Funding

Covid-19: Survey for museum directors 2021

Garden Museum
Garden Museum

To help us improve the funding we have offered during these difficult times, we’ve launched a new survey to understand the financial, marketing and professional support that our network of museums and galleries would find most useful in 2021.

Last April, in the face of an extremely challenging period for museums, we carried out a sector-wide survey. We wanted to know what your biggest concerns were, and what Art Fund could do to help, and we were so grateful that hundreds of you took the time to respond — despite everything else that was going on.

Based on your feedback, we adapted our funding programmes to focus on supporting museums and galleries to adapt and evolve in response to the impact of Covid-19, and launched our Respond and Reimagine grants. This programme awarded £2.25m to 67 projects across the UK which addressed, practically and imaginatively, challenges across the four-priority identified in our survey: digital, audiences, collections, and workforce.

As well as providing funding, we were also able to use the information you provided to boost our crowdfunding platform Art Happens and our ticketing platform Art Tickets, and make the case for museums to government, in the press, and to the public.

2021 looks to be just as tough, and our commitment to supporting museums through the pandemic remains. However, several months down the line we know that the landscape, the challenges and – even – the opportunities are changing. If the last year has taught us anything, it is that the future is unpredictable, but we know that our sector is looking forward with creativity and determination.

And so we are asking once again for museum and gallery directors to tell us your priorities, concerns and hopes for this year, and how we at Art Fund can best help museums to respond – and eventually thrive – in this changed world.

The survey should take about 12 minutes to fill out. As last year, we will publish the results, and use them to further adapt our funding programmes and strengthen our advocacy on behalf of museums and galleries. These insights will be vital in contributing to efforts across the museum sector to ensure our museums survive this unprecedented crisis.

If you are a museum or gallery director in the UK, please click here to take our survey