Survey Warns One-Third Of Museums May Not Survive COVID-19 Pandemic

attends the Annenberg Space for Photography Press preview on March 19, 2009 in Los Angeles, California.
LOS ANGELES, CA - MARCH 19: An exterior view of the Annenberg Space for Photography March 19, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Valerie Macon/Getty Images)
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

The American Alliance of Museums, an organization that solely represents all museums across the country, issued a dire warning on Wednesday that one-third of museums risk permanently closing as funding sources dwindle as a result of the COVID-19 closures.

In a survey conducted among 750 museum directors last month and released on Wednesday, 33% of them responded that there was a “significant risk” of closing permanently by next fall or that they “didn’t know” whether their institutions would survive the pandemic.

Laura Lott, President & CEO of AAM, cited how museum revenue “disappeared overnight” due to COVID-19 closures and warned that “sadly, many will never recover” in a press release on Wednesday.

“Even with a partial reopening in the coming months, costs will outweigh revenue and there is no financial safety net for many museums,” Lott wrote. “The distress museums are facing will not happen in isolation. The permanent closure of 12,000 museums will be devastating for communities, economies, education systems, and our cultural history.”

In New York City, the home to a number of world-class museums, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Met Breur announced it won’t reopen. The Met Museum’s main branch plans to reopen five days a week, with social distancing measures in place, in late August. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, however, has not yet given museums the green light to reopen.

The AAM survey also found that 87% of museums have only 12 months or less of financial operating reserves left, with 56% having less than six months left that would allow the institutions to continue operations.

Lott also pointed out that museums nationwide are hoping to gain new funding from federal, state and local governments to help recover from financial losses.

“On average, museums receive less than 25% of their total funding from government sources,” Lott wrote. “Money from public and private sources is crucial to saving the museum field.”

Latest News

Notable Replies

  1. Damn shame. My first communications job was with a regional museum and they struggle to keep the lights on in a good year.

  2. Just another facet of the GOP valiant efforts to crush arts, culture, and history.

  3. It is time to reduce and NOT increase (by $2 Billion) the military budget and redirect those tax dollars to healthcare, pandemic aid, social works/hunger insecurity, voting/election security and the arts!

    After all, in the Trump Mal-Admin, they are being displayed in Trump’s parade and used as Trump’s thugs against Americans to suppress their constitutional rights so that Trump & cronies can stay in power and bilk the government!

    https://www.newsweek.com/congress-debates-military-budget-us-spend-more-next-10-countries-combined-1519753

  4. Museums are but one of dozens upon dozens of entities that will forever be culled from our lives due to this pandemic.

  5. Given how many billions Bezos is said to have made due to the pandemic, I suggest there’s something he could do with a fraction of it.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

13 more replies

Participants

Avatar for discobot Avatar for bdtex Avatar for paulw Avatar for daveminnj Avatar for ncsteve Avatar for mattinpa Avatar for pyanfar Avatar for steviedee111 Avatar for hagarwood Avatar for shorebreeze Avatar for tena Avatar for bankerpup Avatar for jte Avatar for maximus Avatar for kerf

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: