Looking ahead: Survey for museum directors 2022
To help us continue to improve the funding and support we offer, today we are opening our third annual survey for museums directors.
The last two years have been exceptionally difficult for museums. Long periods of closure have had a huge impact, cutting off income streams, shaking up established ways of working, and making it harder for museums to stay connected with their audiences.
Since 2020, this annual research into museums’ priorities, challenges and needs has helped us understand how best Art Fund can support and advocate for the sector as we navigate uncertain and challenging times together.
The insights from you – our fantastic network of museums and galleries – have been immensely valuable in tailoring our support for museums and galleries over the last two years. The hundreds of responses helped shape our funding programmes, Respond and Reimagine in 2020 and Reimagine in 2021, through which we gave over £4m in grants to projects across the UK.
We used findings from these two surveys to demonstrate the impact of Covid-19 on museums to the media, to ministers and government officials, and to other funders.
And you helped us ensure that Art Fund Museum of the Year, our free ticketing platform Art Tickets, and our free crowdfunding platform Art Happens were all able to adapt to your circumstances and amplify your voices.
In 2022, we want to build on this and make sure we are doing all we can. As we move towards a national recovery, we want to understand what is needed to help museums thrive again and emerge from this crisis stronger than ever.
That’s why we are asking for 10 minutes of your time to fill in our survey. Working again with Wafer Hadley, this survey and a series of focus groups and interviews will give us those key insights that have proven so influential. We will share our findings in the spring, and use them as a springboard for our new programme and our advocacy throughout the year.
If you are a museum or gallery director in the UK, please click here to take our survey before Friday 11 March.
If you would like to participate in a different format, please email Emma Hutchins. The questions can be viewed as a PDF here.