
Cultural institutions are facing some of their greatest challenges in living memory. The systems that have sustained them for decades—major philanthropy, public funding, ticketing and other revenue streams—are creaking under the weight of new realities, and time and resources to respond are limited.
The pandemic dealt a blow to visitor numbers that has yet to fully rebound. Average museum attendance in the U.K. remains 10 percent below pre-COVID levels; half of U.S. institutions report deficits double that figure. In a sector where the costs of staging and maintaining exhibitions are fixed, even modest reductions in footfall, tickets sold and other associated income streams can cause an institution significant financial strain.
Across Europe and North America, the traditional donors who have underpinned museum finances are ageing. Successive global crises—from wars and pandemics to climate shocks and the cost-of-living crisis—have diverted philanthropic attention and resources elsewhere. Government support, meanwhile, is in an apparently inexorable retreat. In the U.S., proposed budget cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts signal a trend of diminishing federal support for culture. In Europe, which historically has had a more robust culture of central arts funding, culture is increasingly caught in the crosshairs of populist attacks and budgetary triage. Corporate philanthropy, too, is retrenching as institutions and companies alike are increasingly wary of the public relations quagmire of a declined donation or cancelled partnership in response to public backlash. Each cautious or principled step narrows the path to financial stability for institutions badly in need of major gifts or lucrative long-term sponsorship contracts.
None of this is new, but the cumulative effects have become impossible to ignore. From stagnating audiences to rolling rounds of redundancies and persistent structural deficits, many of the world’s most revered museums are confronting a moment of profound reckoning—not just around how they are funded but also whom they serve and how they sustain relevance.
Having worked closely with museum leaders through collaborations at Avant Arte, I have seen how acutely these pressures are felt and how complex they are to solve. Fundraising editions have emerged as a way to generate revenue while cultivating new audiences, but there is no silver bullet nor any solutions that can enable our institutional cruise liners to turn on a dime. The broader consensus is clear: the existing institutional model must evolve.
This evolution will require a delicate balancing act: maintaining the lifeblood streams of income critical to sustaining our museums today while building structural resilience and sustainable new models for the future. Crucial to this effort will be rethinking how museums engage the latest generation, build donor pipelines and share limited resources more effectively across the sector.
A generational shift in engagement and expectations
On a long enough timeline, the importance of the next generation is self-evident. They will shape the future of cultural philanthropy, and the institutions that earn their loyalty now will reap the benefits for decades to come, particularly in the context of the much-discussed 84 trillion dollar Great Wealth Transfer. But theirs is not a value solely decades deferred; they matter to museum income models today, already making up a significant share of museum audiences (35 percent of U.S. visitors last year were under the age of 34), membership and other earned income. Yet many of these younger audiences don’t feel that exhibitions, memberships or donation pathways are designed with them in mind.
Engaged and passionate, with diverse and sophisticated tastes, this cohort is a far cry from the lazy stereotype they’re often saddled with: a chronically online generation who prefer Patek to Paul Thek and are disconnected from the great institutions that have long been central to discovery, education and scholarship. Data from Avant Arte’s most recent Collector Report, based on a survey of over 3,100 of our young collectors and enthusiasts, offers a revealing snapshot. Eighty-six percent of respondents believe that museums play a critical role in fostering a healthy society, and two-thirds visit a museum or gallery monthly.
Although 83 percent of the young enthusiasts and collectors surveyed said they had both the means and motivation to support museums more than they currently do, almost half simply didn’t know how and need a clear pathway. While there is a vast opportunity to clearly steward younger audiences from visitor to member to supporter and patron, findings from the report elaborate on even more fundamental gaps. Fifty-nine percent of respondents said that they didn’t consider buying from a museum shop a way of supporting the institution. Once that link was clear, respondents were four times more likely to spend $500 or more. This underscores a fundamental communication gap as well as a missed revenue opportunity.
Redefining what motivates giving
Part of the challenge for museums today, amid this generational flux, is that the motivations of younger supporters are changing. Recognition or prestige—names on donor walls or grand capital projects memorialising their generosity—carry less weight than identity, connection and impact. Seventy-nine percent reported that they were more likely to donate funds if they shared values with the institution. Two-thirds said a specific connection between funds raised and the impact of those donations was critical. And 82 percent were more likely to donate when they received an artwork or meaningful gesture of appreciation in return.
Tailoring offerings to supporters around two distinct generations and their respective motivations is no small feat for development teams already stretched thin. But institutions that can build belonging and shared values to younger supporters, speak to their communities and offer meaningful ways to participate stand to unlock a generational opportunity.
Proven models for engaging new supporters
The potential for museums to tune their offering to the new generation is far from just theoretical. From LACMA in Los Angeles to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen, Avant Arte has been able to collaborate with some of the most forward-thinking museums in the sector in recent years to launch fundraising edition programs that generated over $15 million in revenue and attracted thousands of new supporters.
Of those buyers, 40 percent made their first-ever art purchase through these projects. Many are taking their first step on a path that, correctly drawn, can one day lead to patronage. Over 12,000 fundraising editions have been sold through these inclusive, global and digitally-led campaigns, extending institutional reach well beyond local audiences and tapping into a more fluid, international collector base.

In May, Avant Arte launched the second chapter of a fundraising programme with Dia Art Foundation, a collection of silkscreen prints by Lee Ufan, following a sold-out set of editions by George Condo. Together, the two editions are expected to raise over $5 million for the foundation and introduce a new cohort of supporters spanning San Francisco to Seoul. These are precisely the types of young collectors around the world who have the potential to be turned into a powerful generation of donors and patrons to help institutional income models evolve.
Rethinking institutional cost structures
There is a parallel challenge on the other end of institutional budgets: costs have spiked due to inflation and ongoing supply chain instability, compounded by rising protectionism and an increasingly complex and integrated global economy. Much of a museum’s operational spending goes toward essential, identity-defining activities such as curatorial programs, physical space management, community engagement and other external-facing efforts. But a significant portion is also allocated to “back-end” infrastructure: systems and tools that, while necessary, are rarely differentiated or unique to a single institution.
Most institutions procure independently, even though their needs are remarkably similar—from the software stack that enables invoicing, ticketing and HR to tailored CRM tools, sales and inventory management for museum shops and social media tools designed to navigate algorithmic volatility. Not only does this relinquish the efficiencies of volume discounts from the leverage of collective bargaining, it also siphons critical resources—stretched museum teams who need to assess, select, onboard and manage each from scratch.
The solution is as obvious as it would be challenging to implement: a shared pool of services, tools and expertise that institutions can subscribe to and draw from according to their needs.
A moment of opportunity
In some ways, these two opportunities—attracting a distributed younger generation of supporters and patrons and consolidating overlapping resources to eliminate cost duplication and waste—may appear distinct. However, both are easier to identify than to act upon, and both will require consistent efforts over the long term. They demand a deft balance between addressing the immediate challenges institutions face today and envisioning sustainable models for tomorrow.
Meeting the many challenges the sector faces requires not only urgency but also openness—to new audiences, new models and new ways of working. The fundamentals are already in place: a generation of young supporters is already enthusiastic, engaged and eager to contribute—if museums give them a clear invitation to become the patrons of tomorrow.