An editorial by Ruth McCambridge of the Nonprofit Quarterly about the Lewis Museum in Baltimore has me thinking about current nonprofit struggles. The editorial highlights museums and other cultural institutions that are being particularly hard hit. Not only are they struggling to achieve fundraising goals, they are failing to meet attendance goals.
It is the attendance goal failure that has my particular attention. Putting aside my own ideologic and philosophic principles and desires to see some of these insitutions survive, they can not because, in simple terms: they lack demand. Demand or market demand is the driver that determines the prospective success of an organization/business. In revenue generating planning, understanding the market needs, wants and desires as well as the competition should by all standards drive the projections for whether a venture will succeed.
I pose that these institutions by all rights should indeed generate interest and should have strong demand. But, as evidence by attendance records, they do not. This does not mean these are bad institutions with little to offer. It does mean however that either competition is pulling away prospective buyers/participants or something about the institution is moving prospective "buyers" away: either the offering (what's on the "shelves"), pricing (free = little or no value OR the price is TOO high); location; or the message about what's on the shelves are individually or collectively not bringing-in patrons.
Should these institutions then just fade away as something else is likely taking their place (noting that no choice is a choice as well)? Perhaps but in examining why an institution is failing, the lack of subsidy is not the variable that accounts for lack of patrons.
Comments