OK, so welcome to our museums for all information webinar. My
name is Helen Wechsler, and on behalf of the Institute of
Museum and Library Services, I'm pleased to welcome you to this
webinar about one of our national initiatives, Museums
for All.
You'll hear from three people today. In addition to myself, we
will hear from Brendan Cartwright at the Association of
Children's Museums, who coordinates and manages
everything to do with the Museums for All program and for
a participating museum perspective. We'll also hear
from Tatiana Herrera Schneider, Chief Engagement Officer at the
San Antonio Museum of Art. Thank you guys very much for
participating in this.
To set the stage for more detailed information that we'll
be sharing about the program, I'd like to present just some
general introductory information.
Museums for All is a cooperative venture between the Institute of
Museum and Library Services and the Association of Children's
Museums with the goal of expanding access access to the
nation's museums by offering free or reduced admissions for
EBT card holders. That's the Electronic Benefit Transfer card
that those receiving food assistance get their benefits on
EBT card holders.
Use this card for access to museums and over the past 8 1/2
years of this initiative, which started in 2014, I am Miles has
been working closely with ACM to recruit museums into the into
the program for participation. One of the strengths of this
nationally branded program is name recognition.
Member museums know that they are part of a larger nationwide
effort. Policymakers are becoming familiar with the
program, and visitors who might not otherwise be able to visit
know that museums for all participation means that they
will be welcomed. Another strength is that the access
provided by the program is not limited to certain days or
specific times. Museums for all participants are dedicated to
providing access to everyone during their normal.
Operating hours every day of the week. We began the program with
a pilot for the children's museum community, but since then
participation has been open to all museums around the country.
We're happy by how much the program has grown and
flourished, and there's always room to double, triple,
quadruple the size of participation, and we hope you
will help us do that. So I'm going to hand it over now to
Brendan to present the initiatives, guidelines and
specifics.
Thank you, Helen.
So the goal of Museums for All is to be easy for all museums to
adopt and potentially to adapt as well. We have a set of broad
minimum guidelines that make it an easy to use program ready
out-of-the-box, and those guidelines include offering a
general admission rate of no more than $3 per person for up
to four people when one individual displays a SNAP EBT
card from any state.
This is an easy way to identify a visitor who qualifies as
having a financial need in a minimally intrusive way.
Museums have the freedom to decide what their admission
price will be free, one dollar, $2.00, etcetera, and are only
obligated to offer that price for a basic general admission.
If they're add-on attractions that you're exhibits or your
museums, you're not obligated to include them in your museums for
all offering.
The museums for all rate would be offered during all normal
operating hours though.
As I mentioned, museums can adapt their offerings as well.
They can include WIC or Medicaid or other forms of identification
that they accept for museums for all.
They can include discounts on special exhibits or events, and
some museums choose to offer a discounted membership.
So we've seen some massive success for this program so far.
In its 8 1/2 years, over 1100 museums have begun
participating.
And this includes museums in all 50 states, as well as the
District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands.
We piloted the program in children's museums, but now
every type of museum is represented.
We've got history museums, art museums, zoos, aquariums,
multiple presidential libraries and so on.
Museums in cities and rural areas. Large museums and small.
This one's kind of a leftover slide when we didn't have all 50
states, but here is a visual representation of the states
where the museums participating in museums were. All are located
so very red.
And in case you're wondering how your particular region is doing,
we've got it broken down here. New England does look like it's
lagging a little bit, but there are over 30 sites in New England
that are counted under the single banner of historic New
England as well. So that helps even it up a little bit. Many
states are doing quite well, but California, New York, Florida
and Pennsylvania have the most participants in Ohio and Texas.
Have been growing very rapidly recently as well.
As I mentioned, the Museums for All program was piloted in
children's museums and that's one reason that we see the large
number of children's museums that participate. But we've seen
quite a lot of enthusiasm in history museums and art museums
as well.
Some of these museums are free admission anyway, but choose to
participate to really drive home their commitment to extending
the invitation to every member of their communities.
And as you can see, we've had steady growth over time.
With our latest round of reporting, we're at nearly
7,000,000 visitors that have used the Museums for All program
to visit a museum.
The visitor numbers took a bit of a bump during the COVID
shutdowns and diminished capacities, but people still use
this program.
As you can see, the numbers have rebounded quite well. A similar
program to Museums for All is Blue Star Museums, which some of
you may participate in and that gives free admission to military
members and their families during the summer months.
They're around 2000. Museums that participate in that
program, Museums for All, which runs year round and is aimed at
helping families with financial need, is at more than 50% of
that total. So we're we're excited.
We're looking to catch Blue Star Museums, though.
Phenomenon that we've begun tracking our hub cities or
cities that have three or more museums that participate in
museums for all.
As you can see, many big cities that you might expect like New
York, Houston on the next, actually New York on the next
slide too. But New York, Houston and Chicago are on here. But
there are also places like Greenville, SC, Missoula, Mt and
Springfield, IL.
In a hub city, museums can work together to really strengthen
their museums for all offerings. They can also recruit other
museums to join, or at least demonstrate the benefits of
joining.
And we've seen that in places like Richmond, San Antonio,
which we'll hear from later, Pueblo Co and Grand Rapids.
And we'll talk a little bit more about hub cities later. And also
here's some some first hand accounts.
Here the rest of the hub cities, a lot of the cities that I
mentioned are listed there and this is a little out of date
too. I said that we now have 96 hub cities, but after I made
this slide, we're now up to 97. Portsmouth, NH is net the first
one there. So that's our 39th state with a hub city plus
Washington DC that have you know those that many states with at
least one hub city.
Like I said, it used to be 1 slide, but we had to split the
cities up over 2 slides so that they'd be legible. They got very
tiny legalese style text.
So registering for museums for all is very easy. We have a
dedicated website at www.museumsforall.org with the
number four, and there's a button to register there. The
actual process should take less than 5 minutes, and it's free to
do.
We provide support materials like access to branded
collateral, group site, virtual Hangouts, webinars like these,
and more. We'll also send you a window claim to use at your
site.
There's a searchable map on the website and all the
participating museums are listed there.
That are some of the other resources that we provide
include previous webinars that have been archived, infographics
that you can use on social media, press release templates,
examples of every state EBT card, and staff training
recommendations. We periodically create and add more resources,
so don't be shy and telling us what you'd like to have. We
actually just hired a new training.
And resources specialist. So we're really hoping to, you
know, get more and better resources for you all very soon.
Umm.
And we we have created some resources specifically for those
hub cities that I mentioned, such as sample press releases
and template agendas and slide decks for holding meetings as a
collective.
So now you've seen some of the background of museums for all
and gotten an idea of who's participating and what kind of
support is offered. So now Helen will let you know about why
participating in this program can be valuable to your museum.
Thank you, Brendan. So let's talk about the value of
participating.
There are so many reasons to participate. But most
importantly, it affirms that museums are meant for all
members of the community, and the participating museums are
committed to equitably expanding their community outreach.
What's great is that this effort typically fits easily within
museum's mission, vision, and inclusion plans. Also, Museums
for All is yet another way to increase community access to
your research collections, programs and exhibits, and
reducible barriers.
Additionally, we make it easy for you to as possible to to
join by providing free customizable collateral as
Brendan mentioned, such as press release templates and branding
opportunities to make it even more successful.
Another benefit we're beginning to understand is the power of
participating participation among multiple museums in a
single city. And as Brendan said, we call these huts forming
these hubs that allows museums to market the program jointly
and offer a menu of rich opportunities for families in
their area. Museums and hubs, which can be of course cities,
but also more rural regions, counties and things like that
are working together to build new partnerships with social
service.
Organizations and other community based organizations
and to have a louder and unified voice when approaching municipal
leadership or local funders for support.
So on this slide you'll see a couple of comments from visitors
to participating museums that show the value of the program.
The variety of individuals on food assistance is wide, and
while these quotes illustrate 2 examples, the nature of food
insecurity in this country varies from one community to the
next. Museums in this program serves people who may have
experienced changes in their life.
Remember the pandemic, either going on food assistance during
hard times or coming off it when things get better. But be sure
that all those served through museums for all will remember
that museums were there for them when they needed the most.
So now, way better than quotes, reading quotes. We have for you
a real live museum for all Participate participant. So now
I'll turn it over to Tatiana Herrera Schneider of the San
Antonio Museum of Art to talk about the museum's experience
with the program. Great. Thank you so much, Helen. I'm
delighted to be speaking about why Sam is participating in
museums for all.
A little bit about us as an institution. Next slide.
We are housed in the original Lone Star Brewery on that famous
San Antonio River Walk in Texas. We are an encyclopedic museum.
We actually opened in 1981 and annually we're welcoming about
130,000 visitors, give or take. About 60% of our visitors are
local and about 40% of them fit within that tourism or tourist
category.
So when we talk about why we participate in museums for all,
it's important to also look at the landscape in San Antonio.
It's considered to be a city of working poor. It's the 7th
largest city in the United States, but it also ranks number
one of the top 25 most populated metropolitan areas of, you know,
people living in poverty. It's also one of the most
economically segregated cities in the United States.
About 130,000 households currently within Bear County
receive SNAP benefits and over 85% of our students are
economically disadvantaged. The flip side of that coin is our
neighborhood, which is adjacent to downtown, is exploding and
it's getting actually a lot of national coverage with the
amount of growth that it's experiencing. But with that
being said, you know, neighborhoods adjacent to us and
within our zip codes are some of the most underserved communities
and neighborhoods in our city.
Next slide. So why do we participate in museums for all
you know with that being said, accessibility is a huge
conversation as I'm sure it is for many of you and has been a
conversation for many years. You know for us it's really
important to broaden our visitor base and reach those underserved
communities, specifically museums for all you know
addresses, you know some major barriers for us cost and
accessibility, you know it's it's other piece of our pie.
Currently we have free hours 2 * a week every Sunday and Tuesday
for Bear County residents, and we're also free for those 12 and
under always. And one of our big goals is to aim to to serve
multigenerational family units. So this is of a piece of how
we're addressing some of those costs and accessibility issues.
Because you know, as Helen mentioned earlier, an individual
can come at any time, it doesn't necessarily have to fit within
our our free hours.
They can come when it suits them or when it fits within their
schedule.
Specific to SAMA, we adopted the program in January of 2020 and
had grand plans for a press conference that marched with our
mayor and several other institutions. As Brendan
mentioned, we are considered to be a hub city. We have a $3
ticket price and for us it does include special exhibitions. We
do sell our tickets online and in person, and as of January of
2020, we've served.
Almost 5000 individuals, you know when we talk about it also
it's important to address this is of a piece of that pie that
is helpful for when you're applying for grants or talking
with funders about how you are reaching different communities.
It's helpful to mention but there's also that human
component you know the quotes that were just shown. But for
us, my visitor services manager just told me a couple weeks ago
there was actually a family that came and celebrated one of their
family members Quinceanera here at the museum and and use the
SNAP benefits.
For admission. So, you know, there's that, that wonderful
component it's, you know, the human element as well.
Next slide.
So just a couple of other small noise notes, I think it's really
helpful to join forces with other institutions for greater
impact and awareness. You know when you come together it really
can amplify your message. And then I would also suggest if
your city or region has you know SNAP benefits available via
public transportation, our best system VIA does offer SNAP
discounts. So you know continuing that conversation,
transportation obviously is another one of those barriers.
So if you can make that connection of how they can use
the SNAP benefits both to get to your destination, that's always
helpful And and for us it's been really easy, you know we've it's
been really simple. The reporting is takes minimal
amount of times and there's lots of resources available to you
when you you launch your program. But you know certainly
if you have questions or if you want to talk further and
specifically I'm always happy to put you in touch with our
visitor services team or answer any questions as I know.
Museums for All team is a great resource to ask questions as
well. So with that being said, thank you so much for your time.
OK. Yeah. Thank you, Tatiana.
So following that with the riveting topic of COVID, you
know, as you all well know, museums were affected very
greatly by COVID-19. Then you know even now some museums are
still operating at reduced capacity or have at least seen
staffing reductions as part of it, but.
And something of a surprise, we still saw about 8 museums a
month, continued to register for museums for all, even if they
were closed at the time during the height of the pandemic.
We increased the number of participating museums during
that main period of the pandemic by over 400.
And it proves the continuing necessity of the programs
mission. So you know, unfortunately it has been the
case that some of the museums that were participating in
museums for all have had to close permanently. But you know,
with one exception, every other museum has kept their commitment
to offering museums for all rates to its visitors. And the
one museum that stopped eventually started offering
museums for all rates again.
And in fact, a couple compensated for their reduced
capacities by offering their museums for all rates to every
visitor.
But yeah, the fact that you know, during this time of of
extreme hardship.
Everybody chose to keep. It really speaks volumes to mean
anyway.
There were operational changes that were made during the
pandemic and to ensure reduced capacities most museums require
guests to buy their tickets online or at least to pre
register and many have kept this system or something like it in
place, you know. Tatiana mentioned that they sell their
tickets both in person and online. It's a bit of a
challenge to museums for all visitors who merely had to show
their snap EBT cards at the admissions desk before.
So you know, when you're building out these new admission
systems, it's very important to keep in mind how your museum is
still going to accommodate museums for all visitors. Will
you have an option at that ticket price on the menu?
Will folks have to present their snappy WVT card in person when
they show up?
Will you just direct museums for all visitors to buy tickets in
person? Yeah, there's no right answer to this, but whatever
your museum chooses, it should be explicit and easy to follow
on your website so folks know how to get their tickets.
And when you're allotting the tickets by time, make sure that
there are enough for museums for all visitors. So on average,
about 3% of the museum's attendance is coming from
museums for all visitors. That does vary a little bit by type
of museum. It's a bit higher for children's museums, for
instance, and, you know, lower for art museums. Sorry, Tatiana.
You guys are doing well anyway.
One other thing that museums did during the pandemic, while they
were closed or unable to welcome as many guests as they'd like,
was to really increase their community outreach. And whether
that's offering virtual museum tours and activities or
distributing STEM kits to schools, the museums really
embraced their roles as community pillars and made these
active overtures towards their communities. And at its core,
that's what museums For All is all about.
It's extending that active invitation to everyone, making
sure they know that the museum is for them and that it wants
them there.
And.
Museums recognize that access and inclusivity are important
bedrock organizational values, and Museums for All is one way
to help with Dai efforts.
So an organization's commitment to inclusivity usually extends
beyond just museums for all, and in fact, museums for all works
best when it's part of a suite of offerings. Again, Tatiana
mentioned that they have their free days for the county
residents as well.
And you know, many museums offer some sort of, you know, monthly
free day or at least reduced admission for seniors, children,
perhaps educators or military.
You know.
Umm.
Some even have free memberships that can be checked out of the
library by anyone with a library card.
And all of those are wonderful, and museums for all supplements
them rather than taking the place of any of them.
And while the only requirement to participate in museums for
all is to accept SNAP EBT cards, I mentioned earlier that several
of the participants do also accept WIC. Some accept Medicaid
as well. The Madison Children's Museum has 21 different
identifications that it will accept for their $1.00 admission
fee. You don't need to go that far, but if you want to, you are
empowered to do it.
About 10% of the participating museums also offer some sort of
reduced membership program as well. So they're taking that
next step of getting people in the door on daily admissions and
then turning them into members with more solid museum going
habits.
Some of them are also using the opportunity to catch visitors
that museums for all might be letting fall through the cracks.
At the Omaha Children's Museum, for instance, they're expanding
their reduced memberships to include families they qualified
for reduced school lunch, rather than just the free school lunch
program. And there are families that might just exceed the
threshold of qualifying for food assistance, but still could find
that visiting a museum could be cost prohibitive.
So these museums are stepping up and supplementing museums for
all and other ways to try and catch as many of those families
as possible.
Yeah, that's a nice thing about the program is that it has kind
of basic guidelines and then allows you to build on it in
ways that suit your institution in your community.
So one part of joining museums for all is broadening your
visitor base, but another part is taking the time to work on
assumptions and biases that exist within your own staff.
So one participating museum that was located in a college town
was surprised to see how many grad students were using museums
for all to visit. They hadn't expected that many to be on food
assistance, and there are some wonderful resources around
diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion on
the AM website. And the Cultural Competence Learning Institute
CLI is another fantastic way of museums looking to improve their
own approaches to inclusivity.
You know, one complaint that does come up is why people on
SNAP assistance deserve this admission discount. Or rather,
why can't someone not on food assistance get the same rate?
So for our purposes, you know a cut off had to exist somewhere
and we felt that a government issued card would work well and
be the least intrusive way to demonstrate the need for
someone.
Someone have the need for some help in removing a financial
barrier, but one of the reasons you know why we think that
museums for all works best as part of a suite of options is so
that those who don't have snappy TV's, you know some other kind
of appropriate price can be found.
Alright, flipping back to me. Thanks Brendan. So now we're
going to talk about leveraging participation. And so sometimes
museums or their boards can be wary of joining museums for all
they see that it calls for deep admission discounts in some
cases and worry that it will be a hit to their budget.
But we took a look at this and found that it is in fact not the
case.
In 2018, we engaged Aurora Consulting to do an evaluation
of museums for all and the experience that participating
museums were having with the program. The complete results of
the evaluation are available on the website that you see on the
screen, but here are some of our pertinent findings.
Most museums reported no change in ticket sales, but over a
third of the respondents said that they saw an increase in
ticket sales and attendance. 20 Four 5% of museums saw increases
in development revenue and membership and program sales.
Only one of the museums that responded to the evaluation
reported a decline in their revenue. Since implementing the
program, Museums for All is a great opportunity to add new
development streams, either soliciting funding that directly
pays for the program or finding grants and sponsorships that
will help. It's a great program that helps the entire community,
and there are often foundations or banks or other local funders
that want to be a part of it.
As I mentioned before, we're connecting multiple museums and
and Brendan talked about it too in who are participating in one
region or city. And we found that museums can do really great
things when they collaborate in this way to promote the the
program in their community. In December of 2018, which now
seems like so long ago, we invited representatives from
eight of these hubs in San Diego, Chicago, Akron, Missoula.
Chattanooga, Worcester and Grand Rapids to attend a convening so
that we could determine how museums were working together to
get the most out of the Museums for All program.
We found that several opportunities for cooperation
exist, and not just between museums. Hubs can use museums
for all as an entry point to establish or deepen connections
with local food banks or transit authorities. I think Tatiana
talked about that in ways that can overcome other barriers
potential visitors face in making it to the museum, like
transportation.
These actions build trust between community organizations,
museums included, as well as with their visitors. It shows
that the museums are serious about having everyone visit the
complete report from the Hub Convening is available on the
Museums for All website as well, so you can take a look at that.
Last year, we repeated this effort and convened another
group of hubs for a listening session. Cities like Richmond
and Cincinnati, Providence, Tulsa, San Antonio, and San
Diego were involved, and we wanted to know what better ways
we could support them, what resources they needed. So based
on those sessions, we created some new resources specifically
for these groups of museums working together.
Including special press release templates, a flyer for
distributing around the community, A1 pager to give to
the local SNAP offices, sample meeting agendas for recruiting
other museums or potential partners, and the slide deck for
use in those meetings. And these are all available for all
museums and and hub cities to use on our website.
So if this all sounds great and fun and intriguing and perfect
for you, just a reminder that it's super easy and free to
register on the Museums for All website. Just go to
www.museumsletternonumber4all.org.
And if you have questions, your Museums for All family is eager
to answer your questions. So here are our contacts. Brendan
is the is the number one go to guy. I'm always happy to help if
I can.
And I'm sure Tatiana would be happy to talk about her
experience too. So please feel free to to reach out and also
know that we have, let's see that we also encourage you to to
share the news via Twitter, our handle. And I looked at this,
Brendan, it's at museums, not the number four. It's FOR all.
So that's confusing, huh?
That was available, but the URL wasn't.
All right. So thank you guys very much for participating.
We'll stop now and then move to questions.