Our largest institutions prioritize strong corporate engagement, including corporate memberships, a model that offers significant value on both sides. It’s revenue for the institution, of course. And for businesses, it functions as an employee perk and allows companies to demonstrate active support of the arts, education, cultural connection, and work-life balance.
If your corporate membership tiers are well established, it’s a good time to reassess benefits. Do your offerings take remote workers into account? Are you keeping up with changing expectations?
There’s also real growth opportunity for smaller and mid-sized museums who have not yet explored corporate membership. As companies look for new ways to support employee wellness, DEI initiatives, and community engagement, you may find businesses more willing to partner up.
The increased interest in employee wellness programs brings to mind the rise of social prescribing, where healthcare providers partner with cultural institutions to encourage museum visits as part of care plans. Museums are being recognized as valuable partners in this sphere, something you can absolutely highlight when appealing to HR and benefits teams. Think of it like this: Museums offer something different from standard wellness perks like gym memberships. You combine wellness, culture, and impact.
Updating established programs
While corporate membership programs often share a common structure, changes in the workplace in recent years have opened the door for museums to rethink what they offer:
- Collaborations are always worth exploring. Can you team up with nearby museums, theaters, or heritage sites to create shared corporate membership perks? It provides more value for companies, and it saves each spot from having to expand benefits alone.
- Look to create opportunities for corporate employees to volunteer, mentor students, or contribute professional expertise (e.g., marketing, IT) to museum projects. Employer supported volunteering meets the moment and benefits all parties here.
- Don’t just list logos on your website or in donor reports. Think about where else you can highlight your corporate partners: community events, educational outreach materials, traveling exhibits. What other ways can you offer recognition beyond the norm?
- Evaluate your impact reports. Make sure you’re tracking the right outcomes. How did membership support school field trips, boost local tourism, reduce barriers for visitors? These metrics speak to corporate values and ESG reporting needs, not to mention they’re increasingly expected by HR and CSR teams.
- Ohio Museums Association just published a blog post on the importance of recognizing various membership milestones + different events you can host to show appreciation. Worth a look!
Related read: Corporate Membership Programs in Museums, Advisory Board for the Arts
This recent report draws on insights from 10 major U.S. cultural institutions and highlights how corporate membership is evolving.
Museums considering a corporate membership program
In addition to the tips above, keep the following in mind when launching a new program:
- Identify local and regional companies and organizations with employee wellness or DEI commitments.
- You can expand your reach by working through local chambers of commerce to meet clusters of prospective corporate members. See this Americans for the Arts toolkit for concrete steps.
- Keep membership tiers simple to start. You might begin with just two levels: an entry tier with free admission and recognition and a higher tier with event access and private tours.
- As the Advisory Board for the Arts notes in the related read linked above:
Make sure your lowest tier is not too low. Most institutions with membership starting at $5,000 now are looking to eliminate that lowest tier and transition members up to $7,500 or $10,000. If you are starting a new corporate membership program, the lowest level should be something you are comfortable with most of your members sitting at for multiple years.
- As the Advisory Board for the Arts notes in the related read linked above:
- When you’re ready to build out tiers, think about offering curator-led tours; exhibition previews; restaurant discounts; private networking receptions; access to cool spaces in the museum for retreats, meetings, presentations, etc. In other words, choose easy-to-implement perks that won’t strain your team too much.
- Plan to collect data and share reports that highlight how often employees and families use their benefits, proof of ROI.
- Relatedly, give member companies a story to tell about their civic impact. Show how their membership directly supports education goals, outreach, and inclusion initiatives.
Examples to browse
At MoMA, corporate members enjoy free admission for employees, exhibition previews, and private networking opportunities. The model is designed to appeal to HR leaders looking for cool perks and to business development folks seeking cultural cachet with clients. (See details: MoMA corporate membership)
Some museums bring DEI into the mix directly. The Bronx Museum includes access to cultural events tied to Black History Month and Hispanic Heritage Month, and in doing so positions membership as a way for companies to support diversity initiatives. (See details: Bronx Museum corporate membership)
One corporate membership covers four Carnegie Museums (Carnegie Museum of Art, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Carnegie Science Center, and The Andy Warhol Museum). Yes, these museums are already part of the same network, but it’s still useful as an example of a multi-institution/consortium model. (See details: Carnegie Museums corporate membership)
Museum of Life and Science in Durham, NC, offers a business membership that explicitly includes group volunteer opportunities alongside passes and recognition. It has an integrated service component that many programs talk about but don’t necessarily formalize. (See details: Museum of Life and Science business membership)
