Millennials and Museums: Strategies for short-term engagement and long-term success
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Delivered at the New England Museum Associations conference in Boston/Cambridge, MA on Friday, November 21.
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Millennials and Museums: Strategies for short-term engagement and long-term success
- 1. Millennials: Strategies for Short Term Engagement and Long Term Success Will Cary Portland Museum of Art NEMA Conference, Boston MA Friday, November 21, 2014 Twitter: @willcary
- 2. Setting the Table Norman Rockwell, Freedom From Want (1943). Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, MA
- 3. Setting the Table • Museums face challenges with every demographic • Millennials are younger, but they’re still museum visitors and donors • Such a big topic, so let’s narrow it down • Focus today on growing membership, creating new donors and providing leadership opportunities • Not an overview, but what has worked for us in Portland
- 4. Common Ground & Assumptions • Resources at your museum are limited • Membership is the best way to achieve meaningful engagement in the long term • Your institution is participating in the larger paradigm shift that is occurring in museums everywhere • You have a venue, young people in the area, young person(s) on staff • Really talking about everyone from 21-40, for our purposes
- 5. Number of Millennials demands our attention
- 6. It’s tempting to assign traits to 80 million people…
- 7. But the media isn’t always helpful…
- 8. Let’s look at some relevant data instead Source: CultureTrack 2014: Focus on Boston ©LaPlaca Cohen|Campbell Rinker
- 9. Millennials are visiting Boston museums Source: CultureTrack 2014: Focus on Boston ©LaPlaca Cohen|Campbell Rinker
- 10. PMA’s Success with Millennials • 10 years of membership programming for this demographic through Contemporaries • Nearly 300 memberships (500+ people) • $100,000+ in projected revenue 2014-2015 • 32 have given gifts of $1,000+ • Completed two fundraising campaigns beyond membership (2012 and 2014) • Group has sponsored exhibitions and programs • 6 current or former Contemporaries are Trustees • 6 Contemporaries also sit on Trustee subcommittees
- 11. Keys to PMA’s success with Millennials • 1. Structure and Programming • 2. People • 3. Resources and fundraising Contemporaries Midsummer Party (July 2014)
- 12. 1st Key to Success: Structure • Create overlapping program opportunities across the museum for Millennials • Contemporaries membership history • Membership pricing and benefits • Contemporaries programming strategy
- 13. PMA Millennial Programming Strategy Free Friday Third Thursday Contemporarie s PMA Leadership Goal: Make it natural and easy to deepen engagement
- 14. PMA Millennial Programming Strategy • Free Fridays: Because you live here • Third Thursdays: Because you know people going • The Contemporaries: Because you want to be a part of something • Committees and Leadership: Because the PMA is your museum June 2014 PMA Third Thursdays
- 15. PMA Free Fridays: A Portland Institution •Beginning in 1996, PMA went free from 5-9 p.m. on Fridays •Big crowds especially around First Friday Art Walk •Light programming for families and artists •Accounts for 20-30% of annual attendance •Lots of first-time and one-time visitors
- 16. PMA Third Thursdays •Launched in June 2014 •Sponsored by the Contemporaries •Contemporaries hosts drive traffic •Live music and beer tasting •Art making activities and talks/tours •Aimed at professionals and PMA members in downtown Portland •Still a work in
- 17. Contemporaries Snapshot • Founded in 2005 by a group of committed donors • Has grown significantly: Nearly 300 memberships (more than 500 people) • Leadership: Third Thurs, Event, Steering, Board of Trustees • Focus areas: – Integrating Contemporaries into every PMA initiative – Growing a culture of philanthropy – Finding the best volunteer leaders, giving them opportunities to succeed
- 18. Contemporaries Benefits and Pricing • Contemporaries Single ($200) Dual ($300) • All events are free with membership except Winter Bash • Keeping dues accessible is a priority • Targeted fundraising to capture excess capacity
- 19. Contemporaries Programming Formula • 6-8 total events per year • 2 large social events (one winter, one summer) • 2 small, art focused events (“After Hours”) • 1-2 off-site event with artists • 1-2 collaboration with another cultural/community organization
- 20. Large events have a specific goal: Bring in new members and develop new leadership
- 21. Balance big events with smaller opportunities for deep engagement with art, staff, and fellow members Keep a close eye on who shows up!
- 22. Off-site events grow cultural supporters while enhancing the museum’s reputation as a willing partner As a benefit, these events add value because they are still Contemporaries events
- 23. A word on aging out and moving up •Age limits are hard, but they a key component to structure •Institutional decision around age limit and enforcement •20-somethings won’t speak up, they just won’t come •Can’t fill in the bottom without doing something at the top •Young patrons groups cannot exist in a vacuum •“Bridge to Somewhere” Committee •Ongoing challenge, would love to hear your ideas
- 24. 2nd Key to Success: People
- 25. Key to Success: People • Find your champions (ideally they come to you!) • Create opportunities for increasing responsibility • Staff assigned are critical for sustained growth
- 26. This is our Event Committee…
- 27. Actually, this is our Event Committee FUNraisers Go-Getters Fundraisers Friendraisers Diversifiers
- 28. PMA Event Committee Strategy • FUNraisers – Event planning/design/volunteer experience • Friendraisers – Well-connected; can deliver pockets of people • Fundraisers – Have capacity and/or willing to solicit • Go-Getters – Have time and elbow grease • Diversifiers – Hardest in Maine, yet often most important
- 29. Millennial Event Committee Strategy • Respect their time – Start/end meetings on time, get on calendars early • Give them real work – They’ll know if you don’t. Respect their abilities. • Help leaders lead – Prep committee chairs for success • Let them behind the curtain – “Here’s how things work internally. You can help…” • Provide opportunities for “non-work” fun – Happy hour goes a long way to building trust and camaraderie, especially early on
- 30. Contemporaries Steering Committee Strategy • No more than 10 people (ideally 7-9) • Recruit new members via Event Committee • Co-Chair model works for us • 3 year-commitment, with some flexibility • Each have specific skills, but ideally have at least 4 of 5 Event Committee traits • Monthly meetings set in stone
- 31. 3rd Key to Success: Resources and Fundraising • As group grows, remember that membership is the most important factor for success • Just as hard as getting a new member: getting first gift beyond membership • Be strategic in use of volunteers
- 32. Case Study: Contemporaries donate $32,000 to Winslow Homer Studio Campaign
- 33. Contemporaries and Winslow Homer Studio Campaign Lessons Learned (2011-2012) •Participation drives excitement and revenue •Steering Committee can’t sell something that seems abstract and unfamiliar •Focus gifts around events because Contemporaries know events •Big gifts come to opening gala •“Your gift is your event ticket” •Take advantage of unique opportunities
- 34. Case Study: Contemporaries give $25,000 for Acquisition
- 35. Case Study: Indiegogo Campaign
- 36. Crowdfunding lessons • Let leadership sell it, and bring it outside • Make it easy to achieve and to understand • Run it like a campaign • Use email strategically • Act as if the entire group donated Photo via Contemporaries member Meredith Perdue (www.mapandmenu.com)
- 37. Visible project for Trustees to follow
- 38. Millennials at the PMA Surprise Outcomes
- 39. Young donors energize older base Contemporaries & Director’s Circle joint opening: 2013 PMA Biennial
- 40. They are great at repeating the company line
- 41. Traditional fundraising still works wonders • Handwritten notes from Committee members • Solicitations over lunch and coffee • Including a peer on visits
- 42. What short term engagement looks like • Social programming that is accessible • Structure that makes it natural to move closer and deepen engagement • A group of volunteers who are helpful • Some institutional resources allocated to attracting and retaining millennial donors • Ideally a membership program that fits their level of engagement
- 43. What long-term success looks like • A robust and sustainable group of under- 40 members • Committees that are productive and provide leadership opportunities • Successful fundraising beyond membership • Additional internal resources for this group • Integration of Millennials into all museum initiatives and levels of leadership • Proud museum ambassadors who influence and energize other
- 44. Come visit us! Will Cary | wcary@portlandmuseum.org | (207) 699-4909 Twitter: @willcary
Editor's Notes
- Welcome, and thank you for coming. -How many of you work in Development or membership? -How about visitor experience or marketing? -Curatorial? Other? Consultants?
- -Today we’re going to be talking about Millennials, and I thought we’d begin with this lovely and familiar Norman Rockwell painting -Timely given that Thanksgiving is next week, but also because I think it’s important to set the table for such an ambitious topic
- -In some ways, assigning a talk about Millennials is kind of ridiculous. -When I got off the phone with NEMA, I thought “Well, they get to check that box off of their conference planning.” -Go through bullets
- -How many of you work at an institution whose annual budget is $10 million or less? $5M or less? $2M or less? -By paradigm shift, I mean the move from museums being repositories for objects to also becoming community-oriented spaces, whichever form that takes -I’m going to focus on young professionals today, and I’m going to play with the boundaries a little bit so that I’m ignoring the 15 year-old millennials and also including the youngest of the Gen X-ers. I’m doing that because I think that it’s the 21-40 group that most of us talk about internally when we think about a young generation.
- -The sheer number of millennials should be of interest to us. As a field, this generation is important just by the fact that there are so many of them.
- -If the number of Millennials are important, I think what’s less important when we think about museums are the overarching perceptions of Millennials. -While I am appreciative of the NYT for writing articles like this, I don’t really find them useful in thinking about the work we’re actually doing in museums
- -And in some cases, the media just isn’t helpful at all. -In doing research for this talk, I was just struck by how much of what I read online was completely irrelevant to the work we are doing.
- -So let’s focus on what is helpful and relevant. We’re lucky that just this fall, LaPlaca Cohen and Campbell Rinker put out this report that is chock full of great data. -If you haven’t already, I would encourage you to spend some time flipping through it. -The full report is available online and unlike a lot of what you read online, this is actually helpful and relevant. -I want to hammer home what this chart is telling us: Millennials attend more cultural events than all other generations. This is true for Boston, and it’s true nationwide. -This slide and the census slide have already told us more than the New York Times and Time Magazine: There are a lot of Millennials, and they love culture
- -Even more germane to our work, Millennials love art museums in the Boston area! -Not only are Millennials the leading constituency at the ICA and Harvard, but 82% of Millennials surveyed in Boston have visited the MFA in the last year! -Even at the other museums, Millennial visitation is generally in line with visitation from other generations. -Takeaway from these charts is this: Anyone who tells you museums face an uphill battle to get the next generation in the door has not looked at the data.
- -We’re fortunate to have had sustained and growing success with Millennials, and I want to provide that context before I talk about our strategy.
- -Go through these bullets straightforward
- -Strategy is built around social programming, and the idea that it is easy and natural to get more engaged. -The opportunity to move closer is there, but we like our leaders to push it rather than the museum
- -If we look at these programs from the perspective of a Millennial, these are the perceptions we are trying to create
- -Note the cool HASHTAG
- -Contemporaries founding is really important because it was driven by members, not by the museum. -That notion, that the leadership of this group understands the mission and goals of the museum and sets the program based on those goals, is a central component to the success of the Contemporaries.
- -The pricing of this program as a factor in attracting and retaining Millennial members is huge for us.
- -Formula is something that we’ve fine-tuned as a result of having a decade-long track record of events and figuring out what our members like, how we can best achieve our strategic goals, and CRITICALLY thinking about the cost and resources needed to execute an event given our limited staff.
- -These are still the cornerstone of the Contemporaries program because they bring in members and are the most visible. -We don’t throw parties just to throw parties. Parties don’t create loyalty and affinity for an institution, so we do them but we are clear about their purpose. -Note the quote from our event chair, who mentions the importance of the exhibition and the museum when discussing the party.
- -Our “After Hours” programs for Contemporaries are valuable and cost us almost nothing. -As you might suspect, we have a different crowd that comes out for these and we keep a close watch on that. -We have our Steering Committee each try to bring a friend who is a fellow member so we can build the perception that the Contemporaries are not just about parties.
- -Offsite events are a key component to the Contemporaries because they demonstrate that: The PMA is a willing and collaborative cultural partner. This is something that’s been a central focus of our director Mark Bessire since he arrived. These events help create cultural philanthropists in Portland, and that benefits everyone (us, the city, and other cultural orgs) Like the after-hours events, these collaborations take advantage of existing resources so they aren’t as expensive as you might imagine In the last 18 months, we’ve visited artist studios, gone behind the scenes at PortOpera and the Kotzschmar Organ, and done several events around collecting
- -Lastly, when we think about structure it’s important to think about age. -This issue is especially hard when we’ve created loyal and invested members. This email specifically references organizing events in the past.
- -Comes back to how the Contemporaries were founded. They approached us, we didn’t have to force it on them. -Staffing is huge because that person is that person embodies the museum’s internal belief that engaging Millennials is important work. -I am a big fan of giving lots of responsibility to young staff members, so if you have one that seems hungry to do this work I would encourage you to give them that opportunity and coach them to be a success. -Note the photo: This is our Winter Bash Committee, hard at work.
- -This is the photo that gets shown everywhere, but it’s not nearly as important as the photo in the slide before.
- -This might seem a bit far down the rabbit hole, but Committee Composition has been a huge part of our successful engagement with Millennials
- -Respect their time. If you project that their time is important and that the work is important, they FEEL more important. -We need 20 attire ideas for an event pinterest page, we need 10 gift bag options priced out, we need someone to investigate a band to see if they’re the right fit, we need 3 people to drive to this architectural salvage warehouse. In addition, we have membership goals for the Committee that we spell out early on and track at meetings. -Behind the curtain: You don’t have to tell them everything, but help them understand what it takes to pull off an event inside a museum.
- -The reason the event committee strategy is so important is because it is the primary feeder for the Steering Committee -Clear about expectations up front. Nobody gets invited on unless they’ve put in their time and they have chemistry with the rest of the group.
- -Can’t successfully grow a group without growing resources, both internally and on the donor side.
- -Really important to have every membership group donate, but project was complicated and we were under time constraints.
- -Probably the biggest surprise. Initially there was a lot of grumbling about the Contemporaries: -Why do they get so much -They don’t really care about the museum -They don’t contribute enough to merit this attention In the last couple years, that has completely flipped -Big part of it is seeing the burden lifted off their shoulders knowing future generations will take care of the museum after they are gone
- -If leadership does a good job spreading the word, then you get event re-caps that include quotes like these.
- -Works because of the size of Portland. People very often are involved in a variety of activities and groups, and you can learn a lot by meeting in person. -From a development perspective, it’s great practice to begin discussing philanthropy in terms they can understand because they have already been involved.
- Weatherbeaten, 1894. Bequest of Charles Shipman Payson.