Now, more than three months after lockdown began, museums are gradually beginning to reopen their doors to visitors. While cultural organizations face many common hurdles, small and mid-sized institutions, with fewer staff and resources, may be facing unique challenges around this “new normal”. Many may be concerned that they lack the budgets and bandwidth needed to implement necessary changes, like contactless experience design and new digital initiatives.
Join Brendan Ciecko (CEO & Founder @ Cuseum), John Echeveste (CEO @ LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes), Maryam Nabi (Director of Marketing & Communications @ Conservatory of Flowers), & Rich Bradway (Director of Digital Learning and Engagement @ Norman Rockwell Museum) as they talk through strategies to navigate the new normal as a smaller cultural institution, doing a deep dive into the unique challenges that small to mid-sized organizations face.
View the full transcript below.
Brendan Ciecko:
Hello everyone. My name is Brendan Cieko, and I'm the founder of Cuseum. First off, I want to say thank you to everyone who is joining us today- our speakers, our attendees. Over 1,500 people have registered for today's conversation, and I really look forward to this dialogue. If you're just joining us for the first time, welcome. And for those of you who have tuned into any of these past webinars, welcome back, it's always great to see you.
It has been more than three months since the initial museum closures abruptly came into order, and museums are gradually beginning to reopen their doors if they already haven't. A lot of phased reopenings in process right now. And while cultural organizations face many common hurdles, we know that mid-size and smaller institutions with very few staff and resources might be facing really unique challenges around this quote, unquote "new normal".
So, they might be concerned about the lack of budget or bandwidth needed to implement some of these necessary changes, whether that be like a complete reimagining of the user experience and contact with design or digital initiatives, or just about everything under the sun. And we totally hear that and totally see that. and when we started this company, Cuseum, one of our big goals was to make sure technology and ideas of this kind are flexible and adaptable and affordable, for organizations of every shape and size. And when we started these webinars, which would've been early to mid-March, we saw questions coming left and right about how much people really appreciated the perspective and the voices and the different ideas, but wanted to hear from organizations of different sizes or of small and mid-size. So we've been working towards that and have been including organizations of different size, but we also wanted to have one just about small and mid-size museums. So, that's what we're here to talk about today is how small and mid-size cultural organizations, arts organizations and museums can navigate these very challenging and unusual times.
Without any further ado, please let me introduce our special guests that are joining us today. Joining us from California, we have John Echeveste from LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in Los Angeles as CEO in September, 2014. LA Plaza is the country's only museum dedicated to the history, art, and culture of Mexicans and Mexican Americans. John was previously a partner with VPE Public Relations in South Pasadena, California for more than 25 years. And in that capacity, he helped develop public relation programs for major national accounts such as McDonald's, AT&T, Verizon, Disneyland, Southern California Edison, Televisa Foundation, Target, DirecTV, Nestle, just a couple of the Fortune 500. That's pretty amazing. As well as the Museum of Latin American Art, California Science Center, and many others. He serves on the board of the California Association of Museums, California State University of Fullerton College of Communications advisory board, LA Music Art School, and previously, chaired the boards and led development campaigns for the Wall Las Memorias East LA YMCA and the Hispanic Public Relations Association, the Public Relations Public Network and others. And he's a graduate of California State University Fullerton with a BA in communications and holds professional certificates from USC. Thanks so much for joining us, John.
John Echeveste:
Great, thank you.
Brendan Ciecko:
Yeah, we're blown away by the PR background. So, hopefully, if people from small and mid-size museums have questions about public relations, this sounds like this is the webinar for you amongst other things.
And also joining us from the West Coast in California is Maryam Nabi. Maryam is the Director of Marketing and Communications at the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers, where she is responsible for overseeing the organization's brand strategy, messaging, and publicity. Prior to the conservatory, Miriam spent 10 years in the private sector working at the Financial Times and Fox before transitioning to the public relation, public relations for talk tech firms including, and I hope everyone's heard of this one, Facebook. Maryam is a proud Afghan American and loves to use her spare time camping in her Airstream with her husband. I'm a little jealous that you have an Airstream. That's a dream of mine. That sounds incredible. And thank you for sharing that in your biography. And what a year to have an Airstream. Like this is the year of the American road trip. So, kudos to you and your husband on many nice journeys to come.
And joining us in New England, here on the East Coast, is Rich Bradway. Rich has served as the Director of Digital Learning and Engagement at the Norman Rockwell Museum since 2015. And at the Norman Rockwell Museum, he has developed the museum's first virtual reality experience. Talk about something you don't often see small or mid-sized museums rolling out. So, pat on the back for that, Rich. It has toured with its international traveling exhibition, Norman Rockwell: Imagining Freedom, and has created digital experiences both in the museum galleries and online for more than two do- dozen exhibitions. He has developed the Norman Rockwell curriculum lab that has over 50 activities and lesson plans that service K-12 teachers worldwide.
He's collaborated with Cuseum, thanks for the shout-out, to create the Norman Rockwell Museum mobile app, which is a repository of nearly a dozen exhibition audio tours, some of which have been translated into six languages. I think that's incredible, the focus on diversity and inclusion on the language level. I would love to see every museum follow in those footsteps. Prior to the Norman Rockwell Museum, Rich was the Associate Director of E-commerce and New Media at the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 15 years, where he oversaw the creation of numerous digital learning platforms including the BSO Classical Companion, the BSO Online Conservatory, and the BSO Media Center. And working with BSO Archives, he developed Project Henry, which is the online repository of the BSO's 125th-year history of musical programming and recordings at Symphony Hall, Tanglewood, and abroad. He is the 2011 recipient of a Boston/New England Regional Emmy Award and was a 2010 Honoree in Education for the 14th Annual Webby Awards.” That's awesome. The Webby's, for those of you who don't know, are for the internet. So, that's really awesome. Thanks for sharing that, Rich.
And lastly, I'm Brendan. I'm the founder and CEO of Cuseum, and I'll be your host today. So, let's jump into the questions. So, this one, we'll start with Maryam and John. One of the biggest challenges that museums of all kinds are facing currently is communicating their reopening plans, their new procedures and their rules and safety protocols to the public.
John, you have an incredible and extensive background in public relations. And Maryam, you do too. It's amazing that we'll have the opportunity to hear from both of you on this point. How are you communicating this information to the public, handling or planning to handle visitor concerns and complaints, and, additionally, how are you announcing or planning to announce that you're reopening in a way that brings visitors back through the door? So, Maryam, let's start with you, and then, John, I'd love to hear from you.
Maryam Nabi:
At the Conservatory of Flowers, unfortunately we're not open yet. We thought that we would be able to open a little earlier than expected. And we were thinking last week that it would probably be this upcoming week, but then in California they've started to pause some of their phases. But, really, when we do plan to announce our reopening and as we think about our closure being temporarily extended, transparency is really key to how we are messaging this out to the public, especially during this time where there have been a lot of changes, things are moving really quickly.
As a public institution, being very clear with our audience is very important, and letting them know that we're working really as hard as we can to work with local authorities to get back open. And, in the meantime, we hope to keep them engaged throughout digital channels. Very excited to come back and as other businesses in the local community slowly start to reopen, we get a surge of questions through the public asking us like, "Are you guys reopened, reopened yet?" So, we're finding that re-, restating and like reminding that we are still temporarily closed right now and that we hope to reopen soon is really, has been an, very key to our communication.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you. John, how about you?
John Echeveste:
Yes, thank you, Brendan. And thank you, Maryam, those are all good points. We plan to open July 13th, so about, about, a little over a week. So, we're getting ready for that, gearing up. Staff members will be returning next week. I think there's two things primarily to keep in mind. The first is to over communicate, to really be sure that the public understands when the opening date is and what the new protocols are that will be in place. This'll be a new experience. Visitors will now be required to wear masks, to have a temperature check, to answer questions. So, it's really important I think that they come in with that understanding of what the expectations are going to be.
The second thing, I think, is to be sure that our, especially our visitor services, staff is thoroughly trained and prepared. Because we can, we could get some people who are a little frustrated, upset that they have to wear a mask, that they have to follow procedures, and they're going to need some help in knowing how to deal with that as well too. So, it's equally important, I think, that the staff is ready and prepared when we reopen the doors and invite people back in.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you. And I guess one quick element that I'd love to hear from everyone on is, let's say you don't have a dedicated PR person in-house. You don't have that in-house skillset. What would your advice be or where should they be looking to? Should they be looking to other museums in similar positions? Should they be looking to the larger museums and emulate it? What would your recommendation or advice be in this scenario?
John Echeveste:
I would say look first to the professional organizations. Here in California, look to CAM, look to the Alliance of American Museums, the Smithsonian Affiliate Network is now offering some good information. So, I would look to them first for guidance, protocols, even signage that you can, you can use in your own museum. And then, yes, look to your larger museums for advice too, and see how they're handling it. One, one other thing that we are planning to do, and we'll be doing this next week, is producing an online video that we can post on social media that will explain the process to people too.
So, it's not just a narrative but it's an actual video where we'll walk people through the museum and show them now what the check-in process will be like. we'll be closing, we have one gallery that is pretty much a children's area with a lot of handon, interactive exhibits. That will have to be closed off completely. And then, we're also closing other interactive exhibits, and some of our other galleries as well. So, that'll be, again, a new experience for people that they'll need to be prepared for.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you, John. And with fewer resources, how do all of you ensure a special on-site experience for your visitors when they return? In particular, other panelists over the past couple of weeks and months have really stressed the importance of investing in staff training for this new moment that we're experiencing, teaching, your front-line staff everything from conveying friendliness in a new way to building rapport when your face is hidden behind the mask, deescalating these challenging situations that might pop up, to even standardizing a script to deal with visitors who are maybe displeased with some of the new protocol. How do you do this at a smaller organization? So, I'll open that up for whoever would like to jump on in.
Maryam Nabi:
Definitely as a smaller institution, we always have to be thinking about those little moments or those little details that really build up to create that extra-special moment to the experience. Because that's like our make or break for small organizations, because we don't have all those extra resources. So, when we do, at the conservatory, plan to reopen, we really want to show our appreciation and loyalty to our audience and to the public who have been patiently waiting for us to be open. And so little things like maybe offering our members a free orchid when we reopen for being patient, that we, waiting with us during this time, or things that I've heard other museums and gardens doing like early member access, are really things that we're really hoping that leave a lasting impression that show that we really appreciate them staying with us through these challenging and difficult times, and also returning when they can.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you. I'm going to make an assumption here. And it's going to be an a- assumption about the Norman Rockwell Museum. So, my assumption is, the Norman Rockwell Museum is in the Berkshires. The Berkshires are considered to be a rural community and also a community that New Yorkers and Bostonians and people from all over New England and all over the world come for sake of tourism during like the, what do we call it, leaf peeping, during the falland the summer, and everything like that. So, I'm going to make an assumption that a lot of your visitors are coming from afar. There's a lot more on the line when you're driving two hours from Boston to get to Stockbridge, or from New York I don't know, it's maybe three hours.
So I imagine your team has put a lot of thought into making sure you've done a lot to get them there, and now you're going to do some thoughtful gestures and things of that capacity for people to say it was worth the two-hour drive. So, I'd love to hear, Rich, how you're approaching this both from a digital to the on-site.
Rich Bradway:
By and large we are a rural museum. One of the things I would say is that June to October is our peak season, so that's when we get the lion's share of our admissions for the year. And one thing I would say is that the Berkshires is like another thing about the Berkshires is that, per capita and geographically, it's probably one of the densest places in the United States for cultural content and cultural institutions. And so there are a lot of second-home owners in the Berkshires. And many have actually made their way here despite the fact that many of our culturals will not be open for the summer. And so we're reliant upon, marketing to them to reaffirm to them that we're here for them. But we are working at great length to make sure that our communications are very clear so that people feel inspired to make the trip to the Berkshires.
We are fortunate, at least at the present time, that all of the sort of states within a, a day's drive, or a couple hours drive, from us are in a pretty safe situation from a COVID perspective. So, we're not dealing with any upsurges too much. One thing I would just say in, in sort of extending what John is speaking to is that typically we tend to try to be a little bit reserved when we do things like email marketing about trying to over-inundate people. But around what's going on and just trying to make sure that everything is very clear, we're trying not to be subtle and we're trying, and being a little bit more deliberate and more intense in terms of our communication so that there is no, ambiguity as to what's going on. We want to make sure everyone has a great time at the museum, but we also want to make sure everyone's safe.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you. Throughout this conversation, Rich, I know so many museums that have been on in past weeks are usually in cities. So, if there's any tips and advice for museums that are in rural environments as we continue forward, we'd love to hear your perspective on these.
So, a particular challenge that many smaller museums are facing right now is how to implement new digital strategies, for instance new communication channels and projects on a li- limited budget. And many, organizations, obviously, are realizing the importance of social media, contactless entry, time ticketing, touch-free experiences, and things of that nature, but are obviously leery of costs. I know I've been hearing left and right that, "We needed to switch ticketing systems, and it costs a bit more to go from this to that, and time is a consideration as well." So, what is important to prioritize right now in terms of these new projects or tools, especially for organizations that, again, have smaller budgets, less staff, and less resources?
John Echeveste:
Well, at RBCM, some of the top priorities, of course, are being sure that we have the proper equipment for our staff, so, whether it's masks and gloves and hand sanitizer that's at their disposal and readily available. We're also looking at a new ticketing system, because we're a free museum so we don't have that. We're encouraging people to make reservations, to come in so that we can control the amount of people that we have at one time. That's taking a little longer than we expected. So, we'll probably be using Eventbrite initially and then switching over to something that's, that's a little bit, more sophisticated.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you. Maryam, how about on your end?
Maryam Nabi:
For us, we're really looking at what is going to have the biggest impact with the least amount of resources. So, we're really looking at the low-hanging fruit for us. And with the limited time that we have to be planning these and the less hours and the less staff, we're used to working really with small resources, but sometimes that has meant in the past that we haven't been able to really capitalize or focus on certain projects. So, what we are currently working on is looking at our past programming and our past events to see is there anything that's still, that we weren't able to do in the past that we would want to do now that really could be maybe adapted to today, that can be refreshed for what's going on with our audience right now? Like do we already have some of that content readily available? So, we're really leaning on that and what things that in the past have worked really well.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you. And something that you said early on reminded me of something that's very Bay Area, very San Francisco. There's an expression from Y Combinator, which is a startup accelerator out here that I want 90% of the benefit for 10% of the effort. So, exactly what very, very much a mantra in San Francisco and Boston and New York in these startup hubs. So, I'm glad, I'm glad to hear that that's how you're looking at this. and Rich, you worked on a ton of impressive, cutting-edge, digital projects at smaller institutions. Can you talk about our past digital initiatives that you've worked on and how you've moved these projects to the finish line as a smaller organization? I'm going to make a quick assumption that you're the solo digital person at the museum. And a lot of museums don't have digital people in general. So, what is your advice? And can you talk a little bit about your projects, challenges, how you overcame them?
Rich Bradway:
Sure. Yes, I am the sole digital person at the museum. What we've done to accomplish what we have created is to look at partnerships. We, being a small and medium, size museum, you'd, for the things that we'd like to do and trying to find ways to engage with patrons before they come, while they're here, and then after they visit, we wanted to try to figure out a way to engage with people digitally so that they have all the tools in their toolkit to be able to engage with us with the best possible experience that they can have. And so, that being said, I come with a fair amount of experience to do certain things, but not all things. And, one of the things that we talked about earlier was this virtual reality experience that we created for our exhibition.
Being a museum of illustration art, we technically I guess we are an art museum. But we're also in many respects, because illustration art is, a medium that services other things, other functions, other media, and so, oftentimes when you're looking at the artwork, it's always helpful to understand the context in which that art was created. And so, with our VR experience, we created this experience through our Four Freedoms exhibition. Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms were made, produced over 75 years ago. We feel that they're an important set of paintings both in Norman Rockwell's portfolio, but in what I would call the American portfolio.
And we still feel that those paintings, while they come from a specific time and place, have some importance in our world today. And so we wanted to convey to people who would be going to that exhibition why that is so and why the images that Rockwell's created, specifically around freedom and civil rights and that ilk, are relevant today as much as they were, whether they were 60 years ago, 75 years, or what have you. So, we are experiencing something that we created so that people could immerse themselves both in the context but also interacting with the primary source materials. So, the paintings that Rockwell created were posters, they were on covers of magazines, so we wanted to make sure that people could actually interact with the primary source materials of the day so they could understand, and have a better understanding for what that was.
To make that happen, we looked at a number of digital agencies, but those digital agencies were way out of our price range. So we started looking at colleges and universities, and we ultimately settled on. I don't want to call it settled, but we actually rejoiced by identifying the Academy of Art University in San Francisco to work with us. and they created a whole program, around multiple schools in the university to create their own sort of little mini digital agency so that there were representatives from the illustration program, the video-gaming program, the acting program, special effects, animation, web design, UI all that stuff, so that they could, create this solution for us. And, by doing that, we were able to do that at a very low price point. and the students got a great piece of nice item that they could add to their own portfolios. and that's pretty much how we work here at the museum, is we look at these partnerships. That's also what we did at the BSO working with a number of universities in the Boston area.
Brendan Ciecko:
Great. Thank you for that. And it just shows that you have to look in a slightly different way at how you'll even get things done and partnerships are a really powerful part of that. So, let's shift gears a little bit to the dollars and cents, the revenue stream component of this. Many museums are facing reduced funding and dried up revenue streams as a result of being closed for so long and the changing economic environment. And many are looking to fundraise effectively and experiment with new development strategies. And I know, John, you've led a lot of different development campaigns, fundraising campaigns. Do you have any advice about how you're going about seeking new funding opportunities right now?
John Echeveste:
That's a tough one. That's a really hard question. And I think you have to start by facing up to the realities that what we're going through is going to have long-term economic implications. Here in California, for example, we had in February we had a budget, a rainy day fund of I think something like $20 billion. We're, so with that, with that surplus in hand, the state was able to provide direct funding to several museums throughout the state, which was great, especially, new museums that are coming online. We're now projecting I believe a budget deficit for the coming fiscal year of about $50 billion. Okay, so fortunately we did have that surplus to fall back on. So, I think it's really important for us all to take a look at our own budgets and scale back as necessary, number one. I think that's the most important step.
I, been somewhat encouraged too by the number of emergency relief and recovery funds that have been set up by various governmental agencies, whether it's NEH or NEA or, here in California, the California Humanities or California Arts Council, and others, and some private foundations. So, be sure to check, to check for those kinds of opportunities first, because they're, they're there and they should be utilized. And then, frankly, we haven't really come up with any new groundbreaking, shattering opportunities. We had our annual gala scheduled for July, and we're going to move that to a virtual platform now in October. But a lot of our revenue sources during the summer have dried up, for events and festivals and mental activities that we do.
And one thing that we are doing, we have launched a new virtual program that we're doing three times a week, that covers a number of different subjects. And what we do is send out a follow-up meeting to all of the participants who have registered for that program on Zoom and thank them for parti-, for participating, and advise them on upcoming programs. Some of them are cooking programs and will provide recipes and other, follow information, but of course always include a membership and a donation link in those emails as well too. So, that's a, a small thing, but we're beginning to see some small increases in numbers.
Brendan Ciecko:
That's great. Thank you for that. I know that's been one of the big questions in a lot of people's minds right now are what some of these new revenue streams are. We're always grateful to the community at large that send us notes about interesting things that they're doing. If there's anyone here attending this conversation today, if you're doing anything that is driving revenue for your institution in a really creative or interesting way, please let us know. We're actually finishing up a piece that will be published by AAM any day now, or any week now. But some things that have popped up, and I just want to piggyback on some of the things that John was saying about the cooking events, which to me are completely an unusual thing for a museum to be offering. But we've learned that the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library has $25 ticket cooking events and they're always sold out. And that's an amazing thing to think about. And their museum's doing like murder mystery night, always sold out, which is amazing because you have no physical capacity.
There's virtual memberships that are popping up, so check out what the National Steinbeck Center has done. They have a virtual membership. People are doing membership-only content, membership-only cocktail events. And then, what really surprised me are these virtual galas. I went to my first virtual gala yesterday. It was completely for free. The Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the ICA, had a free virtual gala, which was wonderful to see. But the things that really surprised me, and, again, like the National Museum of Dance and the Tenement Museum in New York, they all have virtual galas. I'm seeing dozens of virtual galas.
The Newport Art Museum in Newport, Rhode Island, for their gala you actually order in advance the food you would like, the catering company brings the food to the person's house. And I'm just imagining in my head people wearing like dressed black tie at their home supporting the museum. Because these things generate tens of thousands of dollars. And in the big cities, they generate millions of dollars. So, the Brooklyn Museum's gala generates millions of dollars, for instance. So, it's amazing to see all these creative things. And, again, if you're doing anything in this realm, please let us know. We're always looking for examples to share across the community. But, the cooking thing caught me as a surprise.
John Echeveste:
Yeah, that's a good point. That's something we're considering doing too, for ours. We'll line up a number of restaurants geographically in our area that could deliver food. The other thing that we're looking at too, because many of these virtual dinners are still doing silent auctions, but what we want to add to that as well are what we're calling virtual experiences. So, you can buy an hour Zoom session with an artist who could provide you with some art instruction, or a musician or a chef. So, we're putting that together now too, drawing upon all of the talent of people we work with in our market.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you. I'll just casually say that, John, you've finished the article, because that's the one area that we've been missing pieces in is looking at how museums are monetizing their staff in their community in a really creative way. So, artist lessons, hour with a curator. We haven't been able to find any publicly written about examples, so I might be giving you an email or a call after this to learn how that's all going. So, thank you. Thank you for sharing that.
Maryam and Rich, are there any new ways that you're thinking about, your organizations are thinking about fundraising during this time?
Rich Bradway:
Yeah, we're doing a number of things and trying out some new things. So, much like cooking, we've done the equivalent of sketch and sip events where people bring their own cocktails on Zoom. and we have a number of illustrators, who are on our national council and on our board, and they've contributed their time. Many of those events pay what you can. And the interesting thing is that, we still get a couple hundred people participating at an average price of $20 a piece, which is more than we thought. And, in reality, to do the equivalent thing in our museum where it's a much smaller space, we've actually found that these digital events, these virtual events, have actually become serendipitous opportunities for us because they're actually engaging with a much broader audience at sip and sketch events. And we actually had a young woman from Turkey come in and actually draw with us. and it was interesting because we were, I believe it was like 5:00 our time and it was after midnight her time. So, we are looking at a number of those things. We had a giant uptick in people engaging with us virtually, once we closed down to the public. And we're looking at some of those types of digital engagement not only to offer for free but also looking at ways where we could monetize them in a very modest way.
And the other thing I actually wanted to point out is that, the other thing that we're doing, much like everyone else, we too have had to move to a ticketing system. we didn't have a live ticketing system. Now, we will. We'll be using FareHarbor. And one of the interesting things that we're going to be doing, at least to start off, is for those people who are hit hard by this pandemic, we are going to make tickets pay what you can for those people who can't afford the ticket price. And we'll see how that goes.
Brendan Ciecko:
Wow. Generally, if I were to sum this up, there's elasticity to so many of these things. There's elasticity to the price you're, you're assigning to a certain event, which makes it more accessible, more inclusive, a broader audience and easier to say yes to. So I'm really happy to hear that. But let's continue on and talk a little bit about partnerships. Often, one of the most effective ways for small museums to do more with less is to develop partnerships with companies, brands, professional networks, and other organizations in their region. How are you developing or leveraging partnerships right now to advance your institution? I'd love to hear from you this, on this, Maryam.
Maryam Nabi:
Yeah. So, partnerships are crucial to all of the programs at the conservatory. And we're actually looking back at some of the past partners that we've worked with and, to see who can we bring back again and who did we really enjoy working with, who did our local community really love when we did an event together? Like, for example, we did a beer garden event where we featured local breweries in the neighborhood and invited them to create brews for us inspired by our plant collection. And a lot of breweries are actually packaging up their brews so you can order it at home. So, we're looking back at some of those breweries that we worked with in the past and we're in talks with them to see how we can bring back some of those drinks that we did a couple years ago and where it makes sense that we can work together again. So, partnerships like that are going to be really crucial to the programs that we are adapting to today and as we build for the upcoming months.
Brendan Ciecko:
Great. Rich and John, do you have anything to add on partnerships?
Rich Bradway:
Yeah. I'll just go quickly because we are rural and we are regional, we are doing a lot of partnerships with lodging establishments so that if they're coming. And, actually, this is another one of those great opportunities by having a live ticketing system, we can actually do with, through FareHarbor, we can do programs that hotels and motels and bed and breakfasts can actually, log in and purchase tickets for their patrons, and they get a discounted price. And it gets us the tickets registered in advance. That's one thing that if you can, if you have the opportunity of partnering with those businesses and you have a system that can handle that, I would definitely look into that. Because it's one that's become more and more of the lifeblood for us.
Brendan Ciecko:
Interesting. So, just trying to put myself in a number of different shoes right now, like let's say I am a small Victorian home somewhere in the middle of a rural environment. Closest major city is, I don't know, three hours aways. Your advice partially would be partner with your local tourism community, partner with your local hospitality industry to get on the radar is the thing to do in that area?
Rich Bradway:
Yes, absolutely.
Brendan Ciecko:
Gotcha. Cool, cool, cool.
John Echeveste:
And, in our case too, we're working with other Latino art institutions in LA County. There's about four others. We've created a new organization. This was in the works anyway but we're going to be launching it very soon with the new website so that we support each other and we market each other as a group. We also are in an area of downtown LA with several other small museums, Museum of Social Justice, Chinese American Museum, Italian American Museum, so we're talking to them about how we can reopen and support each other as well too. And of course it's that much more challenging because you can't do events. So, the natural inclination is to bring people in and do a street festival or something, and we can't do that. So, we're going to have to get creative about that.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you. Even as museums reopen, many are finding that with restrictions on programs, events. Summer camps are something that we haven't really spent too much time talking about, but we know they're critical and we also know that it's summer now. Lots of traditional revenue streams that are just not viable at this moment. As a result, many organizations have started to monetize these digital experiences. I know that we've talked a little bit about them today. I know, John, you've shared some examples. Rich and Maryam, you've shared some examples about this. What are, whether through pay what you wish for online events, virtual classes, summer camps and more, are there any other new ideas that you'd put out there to organizations that are on the smaller side that are just starting to figure things out for the first time around these types of digital programs? Like what would your first step in exploring that be? Would you reach out and try to find out what people are interested in? Would you try to look at similar organizations to you around the country and see what they're doing?
John Echeveste:
Well, with our digital platform, we launched a program, our shelter-in-place order in California went in place here March 14th. We had a new exhibit reception scheduled for March 19th. What we had to do of course was cancel that. And, in its place, we did a live virtual walkthrough of the exhibit, which went extremely well. We then edited that so that it's now available on all of our platforms. That led to the creation of a program we call En Casa Con LA Plaza, which we do three times a week now. So, we do the cooking segment on Mondays, a live cooking demonstration with local chefs. We do talks with authors. We have a celebrity oriented show that we do on Friday nights. So, it's tapping into all of the talent and resources that we have in our community and providing them with that showcase to do things. We had briefly discussed the idea of charging for those. But because we're a free museum, we want to maintain that philosophy of providing free content for our visitors. So, we haven't done that. What we were fortunate about is that we had several corporate sponsors who were lined up to sponsor our events during the summer, and they agreed to transfer that sponsorship to the digital programs that we're doing. So, that was very helpful.
Brendan Ciecko:
That's great to hear.
John Echeveste:
We could just redirect that money over, which was great.
Maryam Nabi:
Yeah, at the conservatory we're actually, and I see some questions or comments about this, looking into and actually about to launch kits. So, you can get, bring a piece of the conservatory home with you. And the kit would include something like a plant, some activity that the education team has developed, and then some items that are branded materials that people can have at home. And so we're looking at different revenue avenues like that, especially since online retail we know is doing pretty well in the consumer side of things. So, really looking at what are people still doing right now that we can take advantage of. Like gardening is huge still. People are in their patios working on their home. So, what are those opportunities that we can really tap into as an organization right now?
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you.
Rich Bradway:
Yeah, I was just going to say a couple things. When we had to close down, we obviously made the shift virtually. And we tapped into a number of tools, one of which is Zoom, that we're using now. So, those of you who aren't using Zoom, which may not be many of you at this point, but if you are looking at or need, have access to online and virtual events, Zoom is a great platform. If you aren't part of TechSoup, I would recommend becoming a member of TechSoup because there is a substantial discount for using Zoom. And you can actually get, you can use Zoom webinars at a really cheap rate per month. I think it's 50% off, or even more. And so I would recommend that you look into that. If you aren't already on it, try to reach out to Google and get on Google Arts & Culture. And we had, literally we're about to open up an exhibit right before we closed down, and then we moved that entire exhibit over to Google Arts & Culture. And, in that time frame, from March 13th till about a week ago, that particular exhibit had about 20,000 visitors on it.
And, we also have Civil Rights one that we did that we had opened a couple years ago, and added a little more content to it, particularly because it's timely as we've been, we're dealing with current events. and that has been tremendous. And so we're now looking at ways where we can take that momentum and carry that forward. One thing I will say is that many of our traditional sponsors who had sponsored exhibits and programs in the conventional sense were more than happy to move over to supporting our virtual programs. And so when you can't get money, you have a lot of data at your hands to really convey to people, especially sponsors and donors, what their donor and sponsorship will mean and what that will engage with. And so, in some ways, you get more detail there that you have at your disposal to be able to make that argument for the benefit of that sponsorship or that donation.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you. That's super interesting. I know that there'll probably be a lot of questions about that soon. Just, Rich, since you brought up Zoom and the virtual content, I posted a link. We did some investigation and research around the different tools but also the different discounts and plans that are available for nonprofits. So, Zoom, as Rich said, TechSoup, there's nonprofitrate.com can also get you a discount. Microsoft has been really generous during all of this, supporting, I think for free, Microsoft Teams for virtual programs. I know a bunch of museums are using that. GoToWebinar has some special discounts. And then, I think Cisco Webex has different discounts. So, check out that post. There's some codes and stuff like that. This, we're using Zoom right now so hopefully folks find it easy to use. And we've also turned Zoom, not we but everybody, Zoom into a, like the verb to mean every type of virtual encounter. So, thanks for sharing that. And I'm super interested in hearing what, Rich, what you said about the metrics and how those play a role in, in justifying and amping up your sponsorship opportunities and emphasizing the importance of digital and other data that you have, in your hands.
Now, we have a question from Hilda Andres from the Swope Art Museum in Terre Haute, Indiana. "What are the ways we can measure success other than attendance?" So, physical attendance, over here we know what the year is going to look like and the months and quarters to come. But digital? So, Rich, can you elaborate a little bit more on what your annual report is going to look like this year? What are those metrics that you think if you're small. It doesn't matter if you're The Met or the Louvre or the small art museum or the small historic house or historical site, what are those like three numbers or three metrics that matter? What are those KPIs?
Rich Bradway:
That's a really good question. We've been seeing it is not just the quantity but also the quantity of visits, but also the quantity of time that people are lingering on the content and engaging with the content. Just to give an example of what we think is a success. Now, I spoke about Google Arts & Culture, our YouTube channel. We have a lot of content on both of those platforms. And, growth, in terms of viewership, has gone up. But the growth in actual hours watched, we're talking a 300% increase in terms of viewership, but we're talking 3,000% increase in terms of the amount of time people are actually watching content. And the other thing I would say is that we're also looking at ways where we can do better work and better, a better job at measuring our engagement.
Obviously, without being open, we can't sort of look at the before, middle, and after. But we are actually building the hooks into our messaging so that we can measure that better, not only in terms of like now that people buy tickets we can give them a ton of content that they can prepare for, they can come to the museum, they can enjoy the museum. After they leave, we can acknowledge them. We can then give them a survey. We can give them more content, and find ways to keep them reengaged, to either engage with us furthermore online or potentially revisiting the museum. I mean we're opening in a very modest way because we're forced to be modest. But as time and the requirements change and the ability for us to do more, a lot of that data that we're getting from people will, it'll help us inform us, in terms of what programs we'll do, whether they're online or they're at the museum.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you. John and Maryam, do you have anything to add? My takeaway, and I don't know if anyone, based on how Zoom is organized, when I heard 3,000% I kinda took a leap back because I think that those numbers are really extraordinary. And if you have them, it seems like those are the things that you not only want to share with your entire team internally to get people energized about the great impact you're having, the engagement you're having, but also I think you could share that with your local and regional news to say like, "Hey, we, our doors might be closed, but people are engaging in new ways and we're fulfilling our mission and we're getting in front of people." So, beyond that, Maryam and John, what are your thoughts on the metrics that your organization is going to be measuring this year?
Maryam Nabi:
Yeah, we're also really looking at just retention, like for example, with our members, are they continuing to renew? We're also looking at are we bringing back those that have been interested with us and in our content in the past or have visited us in the past? So, that's one area that we think also is really going to be important. Just because, especially right now, where we really, as a small organization don't have the resources to be spending on advertising to try to get new or the word to through paid advertising and get new acquisitions. It's a little bit more reliant on the retention of our existing fan base.
John Echeveste:
In our case, digital programming has really worked well for us. Of course, we're reaching more people than if we were to do the program inside the museum, so that's of course great. We're also finding that we're getting a bigger audience nationally and internationally as well too. And I'm very hopeful that we're bringing in new people, who maybe we're not aware of, who will want to visit too. So, maybe those metrics will play out a little bit later down the road, when we see a spike in attendance of people who discovered us on the internet and now want to come visit us in person.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you. We have about five or six minutes less left to go. I just want to make closing statements before we hand the microphone back to Maryam and to Rich and to John. But after this webinar, we'll compile everyone's questions and ideas and solutions into a living and breathing document to share with the museum community. So, feel free to share your thoughts here in the webinar chator email them over to hello@cuseum.com. Also, as I mentioned earlier, if you have any examples of interesting things that you're doing, we always like to shine the light on a wide ray of institutions, and especially small institutions that are doing really interesting work especially in this digital world around building new revenue streams and other such things like that. So, the fact that you're here shows that you're taking proactive steps in preparing your museum, preparing yourself, and I know there's a lot of work to be done here.
And so I appreciate everybody tuning in today and engaging in the conversation. I saw in the chat box a lot of dialogue around ticketing systems, so maybe that's something we cover in the future, what systems are being used, what's working, what's not. But it's always exciting to see what everyone is thinking about and talking about during these moments. So, with a couple minutes left to spare, we ask everyone the same question. And we've been doing this since the middle of March every week on Wednesday at 2pm EST. Can you leave us with one idea that we can bring back to our organizations during this time? So, let's start with you Maryam. What's one idea we can bring back to our organizations right now?
Maryam Nabi:
Yeah, so the thing I'll leave you all with is this, don't be too hard on yourselves. We're not a Fortune 500 company. We don't have huge reserves, some of us. We're funded by the people. We're here for the people. And be able to continue to do our mission even right now, this is what it's all about. So, we'll be here when this is over.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you. Rich, what's one takeaway for everybody across the globe right now that works at a small or, or midsize museum?
Rich Bradway:
So, this is coming from the digital guy. Think for one moment that putting your content online digitally will dilute the messaging or effectiveness, or the experience that people will have when they come to your museum, they complement each other and actually, in my opinion, the more content you can put online to get people in engaged, the more likely that they're going to come to the museum and see and experience it firsthand.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you. Thank you. And John, what's one takeaway that you would leave everybody with during this time to make the most of now, to make the most of the days, weeks and months to come?
John Echeveste:
I think Rich said it. I think we're living in a brave, new Zoom world. I didn't know what Zoom was until this all broke. And now it's our friend. And I would say that if, as we expand our digital offerings, and this comes from my marketing background, brand them and package them because we used to do things on Facebook and we'd get a small viewership, but to put a name on it, to brand it, to package it really helps, so it's got an identity that people can go to.
Brendan Ciecko:
Excellent. Well, thank you for that, John. Thank you, Maryam. Thank you, Rich. This was a really engaging and dynamic conversation. I hope those of you who tuned in to today's conversation, or for those of you who are watching this video after the fact, we hope that this conversation was inspiring. We hope that it was instructive and resourceful. We know that everyone's spread really thin right now, especially at small and mid-size museums, trying to figure out what to do and what to do next. I hope some of the ideas that were shared with us today from Maryam and Rich and John give some ideas as to what to do next and how to succeed in this really interesting moment that we're living in today. So, with that all said, again, Maryam, thank you. Rich, thank you. And John, thank you so much.
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