CAM e-News Monthly Museum Poll

April Museum Poll Recap: Museum "Naming Opportunities"

Naming opportunities are common strategies in most capital campaigns and some offer an individual or company the opportunity to put their name on a brick, tile, bench, or other component of a building. A recent article highlighted a unique naming opportunity at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh that offers a unique spin on this fundraising technique; they have raised nearly $800,000 by offering companies and individual donors the opportunity to attach their name to a dinosaur bone. Donors can spend as little as $25 for a dinosaur tooth and up to six figures for an entire dinosaur skeleton as part of the museum's "Adopt-a-Bone" campaign. This fundraising strategy inspired the monthly poll for April, asking “Has your museum ever offered a naming opportunity for items in your collection or parts of your building?”

The results of this informal poll indicate that a vast majority of California museums (92%) have offered naming opportunities for items in their collection or parts of their building, suggesting this is an effective way to raise money. The most common naming opportunities are rooms (75%), exhibits (45.8%), bricks (41.7%) and benches (37.5%). Here are some select comments from our subscribers:

WE WERE WAY BEFORE CARNEGIE! We had a buy a bone for the Alosaurus campaign in the 80s. We put name plaques on the seats in our theater for $1000 gifts in our 1998-2002 capital campaign and did traditional space naming. We seek title sponsorships for exhibitions and also recognize gifts within exhibitions. -- Elizabeth Schiff, AVP Institutional Development, San Diego Natural History Museum

One of the most popular naming opportunities were our historic dioramas and they go for a pretty penny. Obviously species like the elephants and lions went fast, not so much the honey badger. My favorite was the Musk Oxen. I was going on a potentially perilous research expedition to Vietnam and made my coworkers promise to name the musk oxen diorama after me if I died. My coworkers told them I wasn't worth that much. LOL -- Anonymous

Not everything or space has a price tag; we draw the line on inappropriate spaces like bathrooms or areas so private that no one would ever see it. -- Elizabeth Bacchetti, Deputy Development Director, Asian Art Museum

Twenty-five years ago, funds were raised for the renovation of the Bernhard house, the oldest surviving wooden structure in Auburn, by selling pickets with a persons name on them. The fence partially surrounds the property. The Placer County Historical Society replaces the pickets when they are damaged. -- Anonymous

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