The Milwaukee Public Museum announced last week that it was transferring ownership of its Costa Rican rain forest to a new nonprofit foundation (thanks to Charity Governance for the link). The transfer/sale is part of the museum’s effort to refocus its work and reconstruct its finances after its cataclysmic financial disaster of 2005 (which I wrote about here).
Why did a museum in Milwaukee own a rain forest in Costa Rica in the first place? The Milwaukee Public is a human and natural history museum with a strong emphasis on research. The rain forest was one initiative to connect that research to learning. Says the article:
It was the model for the rain forest exhibit that the museum opened in 1988. It was the source of some of the exotic insect species that inhabit the Puelicher Butterfly Wing, opened in 2000, and the ”Bugs Alive!” exhibit, opened in 2003.
And it was the laboratory for Allen Young, emeritus curator of zoology, as he studied the links between the forest’s health and its cacao trees. Young’s research led to the museum’s introduction of the dark chocolate Cacao de Vida bar.
Dark chocolate? You ask… Oh yes, the rain forest is also an experimental organic cacao plantation, which produces the key ingredient in the Milwaukee Public Museum’s chocolate bar.
It may sound like an odd and sprawling mission that incorporates Midwestern museum space, Costa Rican rain forests, and gourmet dark chocolate bars. And it’s clear that by year’s end, the Milwaukee Public Museum will be a much more locally focused institution, with a less expansive operation (if it can remain solvent in the meantime). But the story is a larger version of a similar struggle going on at place-based arts institutions around the country.
Cultural organizations that are bound by their bricks and mortar are increasingly labeled as insular and disconnected from their communities. Organizations that reach out beyond the borders of their buildings and their geography are often blamed for stretching the limits of their economic model, and their governance capacity. The balance between being focused and strategic, and being bold and exploratory, is becoming trickier by the day.
The easy criticism of the Milwaukee Public Museum would be that it over-extended its reach. But the true source of the financial problem was the stunning lack of internal controls and fiscal leadership to mind the details of the business at home. It’s not wrong to reach. But it’s wrong to reach without knowing you’re standing on firm ground. Artful managers must always think both inside and outside of their particular box.
