Museum finances: challenges beyond economic crises

Economic crises directly and indirectly affect the financial health of museums. Despite this reality, however, analysing the impact of the economic cycle on museums has not generated much interest among researchers; to date published studies on the recent financial crisis and its reverberations in the museum sector are rare. This article, after acknowledging this lack of research, discusses specific challenges facing the financial management of museums and identifies the need for additional empirical research on the problems facing these institutions. Based on the author’s findings in published research and accumulated field experience, the article identifies income originating from various museum stakeholders and examines the vulnerability of these funds to fluctuations in the economy. While most museum income streams are not found to be particularly vulnerable to economic fluctuation, structural challenges for the financial management of museums do exist beyond economic crises. Therefore, the management of longterm, stakeholder relationships is a more reliable way of achieving financial stability than the implementation of short-term strategies to counter the effects of a recession and financial crises.