Purpose in the time of pandemic
“What would you do if people stopped coming?”
We asked that question once in a meeting with the staff and trustees of a prominent museum while facilitating discussions about their identity in the context of a rebranding initiative. The query was met with an awkward silence, before someone blurted-out “It would never happen. People will always come to visit.” That was the response we were expecting: the prevailing assumption in cultural organizations, something we’ve been told on multiple occasions, is that “people innately know who we are and will support our work.” Fortunately the CEO jumped in, saying “Actually, that’s a very interesting question. What would we do?” Turns out the question may be more pertinent now than it’s ever been. Thanks to the coronavirus, we have a real reason for asking that question once again.
By the end of February COVID-19 had infected more than 82,000 people in 47 countries, causing more than 2,800 deaths. The World Health Organization hasn’t yet declared a pandemic, but is telling countries to prepare as if COVID-19 is a pandemic. Canadians and Americans alike should be ready for a significant disruption to their daily lives. Organizations, too, have to prepare: coronavirus is just beginning to hurt the North American economy.
The first red flag was when tourists from China stopped showing up. From January 23 to February 13, daily domestic and international flights (arrivals and departures) in China dropped from 15,072 to 2,004; that’s 13,000 flights per day lost due to this emerging health crisis. Canada receives 700,000 Chinese visitors per year. The United Nations has said Chinese travellers in 2018 accounted for about 1/5 of all tourism spending, more than any other country, and they spent $277 billion abroad, nearly twice what Americans spent.
The financial markets and most economic forecasters initially projected the virus outbreak wouldn’t do much harm to the economy or profits; they assumed coronavirus would be a temporary blip reducing China’s growth for a quarter or two but otherwise having little lasting impact. Now that it has spread to new hubs in Italy, Iran, and South Korea, coronavirus is threatening Europe’s economy, heightening fears of disruption in the global supply chain and widespread lockdowns. Consequently, the sentiment of economists has shifted. They now believe markets accustomed to optimism may be more vulnerable if the virus becomes a global pandemic causing a meaningful pullback of commerce across major economies.
Authorities around the world may start shutting down facilities where people congregate – not just factories and airports, but also shopping malls or museums. It happened first in China, now Italy is doing it. The 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo are at risk of being cancelled if it proves too dangerous to hold the Games because of the coronavirus outbreak. Canadian IOC member Dick Pound says organizers are more likely to cancel it altogether than to postpone or move it because of its size, scale, and its many moving parts. But actions like that mean we’ll see losses that can’t be recovered once business returns. The choices nations make to try to address such a pandemic will shape the economy for the near future and for some time to come. However, as Pound says, if the new virus turns into something truly lethal like the Spanish flu “then everybody’s got to take their medicine.”
In terms of hard numbers, museums more than
make a dent in a healthy economy.
Where is this going to leave cultural institutions? In 2018 the American Alliance of Museums proclaimed museums to be “economic engines.” That year there were 850 million visits to museums in the United States, more than the combined number of people attending major league sporting events and theme parks. 76% of leisure travellers in the U.S. visited museums, and museums hosted 55 million visits from students in school groups – on which museums spent over $2 billion per year on educational activities. All together, these visits support over 726,000 jobs, contribute $50 billion to the economy, and generate $12 billion in tax revenue. Moreover, it’s worth noting that museums and other nonprofit cultural organizations return more than $5 in tax revenue for every $1 received in government funding.
But this is an event poised to undermine those statistics. What do museums do if people stop coming? Will they be like the Olympics: close down and take your medicine? If no one visits, is that the end of your work? What, then, is your purpose? The question museums must ask themselves is important: What business are you really in? Figuring out your purpose is how you stay relevant in a changing world. Staying relevant may mean, in today’s terms, taking a hard look at your business model and start to consider new strategies to help you pursue your mission. Reflection doesn’t come easy in organizations, but purpose provides a basis for answering fundamental questions:
Why does your organization exist?
How are you making a difference?
What is your unique value?
Is your ability to realize your purpose limited by your business model?
If your sense of purpose is clear you’ll be able to expand your thinking about the traditional museum model and change your tactics. The first thing to consider is that the “place” that is your museum can, and must also be, a “place in the mind.” Your museum is a “place” for dialogue, thinking, research, knowledge – not merely a place to visit. In effect it should be less “place” and more “purpose.” It is in this way of thinking about your purpose, that you may begin to find ways to expand on strategies to engage a growing audience beyond your physical location, so that if, or when people stop coming, your ability to function and to deliver on your mission remains intact.
How you creatively engage your audience will change your organization’s fortunes. Your core purpose is to be a storyteller. But the manner of the experience you deliver may need to change. A multi-pronged engagement outreach program leveraging the most suitable publishing tactics – whether through social media, film, digital, print, AR, or by other experiential means – would enable museums to attract the interest of audiences anywhere they ask to be engaged, not just where their numbers are the greatest. Most important, critically assess your social media: is it “fluff” or are you communicating real and substantive ideas? If you redefine “visitor” and provide new types of valuable experiences to people regardless of where they live, and “create communities rather than mailing lists,” as the author Joe Cappo once advocated, turnstiles will not be the only thing that matter.
So, maybe no one comes to visit, but there’s still work to do; “visitors” of another kind need experiences. Reflecting on your purpose and identifying what really is the outcome of your work opens the door to lessening your dependence on people walking through the turnstile. You are more than your four walls.
Retool Lab is a collaborative focused on helping cultural, entertainment and public institutions regroup, reshape, and retool their strategy to recover from the economic impact of the current crisis, and to use these insights as a springboard to thrive far into the future. You can contact us at info@retoollab.com or at www.retoollab.com