San Luis Obispo Museum of Art

The Museum of Art needs to continue to deepen the participation of its present audience as it builds new connections with a younger audience—especially young families in the area. To be successful, it is imperative that the Museum utilize more effective marketing strategies to engage the 16,000 Cal Poly University students and community college students on two campuses nearby. Studying audience interests and creating visitor-centric responses to their needs is part of the Museum’s goal for inspiring fully engaged visitors. In addition, the Museum’s leadership is seeking new opportunities to collaborate with local organizations and businesses whose constituents may not be familiar with the Museum’s programs. Sharing audiences during such collaborations has proven to be an easy and effective way to introduce the Museum’s programming to the community. Renewing the support of past members is also a goal for the near future.

The primary capacity-building priority of the Museum of Art’s leadership is to stay mission-focused while motivating the existing audience—and inspiring new community members—to become more engaged in the enjoyment and financial support of the organization. At the same time, the board and staff must continue building the Museum’s unrestricted operating reserve. Because there is little flexibility to cut expenses any further, or to generate surpluses from its earned revenue alone, the Museum’s leadership knows it must explore new ways to achieve any fund raising success.
Deepening the engagement of existing and new audiences will lead over time to more memberships and donations. Thoughtful planning and program design are required. Marketing and audience data and analysis tools are needed to achieve these priorities.
An existing revenue stream, co-mingled within event and donation income, consists of business and community sponsorships, both cash and in-kind. The Museum wants to increase this revenue source; it aligns with the Museum’s mission, offering not only financial support but also satellite exhibit and co-marketing opportunities that reach different audience segments.
The Museum’s recently completed marketing plan, funded by the current ARI grant, defined a new brand and strategy for a marketing campaign, and that campaign is just beginning to bear fruit. To achieve maximum involvement by the community, both creatively and financially, this capacity building area requires more audience information and development work. The Museum must gather information from the wider community, evaluate visitor impact of exhibits, study economic data, and analyze data gathered from the new website and database. These activities require staff and docent training in evaluation methods, and, for exhibits, planning that includes techniques for assessing impact of exhibits and marketing efforts. The Museum can maintain a successful marketing campaign after doing some much-needed statistical analysis of the community and learning about successful marketing platforms and trends. This next phase of capacity building is practical, economical and realistic. It will give the Museum of Art’s leadership the analytical tools to create more targeted programming and increase net revenue.

Partnering with community organizations has always been a significant strength of the Museum of Art’s leadership. If there is an arts or civic organization in the county that aspires to advance creativity, beauty, or general community support for the visual arts, the Museum is who they partner with to achieve their goals. The Museum cultivates community involvement by collaborating with a diverse cross-section of businesses and non-profits. Staff and board are active in other arts organizations and community non-profits, and serve on several civic minded committees. The Museum is a founding member of the San Luis Obispo Gallery Association, which promotes San Luis Obispo to California residents as an arts destination. The Museum’s exhibition and education programming can greatly improve its community connectedness by collaborating more fully with the liberal studies and art departments at Cal Poly and the two nearby community colleges. The Museum staff also plans to spearhead the development of a collaborative calendar for arts events with the other major arts organizations in the county, the first step toward fostering a spirit of cooperation and non-competitiveness among local arts groups.

By 2014, the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art will have a clear understanding of its current audience; the adaptability to deepen the cultural participation of that audience; and the accurate financial and community metrics to broaden the Museum’s audience. It will also have a Board and staff trained in their respective financial development roles, and a written development plan that will increase earned and unearned income — leading to financial stability.
Ultimately the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art will have the adaptive capacity to monitor, assess, respond to, and create internal and external changes; the leadership capacity to fulfill the Museum’s mission; the management capacity to use its resources effectively and efficiently; and the technical capacity to implement its programmatic, organizational, and community strategies.
The Museum of Art will then have the sustainability it has strived to achieve.