Our Business Model is Badly Broken

Graham Beal gave a speech at the volunteer program today, for which I was pleased to be present. I had been hearing a lot of things, second hand, and was interested in his thoughts.

He spoke primarily (and apologetically—this is supposed to be a celebratory occasion, after all) about the DIA’s financial situation and stated that “our business model is badly broken”.

For many years, 16 million of our 22 million dollar budget came from the State of Michigan. Last year, $10,000 of our now 32 million dollar budget came from the State of Michigan.

Mr. Beal expressed that what the DIA would really like is stability and believes this can be achieved by setting up an unrestricted endowment. The endowment the DIA is currently working with has something in the ballpark of $70 million. At around 3% interest, that would generate about 2.1 million per year (remember-- the budget is 32 million).

To establish this endowment, what the DIA intends to do is launch a millage campaign, proposing a 10 year property tax, which would then be used to build the endowment—ensuring the DIA some long term financial stability.

A poll was conducted in the community and the response was overwhelmingly positive. A similar campaign for the Detroit Zoo was launched a few years ago, and was accompanied by billboards that tugged at the heartstrings in all the right ways. The Zoo millage passed with incredibly high numbers.

Who Doesn’t Love Giraffes?

It was a concern that the DIA millage would not be as successful because art museums and zoos are perceived so differently by the public.  Zoos have very family-friendly amenities like sno-cones and stroller parking. Art museums are not always perceived as being a place for families to spend a Saturday afternoon. Thus, there was concern that the DIA would not receive the same support from its surrounding communities. However, the polling company was stunned by the data they collected, which showed great support.

Interestingly, the original millage proposal had multiple cultural institutions on the ticket. However, the polls showed that people did NOT show the same support for the shared millage. Thus, the DIA dropped the other institutions, in favor of going it alone because it could so drastically increase their odds of winning.

And nobody minds.

Graham Beal expected the other institutions to be a little miffed when he announced that the DIA would be the only institution on the ticket (and thus the only one benefiting from this property tax). Yet, he claimed that his colleagues handled this news graciously. I found this incredibly hard to believe until he explained why.

Mr. Beal reported his colleague at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra as saying, “A strong DIA helps every cultural institution in the city”.

Wow. That is gracious.

But the gentleman at the symphony has a good point and another colleague is reported as noting that if the millage passes, “that will be a major institution that is no longer asking for money, and that helps everyone”.

These are both excellent points. If the DIA can be self-sufficient, then it will be sucking significantly less money from donors around the city, who will then be able to donate to The Detroit Symphony Orchestra, The Detroit Historical Museum, The Science Center, and every other cultural institution in Detroit.  Sounds good to me.

"Artie" The Donkey

Also, I think I should be featured on a billboard, feeding something to Artie and giggling. Millage accomplished.

The 48th Annual Volunteer Council Meeting

Held in the Detroit Film Theatre Auditorium, The Annual Volunteer Council Meeting was quite a production. I would really like to be involved with volunteer management sometime in a future career, and with volunteer management comes volunteer recognition. So I was interested in seeing what the DIA does to recognize the efforts of their many volunteers.

The DIA Volunteer Council is comprised of 6 individual committees, with a total of 697 volunteers. These volunteers put in 63,000 hours this year, which is equivalent to 30 full time employees.

Think about where you work or go to school. Pick 30 people that are around you and make them disappear. While I’m sure some of us wouldn’t mind making a few choice individuals disappear, the overall result would be devastating. With the cuts that the DIA has taken over the last several years, having 30 people work for free (actually, they pay a fee to volunteer) for 63,000 hours is invaluable.

Each volunteer is given 4 free guest passes to the DIA. If every pass is used, that will bring 2,500 visitors to the museum. That's a heck of a lot.  In my Volunteer Management class last fall, we identified volunteers as being one of the biggest sources of publicity for their insitution and it appears as if the DIA has recognized their potential as well.

During the various speeches, there was much emphasis placed on being “ambassadors” to the DIA. Today’s speakers and presenters spoke of representing the museum with pride and talking about it with anyone who will listen. It reminded me a lot of being a tour guide…er… “campus ambassador” at CMU.  And I find it interesting that in the half dozen staff meetings I have attended, no one mentioned this to the employees.  Could it be that the museum volunteers are under more pressure to positively represent the DIA than the actual paid staff are?  I wonder if this is simply because volunteers are often the ones interfacing with the public.

Anyway...

Director Graham Beal also spoke and discussed the state of the museum this year, but I will go into more detail about that later. However, I thought it was great that the director was at this event. His presence underlined the importance of the DIA’s volunteers.

Like many museums, pins are given out to recognize those who have dedicated years of service to the DIA. I counted how many people received each pin. (Why? Because I care about stuff like this, that’s why.)

15 years: 15 
20 years: 6
25 years: 2
30 years: 5
35 years: 1

Honestly, I expected more 35 year pins to be handed out. I have spoken with so many volunteers who have told me their stories of first coming to volunteer at the DIA in the 60’s, I expected them all to be lined up to receive their pins. But then, I guess lots of them have been here more than 35 years, and already have their pins.

Today is day 12 for me (I’m technically a volunteer), so I’m .002% of the way to my 15 year pin!

Dedicated by the People of Detroit to the Knowledge and Enjoyment of Art

I have lived all but one year of my life in Michigan. That's 23 Michigan winters. But you know what? I'm still freezing. I don't know if I have poor circulation or an iron deficiency or something... but I don't handle cold temperatures very well. As I mentioned, the ODHR office is kept at near arctic temperatures. Maybe they're trying to keep Jimmy Hoffa fresh in one of those suspiciously unused cubicles-- I can't say for sure.

I just know that the weather is finally warming up outside, so I have an escape (and can stop running to the bathroom to run my hands under hot water).  So this afternoon, I took a little stroll outside  to warm up and walked around the entire exterior of the DIA. It's more impressive than I had remembered.

The museum underwent a massive reorganization, renovation, and expansion several years ago. I talked previously about the changes to the interior-- new text panels, smaller gallery rooms, new interpretive techniques, etc.-- but there were some major changes to the exterior of the museum as well.

For those who may not be familiar with the great City of Detroit, the Detroit Institute of Arts is located in what we refer to as the "Cultural Center" of Detroit. This area is home to other great Detroit treasures such as...

The Detroit Public Library

Wayne State University

The Detroit Science Center

The Scarab Club

(http://www.scarabclub.org)

My dad took me inside the Scarab Club once, when I was younger. It functions partly as an artist collective of sorts, and also as a community arts center. It's a crazy little historic building, and I remember being granted access to one of the top floors when we visited-- which is generally closed to the public. Upstairs are a number of artist studios, and I recall meeting one of the artists and discussing his work briefly. It was pretty neat.

Anyway...

It is easy to see where the "new" and "old" DIA meet each other. I recall there being some rumblings in the community about the look of the expansion. It does look much sleeker and more modern and is a definite departure from the traditional temple-style of the "old" DIA

Old and New DIA converge

One of my favorite things about this building (and I think most Detroiters would agree) is the Woodward entrance. Woodward is a major street in Detroit, and while much of the city has declined, Woodward Avenue remains both active and reminiscent of Old Detroit. Fittingly, this part of the DIA is about as reminiscent as it gets. In one of my classes last semester, we discussed the museum as being a "temple" for art (or history, or what-have-you) and that many museums were actually elevated off the street by impressive marble staircases and other heavily classic architectural features. The movement now is toward a more welcoming structure that is less separated (physically and metaphorically) from is surroundings. That's what is so interesting about the DIA-- you can actually see this shift taking place in its very architecture.

Classic Woodward Entrance

What is unfortunate these days is that Woodward is no longer a functioning museum entrance, and it's a damn shame. I think there is something transformative about walking up a flight of marble stairs, between two shooting fountains, and past "The Thinker" that prepares the visitor for a meaningful museum experience. What you can't see in the photo is that it's been gated shut.

Entrances to the DIA are now on the sides of the building, and feature a more contemporary and low-key style. Does this make for a more positive and less intimidating visitor experience? I don't know.  Museums never intimidated me, so I can't even begin to answer that.

Contemporary Farnsworth Entrance

I'm pretty neutral about the new style of the expansion. I liked the old DIA, but I like the new one, too. I think the white marble is sleek and solid looking in its simplicity. But there will always be a place in my heart for the ornate design of classic museums.

Granted

Today I met with a guy who had a $100,000 check in his pocket.  He is the DIA's new grant writer.

We met to discuss what kind of program information grant writers find useful when applying for grants.  As it turns out, the kind of information that would actually be useful is information that I will be unable to provide in my (now) 6 weeks at the DIA.  Awesome.

While it was somewhat frustrating to learn that my project will be less than helpful in the grant application process, it was still a very interesting meeting with David.  He gave me a great outline of the kind of information needed when writing grants.  Even if I am unable to gather that information during my internship, I think it is still valuable to know about.

One of the biggest things we talked about was "impact".  David cited this as being the most important thing to potential funders.  It is also the most difficult thing for museums to measure.  The kind of impact he is referring to are the long-term results of the program.

David described three kinds of results: short term, mid term and long term. 

Short term results involve things like customer service, visitor experience, and meaningful interpretations and tours.  The short term result of those things is a positive museum experience, or the visitor just having a positive feeling about the museum.
(Measurable with visitor surveys, etc.)

Mid term results spawn from short term results and involve things like visitors buying museum membership packages or any change in the visitors actions as a result of their feelings about the museum.
(Measurable by counting the # of memberships sold, etc.)

Long term results involve a social, environmental, or economic change in the community.
(Measurable... not at all.)

Grant writers want to be able to tell funders that "This program has improved children's critical thinking skills" or "This program has made the community more environmentally conscious".  But it is still difficult for museums to measure those kinds of things.  It seems that kind of long-term evaluation has yet to be perfected and implemented.

Either way, I really enjoyed meeting with David, as he had a lot of excellent insights.  However, while I did win Dixie's grant-writing contest last fall, and I would love to walk around with $100,000 checks in my pocket... I don't think grant writing is for me.

The DIA is the Best Museum in the World. Here's Why:

I heard a quote today that supposedly comes from the director of the DIA.  It would never hold up in court, and would be classified as "hearsay" but I think it's an important quote-- regardless of who actually said it.

The DIA is the best museum in the world.  It is even better than the Louvre.  It's the best museum in the world because not only do we attract 500,000 visitors every year, but we do it in Detroit.  Getting 500,000 people to venture into downtown Detroit these days is no small feat.  It's easy to get 500,000 people to go to the Louve, The Smithsonian, or The Met-- people are already IN those thriving cities.  People stumble into The Met because they're already vacationing in New York, and need to kill an afternoon.  People come to the DIA because they have chosen to travel to the DIA based on its superior reputation in collections and programming.  And that's why the DIA is the greatest museum in the world.

I have to say... I don't disagree.

Everywhere, a Sign

One of the best things about working at the DIA is that during my lunch break, or heck, even on my way to the parking lot, I get to walk through the museum galleries and visit some of the most amazing art in the universe.  I've been making it a point to see a different gallery every day.  Today, after lunch, I took a little stroll through the Egyptian gallery-- a long time favorite of mine.

As I was gawking at mummies and canopic jars, I saw this sign next to one of the cases:

Yes!  What do BCE and CE mean??  I mean, I know what they mean, but I have an anthropology degree so I know all kinds of bizarre things.  I gloss over these terms without a thought, while much of the general public may get hung up on them, as they are not terribly common in our everyday language.  I think this is a great method-- explaining not only the art, but the terms used to interpret the art.  Brilliant.

Since its reinstallation, the DIA has made use of some awesome interpretive methods-- many of which seem brilliant in their simplicity and effortless in their execution. 

My favorite of these methods may be the DIA's use of text panels.  I know, text panels.  I personally, find text panels to be generally uninspired and downright dull.  I rarely read them.  That's why the DIA is brilliant in their creation of wall texts that you don't have to read!  It's true! 

There are one or more text panels mounted in every gallery, and they all look something like this one from the Egyptian gallery:

It's a little difficult to see because I wasn't using a flash on my camera.  To the right is your typical text, talking about what kinds of objects are typically found in Egyptian tombs.  But if you look to the left, you see an image with the word "EGYPTIAN" over it.  Every text panel throughout the Egyptian galleries looks exactly like this one.  They all have the same image on the left, and they all say "EGYPTIAN" down the side.

Here's why I think it's brilliant:

1.) It requires almost no reading.  I don't have to read all of that text to know where I am and what I'm looking at.

2.) It unifies the galleries.  As another part of the DIA's reinstallation, all of the gallery space was divided into smaller galleries because visitors reported being overwhelmed by the large, traditional halls.  Thus, the many smaller rooms make it difficult to keep track of what gallery you're in.  These panels, present in every gallery room, keep these smaller sections unified under one larger theme.

3.) I read a few, and they're actually very interesting and accessible.  I may need to state that I do not have an background in Art or Art History, thus I read these text panels like a visitor would, and I found them all to have genuinely interesting information that was easy to understand without seeming overly simplified. 

4.) They are sufficient.  There is little else on the walls, except art.  One of these panels in each gallery goes a long way.

Here are some other examples of the great text panels that are now in every DIA gallery:

Inspired by Italy                              Ancient Greek & Roman

Renaissance                                               Modern

American                                               African

Medieval

Of course, there are others genres that I did not have a chance to capture this afternoon.  It must also be pointed out that all of the art falling under these headings is displayed together.  In other words, there is no heading for "American Painting" or "American Sculpture".  Everything that is American is in the same place.  American furniture, silverware, paintings, marble busts... all in the American gallery, identifiable by the text panel in every room.

What struck me the most was how simple this seems.  Why didn't they do this sooner?  Why isn't every museum in the world organized like this? 

It is deceptively simple.  It seems like all they did was put up new text panels and the collections were immediately more accessible to the visitor.  But the DIA was not always organized this way.  In fact, the museum was shut down for a number of years while everything was reorganized-- all of the European art needed to be grouped together, as did the other, less obvious categories like "Inspired by Italy", etc.

But I think this reorganization was well worth the trouble.  While I was meandering around the galleries this afternoon, I stopped to visit one of my favorite paintings in the entire museum.

I love this painting.  I love the bird, I love the baby, I love the laughing lady, I love the other lady's hat-- I love it all.  So I was pleased when I turned the corner and stumbled upon it.  Then I realized that I wasn't sure what gallery I was in.  I stopped, looked around and actually muttered to myself, "...are we still calling this 'modern'...?"  No sooner did I realize I was talking to myself in a public place, when I turned and saw this on the wall to my left:

I couldn't even read the text from where I was standing, but I had seen this panel in previous galleries.  I knew that Vincent represented modern art, and was thus instantly oriented to the type of art I was seeing.

Brilliant.

I Can't Believe I'm Enjoying Data Entry

I've been doing a lot of data entry the past few days.  But let me say this: data entry is not as mind-numbing when you're actually interested in the data itself.  I've been entering all of the programs from the past two fiscal years into categories for the AAMD mapping project.  My categories are things like schools, colleges/universities, religious, cultural, senior citizens, human services, libraries, businesses, corporate events, etc.

For me, it's been interesting to see where the majority of the groups are coming from.  So far, it's been a lot of Royal Oak, Farmington Hills, Bloomfield Hills, Dearborn and Detroit.  I expected more Grosse Pointe, but am happy to see the number of Detroit Public Schools that have visited the museum over the past two years.

Yesterday, I sat in on a department meeting, which was very interesting.  Apparently, the evaluation department is lumped into the human resources department at the DIA, forming something called "Organization Development and Human Resources" or ODHR.  That's where I work.  Now, because of this, I learned a lot about evaluation during our department meeting-- which I did not expect.

At the end of the semester, I worked on an evaluation project for the Harn Museum and I really enjoyed it.  Also, being in other meetings and hearing about visitor surveys has really piqued my interest in museum evaluation.

Apparently, the DIA has not always made evaluation a top priority, but in recent years, it has really taken off.  These days, every school group that comes into the museum gets a yellow envelope (reminiscent of end-of-the-semester evaluations) full of evaluations that both teachers and students complete before leaving the museum.  I didn't ask about it, but the amount of information collected from these surveys must be enormous.

Next week, I will be assisting with another type of evaluation-- an "employee engagement survey".  I'll be monitoring a few laptop computers in the Kresge court, where employees can take a survey about working at the DIA.  For some reason, it never occurred to me that satisfaction surveys could be internal.

I also learned that much of what the evaluation department does is dictated by grants.  And on that note, I'm happy to report that I'll be meeting with the DIA's brand new grant writer later this week.  He's a really nice guy and I'm excited to talk to him about writing grants.  I think I could find a niche for myself in grant writing, but we are meeting to discuss another project I'm working on (the creation of extended program summaries).  Sondra is concerned with making the program summaries into a resource that will be useful in grant applications and other campaigns.  Thus, I need to talk to the grant writer about what kind of program information would be useful in grants, etc.

On another note, I understand that the museum galleries and collections need to be kept and a stable temperature and RH, but is it really necessary for our office to be 40 degrees?  I am not a painting, and I don't enjoy sitting directly beneath an A/C vent.

But so far that is my only complaint about my internship at the DIA... so I guess things could be a lot worse.