Boston's Museum of Science launches social media fundraising campaign, rides wave of the future?

Earlier this month I shared a presentation by Alex Morrison about online fundraising for museums. Since then, I have been following the social media fundraising effort undertaken by the Museum of Science in Boston. Flexing its social media muscle, using the Museum's Facebook page and the social fundraising app FundRazr, the Museum of Science is over halfway to its goal of raising $2500 towards the renovation of the Charles Hayden Planetarium exclusively through its network of online followers. As an incentive for donors on its donation page the Museum claims it "hopes to dedicate the best seat in the house to its loyal Facebook fans." These donor-fans would also be eligible to attend VIP events, win free passes, and receive other bonuses provided to Planetarium seat sponsors-- a very cool idea!

Screenshot taken from the Museum of Science's Facebook
fundraising page, found at this link: http://bit.ly/9y3cBX

I learned of the Museum of Science's online campaign last week via a Twitter posting I saw "retweeted" by MuseumNext, leaders in connecting museums and technology. A brief survey of the Museum's FundRazr page finds donations ranging from $1 up to $50, and many others vaguely described as given "generously." At the time of publication, the Museum had received 85 donations, totaling $1275 from Facebook users. The simplicity of the FundRazr app is genius. It allows donors to contribute to the campaign anonymously, or to identify themselves via their Facebook profiles, and payment options include credit card, debit card, and PayPal. It is intuitive, convenient, and provides both instant gratification and recognition. Add to all of that the fact that according to FundRazr's website, the service is "free," what could possibly keep any museum from trying this for themselves?

Wait a minute, when is anything ever free? In fact, FundRazr's not either. It is true that FundRazr does not charge an initial fee to download the application, but from every donation generated through its application PayPal takes 2.9% (their standard fee) plus an additional $.30, and FundRazr also takes $.30. This may not seem like a lot of money, and for most of us it isn't, but when you consider that many of the Museum of Science's individual donations via FundRazr were between $1 and $5, on the small scale the percentage of that lost income is staggering. However, if we take a larger view and accept that the Facebook donations are likely coming from patrons, who would otherwise not have given to the Planetarium campaign through more traditional efforts, the end result may indeed justify the means.

As a believer in the power of social media and an advocate for museums, I am excited to see many new approaches to finding the financial support our institutions need today to build programs and capacity for the future. I think many museums will be watching to see whether the Museum of Science is successful in its online effort, and I am interested in how they measure the success of this social media appeal. Is it enough to meet their relatively modest initial goal, or does success come from a sustained online development effort? On the other hand, if the Museum falls short of its monetary goal, should this campaign be considered a failure, or rather a first step towards engaging the online community in the preservation of this vital institution? I look forward to learning more about the Museum of Science's social media fundraising program, and seeing if it continues to extend beyond the greater Boston area to reach its patrons of the future.

Need some tips for embracing social media? Check out Jeff Guin's blog

Last Friday night I attended the Pro Football Hall of Fame Enshrinee's Dinner in Canton, Ohio, and as it turned out, one of the guests at our table was a woman who serves as the volunteer director of a nonprofit that teaches traffic safety to children. We talked at length about her organization, entirely run by volunteers, and their desire to embrace the wave of new media to better promote ongoing programming and reach an ever-changing audience of parents and their young children. She had already reached out to a local college for an intern to help them handle day-to-day posting beginning this fall. We discussed the merits of this initial set-up, along with some pitfalls to avoid, and by the end of our conversation she seemed encouraged by the potential of developing a well-conceived social media plan, and ready to embark on that task.

Launching a social media initiative can be as nerve-wracking as any other new and unfamiliar program undertaken by a lean organization of well-meaning, but unconfident staff. This particular nonprofit leader had done her homework and needed only a few pointers to reassure her that she and her organization were on the right track. Regardless of whether your staff are full-time professionals, or part-time volunteers, the proper amount of preliminary planning will make a huge difference in the roll-out of your social media campaign. So, where to begin?

Several months ago Jeff Guin tackled this very issue in his blog for Voices of the Past Heritage Media, specifically addressing the needs of heritage organizations. Jeff's post from March 31, 2010, Social Media Planning for Heritage Organizations: Differentiating Goals, Objectives & Tactics, is an excellent primer for those who are considering swimming in the social media pool. If your organization has yet to undertake the seemingly daunting task of developing a social media plan, or you have tried social media, but are frustrated by the difficult task of measuring your success, check out Jeff's article for a common sense approach to planning the application of 21st century media in your PR portfolio.

Will New Orleans vs. Indianapolis Art Museum Super Bowl bet set museum world atwitter?

By now many of you may have heard about the Super Bowl wager made last week between the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) and the Indianapolis Museum of Art. In a nutshell, if the Saints win on Sunday, NOMA will receive J.M.W. Turner's The Fifth Plague of Egypt from the Indianapolis Museum of Art for three months, but if the Colts win, the Indianapolis Museum receives Claude Lorrain's Ideal View of Tivoli from the NOMA for three months. Win or lose on Sunday, this bet is proving to be a win-win for both of these institutions in the sheer amount of great PR they are reaping this week, and likely for weeks to come.

In addition to the free press aspect of the bet, both art museums are getting an enviable image boost among football fans across the country. From NFL bloggers to Sports Illustrated columnists, this story has gotten the attention of many members of the football faithful. Let us assume for argument's sake that die-hard professional football fans are not the largest demographic among regular art museum patrons. If this were true, then what a remarkable opportunity to endear these two museums to another audience within their respective communities. I expect that at least some of the exuberant fans of the winning football team will make a special, and otherwise unplanned, trip to the art museum to see the spoils of their victory prominently displayed on loan from the loser.

There is something charming about two art museum directors betting classic pieces from their collections, each upping the ante along the way, until finally two of the finest masterpieces in either collection are on the table for a loan period of three months, based solely on the outcome of a football game. It is refreshing any time an entrenched stereotype hits the floor, and certainly a widely-publicized Super Bowl bet goes against the traditional image of art museum directors as highly academic and sightly esoteric individuals who eschew seemingly plebeian and barbaric pastimes like professional football.

However, my particular interest in this story lies in its beginning, as two museum directors created this incredible public relations wave with just a few short tweets in giant pool of new social media. Spurred on by Tyler Green, publisher of the Modern Art Notes blog, Maxwell L. Anderson, director of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and E. John Bullard, director of NOMA, engaged in a tweet-off, slinging artistic insults and driving the stakes higher. For those of us who follow museums on the web and try to explain the ever-increasing impact of museums and social media, this was a dream scenario.

Imagine the difficulty in explaining to a relatively small historical society just how far their news can travel, or how influential their posts may become even when given only 140 characters in which to express themselves. Many small organizations with too many tasks and too few staff claim they cannot afford the time to tweet or update a Facebook page. "Besides," goes their response, "how many people out there could possibly be interested in what we have to say?" How many indeed...

Alternatively, large institutions have been known to relegate the task of social media interaction to interns, who lack critical connections within the museum, in turn limiting them to merely providing bits information already available on the museum's website, or in the local newspaper. Not the kind of information one would expect to generate much cyberbuzz.

In the past it has been difficult to get either of these museum types out of their respective e-media ruts, but now we have a success story. These museum tweets heard round the sports world perfectly illustrate the vast potential of social media sites to spread tantalizing news faster than any traditional media outlet, and to more kinds of people than most museums would ever imagine reaching.

The wonderful thing about people is how multi-faceted we all are. I am personally and professionally passionate about museums, but I am also an eco-nut, a foodie, a huge college football fan, a political junkie, a former ski instructor, a mom, a wife, a church lady, a book enthusiast, a traveler, a knitter, and a yoga practitioner. Upon meeting me at a museum event, you would be lucky to learn even a quarter of those things about me, but I pursue all of those interests by following individuals and institutions who share my interests on Twitter, Facebook, and numerous blogs. If one of the museums I follow tweets about a yoga session in their Indian art gallery, all of my yoga-loving followers may see the posting if I choose to retweet the news. The social media outreach possibilities are truly infinite if the content is of a consistent quality and frequency.

I will be watching the Super Bowl this Sunday along with family and friends who are pretty committed football fans, and while there will be Patriots, Browns, Falcons, and Steelers fans in the room, this diversity of interests is also reflected in our myriad personal pastimes. Museums would be wise to take a page from the playbook of the Indianapolis and New Orleans museums of art, and tap into the vast potential of online social media. It's free, accessible, and you never know when a little bit of quality content may be the next tweet heard round the world.

Photo: The Lombardi Trophy exhibited in the Lamar Hunt Super Bowl Gallery at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. The Lombardi Trophy is awarded every year to the winner of the Super Bowl.