing these. And for every museum, this may look a little different, but, should be hopeful an helpful inspiration for you. The strategy here is to convert any sort of space where it’s in closed hours into, hopefully, a high margin operational cost recovery engine. So we don’t necessarily want to interrupt or disrupt the museum space while the museum is open and doing its mission.

But there are plenty of times where the museum space is not open, and it could otherwise be put to work. So examples here, the Met, they have Great Hall and the Temple of Dindar. They have some pretty high tier options for renting it out for private events.

Reportedly, the fees often exceed a hundred thousand for an at night event. So you can see pretty pricey, but also for a premium, it’s happening in off hours.

The other example, which is one of my favorites, is the Field Museum.

They rent out Stanley Field Hall, and it is specifically for date night. So or I view it as date night. There could probably be company events too. But dining under Maximo, which is the titanosaur hanging from the ceiling, And they have a a tiered package model reportedly where you can engage at different levels to how again, hire that space out for use in the off hours.

Next up, we’ve got the commercial film, television, and media shoots. So the strategy here is shifting, and using temporary gallery closures, so perhaps in between exhibition runs, and turning it into, again, a high margin media licensing, revenue generator.

Examples here, the Louvre, they reportedly leased their facility to Beyonce and Jay Z for their music video, and they regularly host major Hollywood, productions and and film creation there.

And then we also have the American Museum of Natural History in New York. They have a dedicated internal media production licensing office. So they’ve actually developed their own in house team of experts to promote and manage these very specific types of partnerships and are able to handle a high volume of commercial requests. So for all museums, this may not be a high volume area, but certainly something to keep in mind, especially if your spaces are unique or particularly historical. They can be, very much put to use in those off hours.

Then the the next up and thinking about the the co ecosystem of sharing space, having culinary coworking or incubator leases. The strategy here is to transform any sort of surplus space, a space not already being used by the museum for museum mission stuff, turning that square footage over into instead something that can be reliable, and season insulated monthly cash flow. So, for museums, one of the major revenue streams is the attendance and and physical foot traffic through the museum, which has a seasonality to it, typically. And so this particular, form of rent for new generation is not event based, and it is not seasonally based. It is everyday and ongoing.

Examples here, SFMOMA, so MOMA over in San Francisco, they lease, their ground floor, so high foot traffic as well as the rooftop access to coffee roasters and chefs. And at one point, they even hosted a Michelin Star chefs, so it was a very popular restaurant on the ground, ground floor area.

Over CAC New Orleans, they developed what they call the shop. And for that one, it’s artist filled coworking space, so adjacent sort of mission here and and theme. But having it be sort of an anchoring creative space and for creative professionals to come in the museum walls, create their own artwork, and, again, in a space that’s not typically being used by the museum for exhibitions.

And last example, the new New Museum. They founded New Incorporated, so I actually founded a a business arm, and they share the workspace and professional incubator built directly into the museum real estate. So different and separate from the museum, but influences and inspiration from as well as sharing that space.

Alright. So things to keep in mind. The challenges here when we’re thinking about opening up and sharing our museum space, especially in these more creative and entrepreneurial ways. First and foremost, any revenue that is earned by the museum that is not necessarily directly within that nonprofit, specifically for the IRS, mission statement, you could be generating revenue that is then subject to UBIT or, unrelated business income tax. So there could be different tax law federally, of course, but may even have state. So, again, work with your financial professionals and counsel in this regard to make sure that you are fully aware of the costs that can be incurred bringing this revenue in.

Other things to keep in mind, preservation. So conducting preservation reviews of any potential idea, especially if you are, wanting to test out and explore the strategies where thing, events and people are being introduced into an active museum exhibition space or an active collection space.

Want to make sure, of course, first and foremost, that all artwork or artifacts are protected and preserved and are not being at risk when we’re inviting these different activities to occur within our walls.

And third, of course, keeping in mind that mission and mandate. Now, again, thinking about the museo preneur philosophy and that balance piece, these revenue generation items don’t necessarily need to be a hundred percent in alignment with our mission. The important thing is that the financial piece is helping support the museum mission through financial security, but we need to make sure we have that balance piece where it is not impacting the museum ability to deliver on its mission, and it’s not jeopardizing the collection.

Alright. Next up, paid content as an entrepreneurial model. There are four flavors here. We’re gonna talk about paid digital video subscriptions and thinking about on demand platforms.

We’ll talk about tiered virtual memberships and digital clubs. We’ll take a look at premium interactive experiences and virtual cameos, and then, of course, fee based virtual courses and, academics or academies.

And these are particularly interesting because, of course, they’ve been evolving since essentially YouTube became online, but really evolved and became sophisticated with the onset of the pandemic for context. So, of course, we are all forced to move into the virtual and online spaces for at least several months, if not a year or so. And some really great, museum specific examples of these business models have come up.

So first step, paid digital video subscriptions and on demand platforms. The strategy here is to move from the one off or the free digital uploads. So just up you know, uploading something to Facebook or to YouTube and moving it instead to something that is structured, has a cadence, something that can be subscription based where you can offer premium packages. So, for example, maybe some content is free as feeder content, but there can be more premium, fuller, more professional perhaps, content available to those who are officially subscribed.

Examples here, the Tank Museum in the United Kingdom, they offer a tiered Patreon model. And for folks that don’t know, Patreon is an online entity that helps mini creators help, facilitate, gather, and manage their patrons to help provide and facilitate these sort of membership models. So Patreon is a big one. This museum is using Patreon paired with their YouTube channel to convert the global fans that they have amassed since they launched into, ongoing patronage and therefore, introducing and maintaining recurring revenue stream. So it’s an excellent model, especially when thinking about how to manage patrons and how to offer that premium subscription model.

Another example, also from the UK, the Birmingham Museum Trust. They launched the Birmingham Museum on Demand, channel concept, and it’s for, in this case, twenty pounds a month for their subscription. And for their particular channel, they’re delivering timed and exclusive curatorial content. So moving beyond perhaps the fun, like, behind the scenes or the the lighthearted, museum snapshots and into some pretty specific and deeply knowledgeable content that would be of interest to your patrons.

Alright. Tiered virtual memberships and digital clubs.

Strategy here is taking that institutional value, away from strictly tying it to that physical visitation. So, again, thinking about when we were closed as museums, forced closures, and really needing to move away and better balance or embrace along with that physical visitation, the concept of that digital visitation, and our global audience.

So we’re hoping to decouple that a little bit to encourage that balance of the the nonphysical aspects and capturing those nonlocal supporters.

Examples here, National Steinbeck Center, developed a special thirty dollar annual virtual tier that provides remote access to their archive and events. So not a premium subscription channel. They’re not necessarily, creating content specifically for them, but they’re using assets they already have and that are already passively available to grant deeper access into their archive collection in this case and to grant access to events that would otherwise be in person and ticketed but available online to these patrons who are already paying this annual fee.

Second example, Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh. They have locked their high value lecture series, the concept of live webinars, and their panels behind digital only firewall. So, again, taking that sort of events aspect that would typically be ticketed and introducing it into this online platform where you’re not limited by the geographic, the approximate patrons that you have, but instead your global audience.

Okay. Thinking about premium interactive experiences and virtual cameos, this is one of the the fun ones in my brain at least.

This is shifting from the the static pre prepared, prerecorded sort of media to unscripted, perhaps intentional versus improvisational, but unscripted and more personalized exclusive by of access. This can be fun, especially for audiences that want that more active engagement or participation. And some fun examples here, Elmwood Park Zoo has a high margin revenue stream that they have built based on, using the Zoom account and having animal meet and greets for their virtual patrons. So creating these, cameos, essentially, in this case, cameos of their of their zoo, creatures and having that be a wonderful, and unscripted form of engagement.

And, of course, Luth Museum, they have, upgraded standard spatial scanning and with our collections and in their space, and they’ve introduced premium paid interactive tours with live curatorial guides. So for many museums, we may have the ability to sort of virtually tour a museum. Some museums even have the ability to virtually tour in a three d scan sort of way. This is sort of the next level yet again, both in terms of technology, but as well as delivering high value content, in this case, the introduction of live curatorial guides through these spaces, really sort of a a next level in terms of that value with that technology piece.

And last step, thinking about, paid content, the fee based virtual courses, and the academies, the strategy here evolving from the marketing driven, like, webinar route into something that is more perhaps rigorous academically or certainly more, intentional and high value again in that sort of content and knowledge aspect, leading into creating curriculum and having fee based curriculum available.

Examples here, James Madison’s Montepilier monetizes their research stuff in this case, through multi week virtual courses.

Nonmembers pay a flat fee for access to these, and that helps to drive revenue and encourages folks to get into full membership, which can, of course, offer a reduced rate or maybe even free access, to these, particular sessions.

And Asheville Art Museum, they have successfully priced their virtual adult studio classes, which reportedly, the last time it was reported on seventy five to eighty five dollars a class. And that helps to provide the educational, like, in-depth sort of content, again, high value content and knowledge here and with a premium pricing available. So overall, sort of seeing us move as the museums as a whole from this sort of concept of free, informal, and maybe sort of lower knowledge value content into something more intentional, something that takes in-depth knowledge and skill, and something that’s very purposefully and professionally built.

Things to keep in mind, challenges, etcetera, for paid content. There are some operational blind spots to consider here if you are new.

For these, paid content, what we’re getting from it is that it needs to be a professional endeavor. We are moving from informal to formal. We are delivering more high value content. We’re using higher value technology.

And so there’s gonna be production costs. There’s production costs for the before in the planning, the execution, and even after. There’s going to be platform fees. There’s going to be staff time, which, of course, has inherent cost, and other items, like the equipment, for example, for filming.

Maybe you wanna get more professionalized filming equipment. All of that does have a cost, that is something to be aware of, especially since this is intended to be a revenue generating activity.

Next thing to be aware of, the free content friction. So for many of us as human beings, there’s so much content out there that is available for free and at our fingertips. There is a reason why it is free in terms of very low effort content being out there. But because we have gotten used to and do have access to it, sometimes there’s that friction piece to, well, why would I pay for this? And museums will need to be aware of that challenge and actively engage in it to explain and demonstrate why this is paid content.

And then, platforms that you may use and and keeping in mind with the production costs here, but specifically calling out platform fees, any sort of professional platform you use, especially if you’re using it to the extent of having it be revenue generating, you are going to incur platform fee, subscription fees or cuts from the revenue you generate. So very important to keep in mind again because it can be a hidden cost for folks who have not engaged in it before.

Alright. Creative peer partnerships. So, starting to bring us home now. We are gonna talk about shared equity acquisition with our fellow museums. We’re gonna talk about international brand licensing, which is, an interesting and at least newer to me sort of model. And then we’re gonna talk about, what is perhaps the most common among museums is that reciprocal, b two c, which is business to consumer model.

Okay. First up, shared equity acquisition. The strategy here is to bring high value collections, that can be secured collectively, so with our partners, freeing up that liquid capital we would have otherwise spent all of in trying to acquire particular items or artifacts. Of course, in sharing, the joint acquisition of particular items has its challenges, of course.

What it does have is quite a bit of benefits as well, financially speaking, at least. One, the any sort of joint acquisition for artwork or artifacts is automatically reduced, most likely by fifty percent, meaning we can spend money in other operational areas, and hopefully continue funding at a level for our collections maintenance.

Examples here, the National Gallery and National Galleries of Scotland, they co perch co purchased Titian’s masterpieces. I believe it was two of them for tens of millions of pounds, over there, and they split the cost and alternate custody of those artworks, among the two partners there, which helped to protect the impact on the endowments that went into purchasing those pieces because, of course, partition masterpieces for millions of dollars, very expensive, even for well funded museums. So, great partnership example there.

Another example, Guggenheim New York with MCA Chicago. They, pioneered a joint framework where they co own a massive contemporary, collection, which helps for them cut individual capital expenditures. So, again, you’re not the only one spending all this money on these particular artworks or collections and splitting the the cost of that while also then splitting the custody and who uses the collections and when.

Alright. Into international brand licensing. This is the the newer fun one for my brain. The strategy here is for those elite cultural brands, having them be treated like a franchise, essentially, in entrepreneurial terms, using that franchise framework to help generate more long term capital, ongoing, revenue for funds that can then go to those more domestic operations.

So main example here is the Louvre the Louvre Museum, and working with the, essentially, the museum agencies of France. And they partnered with the United Arab Emirates, UAE, to establish the Louvre Abu Dhabi. So using the Louvre, the name, the prestige, the cultural cache, and granting the license and use of that to essentially an international and satellite location with, their Louvre Abu Dhabi. And this is creating, for this particular agreement, reportedly, multi decade licensing agreement, and consulting agreement too. So, like, making sure that museum expertise, is is exchanged in this particular partnership as well, which I think is a nice add to that mission alignment. But very interesting, and we’ll be very curious to see if other museums can replicate this particular pattern.

Okay. Reciprocal b two c model, business to consumer. This one will perhaps be the most familiar for museum folks. Strategy here is regional museums typically can increase their pricing power for their membership tiers without having to spend money directly in that exchange. And the way they’re doing that is creating reciprocal membership sharing among their fellow museums. So when someone buys a membership to your museum, they are also buying a membership to other museums, in most instances in the region, meaning that you can charge a bit more for it, because there’s access to more museums.

Example here, there’s a couple, like, specific reciprocal organizations set up. There’s the Museum Alliance Reciprocal Program or MARP and the North American Reciprocal Museum Association, NARM.

And they have each built commercial reciprocal agreements where the museums involved have a premium membership, price, where at one regional museum, they automatically gain the VIP access and, other perks at that particular tier or discounts to their sort of ally or partner museums. So for this particular one, there’s already some great structure in place and even organizations where it’s their primary purpose to help facilitate these types of agreements. So if your museum is not already, doing or entertaining in this particular area, it may be something to look into.

Okay. So key, risks and realities to consider for this one, key challenges. There can be logistical complexity and risk, especially when we think about the, the strategy where you’re licensing and lending your institution’s name and cultural cachet essentially to another museum. Inherent risk there, of course, and, of course, just the logistics of any of these particular strategies and the agreements that need to be in place. So definitely exercise and use both your legal and financial councils to help inform these.

Keeping in mind, there can be some brand dilution. Anytime there’s partnerships involved, the those who you associate with reputations can rub off on one another, and wanting to make sure that, we are our good and responsible partners and vice versa.

And then finally, the governance and intellectual property friction, particularly when we’re thinking about lending or licensing, imagery, names, collections, etcetera, and especially when doing so perhaps across state lines or even international lines, quite a bit of, laws and things to be aware of and and intellectual properties case, things to make sure we’re protecting to the extent that makes sense.

Alright. So that was quite a bit of, different avenues to explore museopreneurship.

In conclusion, we covered and defined the museopreneur and the origins of how it sort of has come up for our industry and evolved. We then got into the main areas of entrepreneurship that we’re seeing in the museum field, sponsorship and brand partnerships, using the museum space beyond and even more innovatively than we have done in the past, paid content elevating it from free and ad hoc to something more premium, and creative peer partnerships. So partnering with fellow museums, but certainly in in more creative and certainly more intensive ways, but that also yield sort of that that high reward aspect for revenue.

A couple articles to check out, especially if you’re interested in exploring this concept more, the museopreneur, how museums are leaping into new business models with entrepreneurial spirit, the Museum Magazine. This is the CACO article, so you’ll be, get to to read it straight from the origin.

And then the other article, how museums are boosting online revenue in twenty twenty four, from Museum Next. This is a nice updated piece. Quite a bit of museopreneur, interest came about in the early twenty twenties with pandemic. And so this article was one of the few I have found of recentness where we are beyond the pandemic now. And so what are these entrepreneurial models looking like, in now context versus in a global pandemic context?

And then we also have related reading, via Lucidea’s Think Clearly blog. If you’ve been following me on this particular series, there’s quite a few, interesting partnership models as well as how to think through different, financial aspects of a museum. So if you want some more of that foundational, knowledge in terms of financial sustainability, we’ve got quite a few posts focused on that in the different revenue streams.

And then we also have further down those creative partnerships, things to think about, and philanthropic future. This is, based on the most recent museum, Trends Watch coverage. So some interesting, food for thought here and foundational knowledge if you’re interested in moving forward.

And then finally, just to highlight the most recent book that Lucidea and I have collaborated on, Weaving a Digital Narrative, Storytelling with Online Collections. This might actually be a great companion piece to our topic today, thinking about online storytelling and specifically creating some of that premium content where it’s the high value knowledge piece. This particular book, can download for free courtesy of Lucidea Press.

And with that, I’ll hand it back over to you, Bradley.

Thank you, Rachael, for the wonderful presentation. And to our audience, if you’d like to learn more about our museum collections management system called Argus, please feel free to visit our website or reach out to us at sales@lucidea.com, and we’d be happy to have a chat with you.

If you have any questions on any of our software or our company, our contact details are listed on the screen, and please stay tuned for more webinars and content related to this series.

On behalf of the Lucidea team, I thank you all for attending today, and until next time. Thank you.