Private Museums Should Get the Same Support from Governments as Public Museums
Since the pandemic started in March 2020, businesses have faced a serious economic crisis. Even non-profits, such as museums, and especially private museums, took a hard hit. The past few years have been hard for them to survive. According to the American Alliance of Museums’ website, there were 52 museums permanently closed during 2020 and 2021, while in 2019 there were only 3 museums closed. Private museums did not get enough funding as public museums did, because they are not affiliated with governments and cannot depend on funding from public budgets.
Here is an example of a museum that is affiliated with a public entity, namely the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, that did not need to apply for grants and ask for help. Krannert Art Museum, located at 500 East Peabody Drive, Champaign, Illinois, is affiliated with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. According to their Assistant Director for Marketing & Communications Julia Nucci Kelly, the Krannert Art Museum did not apply to any grant programs during the pandemic because they got financial support from the University. “Because the U of I is a state entity and Krannert Art Museum operates here on campus, it's worth noting that the Chancellor explicitly let public engagement units know that we would not responsible for cutting services during the pandemic. In fact, the campus poured new funding streams into our work, from which KAM benefitted: two grants called Broadening Inclusion + Arts CO+RE.” Another museum affiliated with the University is Spurlock Museum, located at 600 S Gregory, Urbana, Illinois. Beth Watkins, the Education and Publications Coordinator at Spurlock Museum, said that “We are lucky to have so much support and guidance from the university, which is of course part of the state of Illinois. Not all cultural organizations are as well supported, and most of them can always use more help, even in the best of times. For example, many museums have laid off visitor-facing staff with no indication that those positions and services will ever be reinstated. Others have closed permanently.”
Just like what Beth Watkins said, they were certainly among the lucky museums to weather the pandemic relatively well with public funding, but not all museums could get enough funding as they do.
The Champaign County History Museum is a volunteer-run and non-profit museum. President T.J. Blakeman said that they did not receive any funding from the government. Due to the pandemic, visitors are not going to the museums like they used to, so the museum lost the income from its souvenir shop. They eventually decided to move their shop online. “We were lucky enough, we owned our own building, we didn't have to pay a mortgage, we had to just pay the basic utilities to keep our business running. So there could be others, certainly that it affected greater than our small museum.”
Indeed, one private museum has closed its doors permanently. The Orpheum Children’s Science Museum is located at 346 N Neil Street, Champaign, Illinois. It is a private museum run by a non-profit corporation called The Discovery Place. The Orpheum Children’s Science Museum has been open for 28 years and permanently closed in June of 2020 due to the pandemic. According to their website, they had received donations and applied to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), but that was not enough. From the FederalPay organization website, the Orpheum Children’s Science Museum received $19,700 on April 8, 2020 from PPP, and the museum spent $14,775 on payroll and $4,925 on rent. Sadly, these grants did not manage to help the Orpheum Children’s Science Museum make it through the pandemic.
The Krannert Art Museum and Spurlock Museum are free for everyone who attends, and they did not have a souvenir shop to get income from visitors. However, Orpheum Children’s Science Museum charged 5 dollars for adults and children who are 2 years old or older for admission, and they also had field trips and summer camps for kids, which required fees for participation. However, in the end, it was them who did not get enough funding to survive, which clearly indicates that the governments should have done more to support our museums, treasures of our culture.
