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AGENCY TESTIMONY
Challenges facing cultural institutions in New York City
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Commissioner Cumbo outlines the major challenges facing cultural institutions in New York City and beyond, including shifts in funding sources, audience numbers, and economic pressures.
- Philanthropies are shifting focus away from the arts
- Federal funding for arts is uncertain
- Corporate giving has decreased
- Inflation is driving up costs
- Audience numbers have not fully recovered post-pandemic
- Private donor contributions, historically a major source of revenue, are declining
- These challenges are affecting cultural institutions across the city, not just the Brooklyn Museum
Laurie Cumbo
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Philanthropies are shifting their focus away from the arts.
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Federal funding has been called into question.
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Corporations simply aren't giving as much as they once did, and inflation is driving up costs.
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Audiences have yet to return in the same numbers as they did before the pandemic.
0:08:27
Even our tourism numbers, while we've come a long way toward their recovery, still haven't reached their pre pandemic highs.
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To dig into one of these major downward trends, according to a report last year in the art newspaper, private donor contributions have historically accounted for the single largest share of museums' operating revenue.
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In a survey, while all arts and culture ranked second on older generations giving priorities, it's not even the top three, unfortunately, for many of our younger donors.
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Another report found that from 2020 to 2021, while seven of nine charitable sectors such as education and the environment saw significant growth, giving to the arts, culture, and humanities declined by 8.6.
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For these major shifts to come on the heels of the global pandemic has been nothing short of catastrophic for so many organizations.
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In this environment, cultural institutions are struggling to maintain operations across the city and have been forced to make painful decisions.
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Layoffs, reductions in programming, and other drastic measures have been taken just to make sure that institutions can stay afloat.
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The Brooklyn Museum is just the latest example of an organization having to take these dire steps, which no organization wants to do.
0:09:53
We have to be clear that this isn't specific to the Brooklyn Museum.
0:09:58
Many organizations are facing the same challenges.