‘How many times can we transform?’: Change alone won’t solve the museum funding crisis

In recent years, museums have endured substantial challenges, including ongoing funding cuts and a global pandemic. For those supported by local authorities, these issues are exacerbated by operating in an environment where they are in competition for funding and attention with mandatory services.  

In this context, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s announcement in January of £1.5bn investment in arts and culture, including £13.6m for a Museum Transformation fund to support the “transition towards more-sustainable business models”, is welcome news.  

While the aims and details of this fund have yet to emerge, it follows a decade and a half of austerity compounded by rising costs, and will likely emphasise the need for innovation and change within museums themselves, as if the problem of diminished public funding can be overcome by the correct balance of entrepreneurialism, efficiency and mindset. 

Encouraging innovation at the individual level isn’t misguided. HMRC statistics suggest many museums are not claiming their full entitlement of Museums and Galleries Exhibition Tax Relief, for example.

The point, however, is that focusing only on this level of change overlooks the sector’s existential challenges. It also sidesteps questions of whether the values and practices of the public sector can be sustained without appropriate funding.  

The reality facing museums is, of course, more complicated than these initiatives suggest. The UK ranks among the lowest spenders on culture, both as a percentage of GDP and per person, compared with other European countries.  

Against this backdrop, many museums have already undergone a period of forced transformation, with even museums consistently held up as success stories continuing to face challenges.  

Tony Butler, the executive director of Derby Museums, says: “When I see words like ‘transformation’ I think: ‘I have transformed this organisation  
so many times already.’

“We are an exemplar, but we can’t be sustainable if every time we create efficiencies or increase earned or contributed income, the value of our public investment reduces and costs rise above inflation.  

“Every year, we are covering our core costs by pulling rabbits out of the hat. The model remains fundamentally weak without a reasonable amount of public funding”

“We’ve done everything right. We created a £2m endowment fund, developed new business partnerships to support educational programming, maximised our assets to bring in commercial revenue, and developed relationships with philanthropists, trusts and foundations.

“We have done the ‘transformation’ already – but it is still not enough. Every year, we are covering our core costs by pulling rabbits out of the hat. The model remains fundamentally weak without a reasonable amount of public funding.”  

Systematic thinking 

Derby Museums’ story points to a need for systematic thinking, rather than initiatives that ask for individual-level solutions alone. 

What would it mean to transition towards more-sustainable business models as part of a rethink of the sustainability of the ecosystem as a whole? A first step would be to be upfront in these conversations about those aspects of museum work that sit outside the market and to fund them appropriately over the long term.  

It is easy to label a museum that has lost significant public funding yet made progress in bringing in commercial revenue as a success, all the while failing to recognise the losses that have been endured in, say, public programming or engagement work as a result of having to limit activities that are more difficult to fund via the market.

There needs to be an upfront conversation about what policymakers and funders think museums are for and whether they are willing to pay for it.  

Then there is the question of the relationship between the national museums and those supported by local authorities. And the opportunities offered by local government reorganisation (see p12), if only officers had the capacity and time to consider cultural services.

These are difficult but necessary questions, if we want to avoid a repetitive cycle of individualised solutions to what are systemic societal issues.  

What is ‘sustainability’? 

In all of this, “sustainability” remains undefined. If we look at the application guidelines for the Museum Transformation fund’s predecessor, the Museum Renewal Fund, which required grantees to “undertake additional work to boost business and financial sustainability”, it is clear that in the eyes of funding bodies, a sustainable business model is one that allows a museum to continue to exist in a context where funding levels are locked in a seemingly permanent state of contraction.

Given the emphasis within the idea of the business model on the multiple ways in which an organisation creates value, this seems like a missed opportunity to support more-holistic thinking about how components interact. 

Anyone who works in or has contact with the sector knows these are places where values matter; they are the lifeblood of museums and often what keeps people going in a challenging environment.

Overlooking the role of values in shaping the form that business models take risks giving the impression that this is all about making more money, when policymakers and funders know that is not the case.  

This is not new territory. Research and discussion around business models in the arts and cultural sector stresses the importance of paying attention to the different contexts and values that shape how organisations function and the types of business models they consider appropriate.  

For example, the National Theatre commissioned research (2025) into business models in the performing arts that identified the tensions between cultural, social and commercial objectives.

The EU-funded research project Creative Lenses (2015-19) found similar dynamics in cultural organisations of varying kinds. 

When the finer details of the Museum Transformation programme are revealed, let’s hope for realistic expectations about what can be achieved and acknowledgement of the systematic challenges facing the sector: even the most resilient museums need public subsidies to deliver for the public good.   

Bethany Rex is a research fellow at the Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies, University of Warwick