Museum Funding: Moving up the Creative Economy Scale

The chapter discusses sustainable museum funding activities in the context of post-industrial economies. It explores these activities as driving factors that transform museums in the 21st century into dynamic actors of creative economy. The chapter argues that museums are increasingly adopting various ad hoc innovative funding strategies that enable them to generate self-earned revenue. They do it by (1) leveraging their collection’s assets, (2) integrating into the urban tourism economies, and even (3) monetizing their brands via franchising. The first section demonstrates how museum collections could be employed as economic resources that generate high profits. The following part illustrates the integration of commercial practices of museums into urban creative and tourism economies which bring visitors to the door and ensure sustainable self-earned income. Finally, the chapter explores museum franchising as an effective strategy employed by museums to monetize their cultural assets, such as their brand value. Drawing on this three-dimensional framework, the chapter conceptualizes and illustrates income-generating activities of museums turning them into more autonomous economic actors. Finally, the chapter reveals that contemporary museums in certain cases even converge with for-profit businesses, going far beyond corporate sponsorship to create hybrid forms of museum corporations.

Citation:
Grincheva, Natalia. ''Museum Funding: Moving up the Creative Economy Scale.'' Financial Management in Museums, edited by Yuha Jung, et al., London, Routledge, 2024, pp. 33-50, doi: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003308003.