Keywords

1 Introduction

In recent years, the museum industry sector has seen considerable innovation and change. In particular, since the 1970s, the museum industry has seen a growth in the number of new institutions and in the role played in the market and in society (Burton and Scott 2003). The boom in numbers and the role of museums has pushed competition among the institutions, focusing more on visitor needs, on developing new services and products (Vicente et al. 2012), and on increasing their earned revenue (Fopp 1997; Misiura 2006). More recently, the museum industry has been experiencing a fast transformation of the business model as a consequence of the impact of digital technologies (Rifkin 2000) and new ways of communication, such as social media.

Of relevance in the changing environment of the museum is the decline in funding of many institutions as a consequence of the recent crisis. Considering that the culture sector depends significantly on government funding policies, the museum industry has tried to compensate for the recent cuts through marketing strategies and new funding approaches (Bonet and Donato 2011), such as sponsorships and donations (O’Hagan 1998). Thus, museums are now competing not only in the fields of visitors, exhibitions and cultural activities, but also in terms of attracting new funds (Kotler et al. 2008).

Museums are attempting to attract new sponsorship and patronage from companies at a national and international level in order to strengthen the budget and improve the possibility of new collection acquisitions. It is also clear that in years of economic crisis, like the present time, it has become even more difficult to find companies willing to finance museum activities, especially for the smallest collections (Garibaldi 2015; Hausmann 2012). At the same time, museums are trying to attract new international sources of public funds through the development of special projects. This process is particularly relevant in the European Union, considering the huge number of cultural projects co-financed by the European Union (Tobelem 2013).

With museums competing fiercely for private and public funding with reduced support, especially from the national government, it has become of crucial importance to diversify income sources, to implement creative fundraising initiatives, and to create innovative sources of funding (Proteau 2018). However, according to Camarero et al. (2011), papers exploring the adoption, development and diffusion of new forms of fundraising among museums are scarce. It is therefore possible to identify a gap in the literature regarding innovation in the museum industry’s funding approach, especially considering new forms of attraction, such as fundraising. In a context like the museum industry, where public funds are crucial for the survival of the institutions and public policies are, at the same time, collapsing, innovation in the fundraising process is a main topic for analysis.

Regarding the geographical contextualisation of the financing innovation, previous studies consider mainly Anglo-Saxon countries (the US and the UK) (Stanziola 2011; Yermack 2017) and, in just a few cases, continental Europe (Camarero et al. 2011). Thus, we can identify another gap considering the innovation in fundraising applied in single countries, especially within the European Union. European countries are indeed very relevant to museum management, considering the large number of institutions operating in these contexts. In particular, Italy has the greatest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the world and is therefore a relevant case by which to study new fundraising possibilities. Out of 1092 sites worldwide, Italy tops the list with 54 locations (i.e. archaeological areas of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata, Villa Adriana, Villa d’Este, etc.). Moreover, according to the Italian National Institute of Statistic’s latest data (ISTAT 2017), out of 55,000 museums worldwide, 4158 (about 7.6%) are in Italy.

The aim of this paper is to analyse new approaches to museum financing and fundraising in a context, like continental Europe, characterised by high levels of competition and a decrease in public policies and funds. The findings are discussed through the analysis of Italy, in its European context and they are highly involved in the cultural sector.

The paper is organised as follows. Following the introduction, there is a discussion of the review of the literature on new approaches to financing. The research method is then presented and the findings of the research regarding the Italian context are illustrated. Finally, a conclusion is drawn concerning the path towards new solutions for financing the museum industry in the coming years.

2 Literature Review

The financial structure adopted by museums represents a crucial issue (Proteau 2018) and, on the income side, comprises both traditional sources (i.e. self-generated revenue and public contributions) and innovative ways of financing (i.e. donations and sponsorships) (Fedeli and Santoni 2006). Yet museums’ financial structure depends especially on where they are located, because the management and financing of cultural institutions are historically derived, and thus vary significantly amongst countries according to their history and traditions (Zan et al. 2007). In this respect, we can distinguish different financing models, each characterised by a diverse mix of income sources.

In light of the above, in the following subsections we investigate in more depth the features of three models of financing for museums, before analysing the main income sources for these institutions, highlighting the need for museums to diversify their income sources.

2.1 Museums’ Financing Models

The cultural sector is strictly connected to government policies (Bonet and Donato 2011), and the role played by the public sector depends on the administrative context and is historically derived (Zan et al. 2007). Three financing models have been drawn, differing significantly both in terms of the extent and nature of government intervention in the management of cultural institutions and how public funds are allocated. These different models are the following (Dalle Nogare and Bertacchini 2015; Vicente et al. 2012):

  • the Continental European model;

  • the British (or Anglo-Saxon) model;

  • the American model.

The Continental European model is distinguished by a high degree of public authority involvement in both the management and the funding of museums (Bonet and Donato 2011) and of cultural institutions in general (Gstraunthaler and Piber 2012). Indeed, despite a considerable decrease in recent years (Naylor 2016), public funding remains high for all European continental museums (Camarero et al. 2011).

Conversely, the British (or Anglo-Saxon) model is characterised by a low level of both public intervention and public spending. The government delegates the allocation of public funds among cultural institutions to “arm’s length agencies” (Hetherington 2017), and private funding from companies, foundations and individual donors plays a greater role compared to the first model (Tobelem 2013). Indeed, previous studies suggest that museums in the UK have increased funding from private donors and sponsorships in the past decades (Stanziola 2011) and have strengthened their marketing departments (Lang et al. 2006). This is consistent with several studies that point out that, when public grants do not cover their budget, public museums have more incentive to search for additional revenue sources, develop visitor-oriented activities, and hence engage in managerial practices and strategies to ensure the financial sustainability of the organisation (Bertacchini et al. 2018; Frey and Meier 2006).

Finally, regarding the American model, museums are mainly private and supported by the state, albeit indirectly through tax breaks on private donations (Rosenstein 2010; Toepler and Dewees 2005). Indeed, US museums benefit from a long tradition of private contributions that represent the largest funding source (Bell 2012; Zan et al. 2007); in some cases, these even increased after the 2007/2008 financial crisis (AAMD 2018).

These three financial models are no longer found in their pure form (Vicente et al. 2012). Indeed, because of the financial crisis and political events of recent years, most countries adopt a mixed model, combining different features of the traditional models (Dalle Nogare and Bertacchini 2015; Frey and Meier 2006). For instance, many public museums in Continental Europe have started to enjoy greater independence, moving from being government staff departments to being more independent public bodies through different organisational forms—such as foundation and consortium (Camarero et al. 2019)—despite being under public control (Vicente et al. 2012).

2.2 Traditional and Innovative Ways of Financing Museums

The financial structure adopted by museums represents a crucial issue for them (Proteau 2018; Woodward 2012): it not only influences their longevity but also contributes to defining their goals, strategies and mission (Kotler et al. 2008). In more depth, museum financing is based on a mixture of incomes (Hutter 1998), including traditional income sources—i.e. self-generated revenue and public grants—and innovative financing ways—i.e. private contributions (Fedeli and Santoni 2006; Schuster 1998; Toepler and Dewees 2005).

Self-generated revenue is income earned by a museum through its activities, such as admission fees, museum shop and café sales, and space rentals for special events. However, as many studies have noted, self-generated revenue does not cover the expenses of fulfilling institutional tasks (Chatelain-Ponroy 2001; Fuortes 1998; Lindqvist 2012). The structural deficit of museums can be explained by considering, on the one hand, that these institutions have considerable fixed costs, in particular related to conservation, restoration and staff (Frey and Meier 2006), and, on the other hand, that they cannot increase the price of their services, for the benefit of the museum, without prohibiting some visitors, thereby worsening the museum’s performance (Chirieleison 2002). In sum, museums are usually unable to support their own activities independently; therefore, they need external funds from both the public and the private sectors (Lindqvist 2012). This also explains why most museums take the form of non-profit organisations (ICOM 2017), wherein social goals (conservation, education, etc.) prevail (Camarero et al. 2011).

Public contributions comprise subsidies and grants allocated by a public authority. The particular nature of museums makes it essential for them to resort to public support (Camarero et al. 2011; Frey and Meier 2006), which can be justified by several arguments (Baumol and Bowen 1966; Duffy 1992; Heilbrun and Gray 1993)—first of all, the need to ensure free access to cultural services (Camarero et al. 2011).

However, as pointed out earlier, the financial crisis has significantly reduced government funding for the cultural sector (Badia et al. 2015; Lord and Lord 2009), thereby challenging museums worldwide to diversify their income sources (Proteau 2018). This has deeply affected museums’ competitive environment, forcing them to compete with each other as well as with emerging leisure alternatives and other causes (social, environmental, humanitarian) for a limited market (Blasco López et al. 2018; Burton and Scott 2003; Johnson and Thomas 1998). In this challenging scenario, a museum can achieve its mission and ensure its survival only by raising additional resources from individual donors, companies and other funding bodies (Camarero et al. 2019). This explains the increasing importance of fundraising (Borin 2011; Sargeant and Jay 2014; Venturelli et al. 2015), which can be defined as “those activities directed at raising money from external organisations and individuals, whether for specific projects (capital or revenue) or for general funds” (Woodward 2012, p. 21). The main forms of fundraising for museums are the following (Anderson and de Mille 2006; Borin 2011; Proteau 2018; Toepler and Dewees 2005):

  • corporate sponsorship and partnership;

  • funds raised through philanthropic foundations’ grants;

  • donations made by individual donors;

  • donations made by companies.

Furthermore, Jung (2015) suggests the need for a more inclusive fundraising approach, highlighting that this activity should be seen as a relationship-developing practice with local community members rather than simply a money-raising process. This would also mean recognising the role that private actors can play in the development and management of cultural heritage (Badia et al. 2015). In this respect, several studies recommend the implementation of marketing strategies (Camarero et al. 2019) in order to make museums more market-oriented (McPherson 2006) and people-oriented (Cole 2008) and hence more “appealing” to potential donors (Siano et al. 2010). Indeed, raising funds from donors, enterprises and other entities entails a shift in museum management and involves a more business-like style (Vicente et al. 2012).

Despite the reduction in public funds and consequently the increasing importance of fundraising for museums, literature has so far devoted limited attention to fundraising techniques within museums (Betzler and Gmür 2012; Fissi et al. 2018). Furthermore, most studies on fundraising are limited to the US and UK (Bizzarri et al. 2017).

3 The Italian Context: A Closer Look at Italian Museums

Italy has 4976 museums and similar institutions, both public and private, including 4158 museums, galleries or collections, 536 monuments or historical complex, and 282 archaeological sites and parks. Thanks to this outstanding cultural heritage, Italy, as pointed out earlier, boasts more World Heritage Sites than any other country in the world.

Regarding the financing model adopted by Italian museums, Italy has traditionally followed the Continental European funding model, with state and local agencies playing a fundamental role in the funding and management of cultural institutions (Fanelli et al. 2015; Giambrone 2013). Until the mid-1990s, public museums were not managed as autonomous units and were merely sub-units of the culture ministry. Consequently, they did not have their own budget, and their incomes flowed into the public budget (Bertacchini et al. 2018).

Since the mid-1990s, in line with the need to reduce government expenditure to meet the Maastricht criteria, several reforms have designed a decentralised organisation for public museum management (Camarero et al. 2019; Vicente et al. 2012), leaving space for the growth of mixed public-private institutions whose founding members include both public partners (such as municipal, provincial and/or regional governments) and private partners (such as banking foundations, companies and individual donors) (Dalle Nogare and Bertacchini 2015).

In this vein, the Pompeii archaeological site in 1997 was granted scientific, organisational, administrative and financial autonomy by the central government, followed in 2001 by state-owned museums in Florence, Naples, Rome and Venice, which were gathered in “museum complexes” (Poli museali) (Bertacchini et al. 2018). In 2004, the Italian government decided to privatise the Museo delle Antichità Egizie in Turin, which, for the first time in the Italian museum sector, was handed over to a private foundation with participation from the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities (hereinafter, Ministry),Footnote 1 the region of Piedmont, the province of Turin and the city of Turin, as well as local banking foundations (Compagnia di San Paolo and Cassa di Risparmio di Torino) (Bodo and Bodo 2016; Ponzini 2010). Therefore, the path towards new organisational models has been going on for more 20 years (Bertacchini et al. 2018), and the abovementioned institutions are just a few of the public museums that, over the years, have been granted greater autonomy thanks to which they can retain their revenue (including sponsorships and donations) and hence programme their activities more consciously.

A more large-scale reform was designed and implemented starting from 2014, in line with the “spending review” measures planned by the Italian government at that time (Marzano and Castellini 2018). Such a reform led to a radical reorganization of Italian state museums by creating a national museums system and giving special autonomy to 30 state museums and archaeological areas (Casini 2018).

First, the reform created a new general directorate dedicated to museums (Direzione Generale Musei) that deals with collections, regulates access to structures and enhances state cultural heritage. This office guides the national museum system through its own field offices—i.e. the regional museum complexes (Poli Museali Regionali)—which coordinate all the activities involved in the management, development and promotion of the national museum system within the region.

The reform then gave scientific, financial and organisational autonomy to 30 state museums and archaeological areas, in addition to the archaeological sites of Rome and Pompeii. All of the 32 autonomous institutions have a director, a board, a scientific committee (including representatives of regional and local authorities) and an audit committee, as well as bylaws and a budget.Footnote 2 However, it should be noted that these museums still remain ministerial offices and depend on decisions made by the Ministry in many crucial aspects, above all the number of employees and their wages (which are indeed paid at the central level).

In sum, from a financial point of view, public funding remains the main income source for the majority of Italian museums (Fanelli et al. 2015; Fissi et al. 2018) and, despite a substantial decrease in the years 2000–2016 (MiBAC 2018a), these funds have recently started to grow again (Federculture 2016). However, for the last few years, the government has been implementing favourable tax regimes in order to encourage patronage and philanthropy (Vicente et al. 2012), in line with other European public authorities (Tobelem 2013). In particular, this is the case for the so-called ‘Art bonus’, which was introduced in 2014 in favour of those non-profit organisations, companies and individuals who support the public cultural heritage with charitable donations. As of today, donations covered by the Art bonus have reached about 200 million euros, involving more than 6000 donors.

In the light of these considerations, this chapter aims to contribute to fill the literature gap by exploring fundraising within Italian museums in order to verify whether (or not) they are turning to innovative financing methods (in addition to traditional income sources) to support their activities.

4 The Research Method

The research is exploratory in nature and adopts a cross-case analysis conducted for the year 2017, which takes into account and synthesises the findings of more single cases (Yin 2018).

In particular, the research was developed in two phases. In the first, museums’ 2017 annual reports and related documents were examined in order to investigate the income composition and therefore to verify the presence or absence of revenues from sponsorship, donations, etc. Furthermore, museums’ websites were analysed to explore whether museums had a specific section containing detailed information about fundraising activities. In the second phase, telephone interviews were conducted with key museum personnel, such as directors, marketing and fundraising officers, etc. In addition, secondary sources (ISTAT,Footnote 3 MiBAC, newspapers, etc.) were used to supplement information obtained through the previous steps. Indeed, data triangulation is a common strategy for increasing the validity of research findings (Denzin and Lincoln 2018).

The analysis focuses on Italian state museums. Indeed, the state-owned museums saw record numbers of visitors in 2017, with 50 million visitors (+10.5% compared to 2016). National statistics concerning the state museums (MiBAC 2018b) showed that visitors had increased in 4 years by about 12 million (+31%), in contrast to the general European trend, thanks also to the free admission established on the first Sunday of each month from 2014 (Cellini and Cuccia 2018). State museums are therefore institutions of great relevance not only in Italy, but also in the European cultural market. More precisely, our analysis focuses on a sample of 40 Italian state museums including those with special autonomy (Marzano and Castellini 2018), and those under the control of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities through the general directorate dedicated to museums (Direzione Generale Musei, DGM) and contemporary art and architecture (Direzione Generale Arte e Architettura contemporanee e Periferie urbane, DGAAP)Footnote 4 (see Table 1).

Table 1 Museums under study
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5 Results and Discussion

Italian museums have traditionally adopted a Continental European funding model based mainly on public funding, primarily derived from the central budget of the state. However, as discussed before, it is necessary to develop new forms of financing, considering that public budgets for cultural activities are rapidly decreasing. In the following sections, we first analyse Italian museums’ current funding approach and then the development of new paths for fundraising.

5.1 The Current State Museum Financing Model

The first step in this research is analysis of the annual reports to describe the current financing model of Italian museums. Of the 40 museums being studied, 37 institutions publish their annual reports online. Analysis of these reports has allowed the investigation of income composition, and especially the presence or absence of fundraising activities.

First of all, the analysis shows that public contributions make up approximately 62% of museums’ revenue (Fig. 1), confirming the fundamental role played by the state and local agencies in those countries that, like Italy, follow the Continental European financing model (Dalle Nogare and Bertacchini 2015). Moreover, in some institutions, public funds can even represent more than 90% of total resources: this is the case for Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, Fondazione Museo Nazionale dell’ebraismo italiano e della Shoah, and Fondazione La Quadriennale di Roma.

Fig. 1
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Income composition

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The analysis also reveals that self-generated revenue—especially from admission fees, bookshops and cafés—accounts, on average, for barely 35.3% of a museum’s total income. Only eight cases show a significant degree of self-financing, with more than 70% of their income coming from self-generated revenue. Finally, only 2.7% of revenue comes from private funding. The analysis highlights how modest the role of fundraising is, with only 14 museums benefitting from these sorts of funds, diversifying their income sources and implementing initiatives to overcome public cutbacks.

Therefore, this study highlights the prevalent role of public funding for Italian state museums, thereby confirming that the public sector remains their main financial supporter (Fanelli et al. 2015), in accordance with a traditional Continental European model (Vicente et al. 2012). However, self-generated revenues seem to be playing a growing role, constituting more than 30% of museums’ general income.

As to fundraising, the research also investigates who are the main private supporters of Italian state museums (Fig. 2). The goal of this analysis is to understand more deeply the possible sources of private contributions that museum managers can activate to increase the fundraising capacity of such cultural institutions.

Fig. 2
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Fundraising sources

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In terms of funding, this analysis—in line with other studies (Comunian 2008; Fissi et al. 2018)—reveals that the major contributors are companies that, in different forms, support funding of the Italian state museums. Indeed, companies often develop philanthropic and sponsorship programmes in order to generate a positive return for their tangible and intangible assets (O’Hagan and Harvey 2000; Proteau 2018). Therefore, companies represent one of the most relevant sources to develop marketing strategies for museum fundraising (Camarero et al. 2019; Fahy et al. 2004).

The second source of contributions is represented by institutions belonging to the third sector, especially the banking foundations. Although these institutions are typical in the Italian context (Leardini et al. 2014), this finding suggests that non-profit entities represent fundamental donors to museums and, consequently, that museum managers should develop specific strategies to attract funding from these organisations.

The third contributors are individual donors (including friend-of-a-museum associations). Encouraging visitors to become donors to the museum by a membership scheme, and therefore formally recognising their contribution and actively engaging them in the museum’s activities, might represent a good strategy for museums to increase their income (Cole 2008). In other words, museum managers should look at visitors not only as clients, but also as members of, and donors to, the cultural community. However, it should be pointed out that donors’ behaviour and preferences are affected by many factors (especially tax regulations) and are difficult to predict from a long-term perspective (Lindqvist 2012).

Finally, fundraising is at an early stage and currently plays only a marginal role in supporting the financing of state museums. However, we believe that it could be interesting to study more closely the different approaches to fundraising that will play a growing role in the coming years.

5.2 Innovative Fundraising for State Museums

Examining the forms of fundraising for Italian museums in more depth, this study points out that private funds come mainly from corporate sponsorship and partnership (37.7% of the museums’ total private funding), followed by banking foundations’ grants (26.1%) and donations made by individual donors (21.4%) or firms (12.5%) (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3
figure 3

The main forms of fundraising

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Sponsorship is a form of financing that creates in the users’ minds an association between the sponsor (company) and the sponsored (museum) through the process of “image transfer” (Gwinner and Eaton 1999). Typically, the companies most involved in supporting museums are big firms operating in the food, insurance and fashion industries (Fissi et al. 2018). This is due to the availability of greater resources, compared to other firms, and the increasing development of “corporate cultural responsibility” (Civita 2017). For instance, Generali Italia is one of the main sponsors of Musei Reali, having supported many of its exhibitions, and, in 2019, Ferrarelle S.p.A. will support the restoration of the Belvedere fountain within Museo di Capodimonte.

In other cases, museums create long-lasting partnerships with corporate sponsors (Proteau 2018). This form of public-private partnership has the potential to provide the cultural sector with more resources, competences and visibility (Badia et al. 2015). At the end of 2017, for example, in addition to sponsoring Galleria Borghese’s Gian Lorenzo Bernini exhibition, Fendi launched a 3-year partnership (1.3 million euros) with the institution to create an international research centre dedicated to Caravaggio. Other significant examples of corporate partnership are Fondazione MAXXI and Fondazione la Triennale di Milano. Indeed, since 2015, Italian energy giant Enel has become a founder member of MAXXI and has supported its activities, donating 600,000 € every year. BMW-MINI, Eni, Illy and many other companies are partners of La Triennale, supporting its projects and exhibitions with 1.6 million euros in 2017. That said, it should be noted that the museums being studied are amongst the leading Italian cultural institutions and that smaller museums might not be able to obtain the same level of support from corporate sponsors (Stanziola 2006; Proteau 2018).

Grants from banking foundations are confirmed as one of the most important funding sources in support of museum activities. As noted in other studies (Leardini et al. 2014), this study confirms that the cultural sector is an area of consistent intervention for banking foundations and, despite the slight decline compared to 2016 (−4.4%), this industry is still the most financially supported by these institutions, gaining 24.1% of funding in 2017, or a total of 236.9 million euros (Acri 2018). For example, in 2017, Fondazione Museo delle Antichità Egizie in Turin received about 1.5 million euros from Compagnia di San Paolo and Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Torino (Intesa bank). Furthermore, the Turin museum had the highest benefit from the Art bonus, having received about 15 million euros since 2014. These sorts of contributions are usually aimed at specific projects. For instance, Consorzio di valorizzazione culturale La Venaria Reale received 400,000 € from Compagnia di San Paolo as a contribution towards an exhibition and another 50,000 € for an employee training course.

Regarding individual donors, another 26 institutions are supported by Friends associations. This highlights the importance of the museums being studied, since only 30.2% of Italian museums have supporters’ associations (MiBAC 2015). In this respect, the cases of Fondazione MAXXI and Fondazione la Triennale di Milano are significant: they have received 120,400 € and 409,600 €, respectively, from their Friends associations. In addition, for a few years, MAXXI has organised an annual Gala Dinner to increase the involvement of Italian and international supporters, companies and patrons. Through this event, the museum raised about 290,000 € in 2017. More generally, special events offer different positive effects: they serve as public relations and awareness tools, increase participation and the development of a sense of community with donors, and create a network between museums and potential supporters (Higgins and Lauzon 2003).

Finally, the analysis reveals that citizens support museum activities as well, but, in line with observations in other studies (Federculture 2018), the amount of their donations is usually much smaller compared to those proffered by bank foundations and companies. To increase civic engagement (Piber et al. 2017) and therefore the contribution of individual donors, some museums have launched specific campaigns: such is the case of Parco Archeologico di Paestum. Through the Adotta un blocco delle mura campaign, donors can adopt a block of the city wall for a year; in return, they gain advantages such as free entrance to the park, special newsletters, etc.

Among the initiatives promoted by companies, the case of Rivelazioni—Finance for Fine Arts, launched in 2014 by Borsa Italiana (Italian Stock Exchange) to encourage corporate philanthropy, is particularly interesting. This project engages the private sector in support of the Italian artistic heritage, gathering resources to finance the restoration and digitalisation of artworks. In its first edition, eight Italian companies ‘adopted’ artworks from the collection of Pinacoteca di Brera. Following the great success of the first edition, other important Italian museums have become involved over the past few years—i.e. the Venetian Gallerie dell’Accademia (2017), the Museo di Capodimonte (2018) and the Genoese Palazzo Reale, together with Galleria Nazionale di Palazzo Spinola (2019).

Finally, it is interesting to note that only 15 museums have dedicated fundraising personnel and, even then, they often also oversee marketing activities. Marketing and fundraising are both valuable for audience and revenue maximisation and, in this respect, they can drive the museum’s economic performance (Turbide et al. 2008; Vakharia and Janardhan 2017). More precisely, the success of a museum depends on marketing strategies, these being are a fundamental tool not only for promoting the collections and the museum’s overall cultural activities, but also for building effective fundraising strategies (Besana et al. 2018). However, it should be noted that marketing and fundraising require different skill sets (Clohesy 2003) and ultimately aim at different targets. The first focuses on visitors and tries to increase both their volume and their satisfaction; the second specialises in funders and whoever is willing to invest their resources in the museum (Besana et al. 2018). In this sense, it is necessary that museums are furnished with professional staff (Ferri and Zan 2017; Manes Rossi et al. 2018) and fundraisers within their organisation who are able to contribute to preparing funding applications and raise additional income sources (Woodward 2012). For instance, most of England’s national museums now have specific departments dedicated to gathering grants, sponsorships and donations from public, private and charitable sources (Shaw 2006). In this sense, as AIM (2017, p. 3) has noted, “it is now more necessary than ever to make sure that fundraising is taken seriously, with appropriate time and resources dedicated to the processes”.

In sum, the findings of this study highlight that Italian museums are trying to encourage fundraising activities, thereby moving from traditional funds towards alternative and innovative forms of financing. The results can be summarised as in Fig. 4, adapted from the scheme developed by O’Hagan and Harvey (2000) and Stanziola (2011) with specific regard to the UK cultural market.

Fig. 4
figure 4

Sources of alternative financing for museums in Italy

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6 Conclusions

According to previous research, museums in Continental Europe are traditionally financed with public funds; consequently, a fundamental role is played by public entities (Dalle Nogare and Bertacchini 2015). The Continental European model depends, in large part, on funds supplied by central administrations or on grants coming from municipalities, local agencies, etc. (Bonet and Donato 2011).

However, as emerged from the literature review, considering the current financial crisis and the decrease in public funds (Naylor 2016) in all European countries, museums need to develop a new funding model, moving from traditional to innovative approaches, and more oriented to fundraising activities. In other words, museums need to compete seriously in the funding market (Blasco López et al. 2018), developing proper fundraising strategies (Proteau 2018).

This research regarding Italian state museums confirms that the current financing model is based on a traditional approach, namely the Continental European model, with a prevalence of public contributions that currently account for 62% of total income. However, a growing role appears to be played by self-generated revenue, with funds contributing to 35.3% of the total. In this context, unfortunately, the innovative fundraising activities play only a marginal role, contributing only 2.7% of the total income.

Moreover, it is clear that the current approach to financing a museum needs to be based more on self-generated revenue emanating from tickets, services, shops, cafés and so on. Self-generated revenue is certainly playing a relevant part in state museums’ income, but it cannot sustain an innovative financing approach alone. Managers therefore need to work more diligently to develop innovative fundraising strategies that can support the financial system (Camarero et al. 2019).

Finally, according to the results of this research, the Italian state museums are following the Continental European approach, trying to move from traditional financing sources (public and self-generated revenues) to innovative sources. However, museums are currently far removed from sufficient fundraising activity and they need to continue to innovate in order to develop a complete innovative financing approach.

Looking into the possible sources of fundraising, this research reveals three different potential solutions: companies, non-profit entities and individual donors. They are potentially interested in financing cultural institutions for different reasons, with companies currently prevailing. However, the research also underlines the relevant role played by banking foundations in developing future strategies for the Italian state museums. Therefore, museum managers need to develop strategies to engage such philanthropic projects, and to involve visitors in funding activities.

However, the huge amount of alternative sources of funding could bring to a high level of museum dependency from donors. In some cases, it could be difficult to balance the museum goals with the expectations of philanthropic players like companies, banks and others. The managers need to consider carefully this situation before to start the fundraising strategy.

Moreover, considering the main forms of fundraising, the research highlights the role played by sponsorship and partnerships with companies, non-profit entities and individual donors.

Considering sponsorship, the fundraising approach needs to be directed especially at big companies, more likely to link their brand to cultural activities. They are a good instrument to develop a stable form of collaboration with firms in order to attract relevant funds for projects aiming to increase the quality of the collection and to support the museum management. In this perspective, we can observe greater difficulty for the smallest cultural institutions to link their fundraising policies to large companies. The smallest museums ultimately need to develop robust fundraising policies to overcome the reduced visibility of their cultural initiatives.

Furthermore, banking foundations play a relevant role in fundraising activities. Indeed, museums—and the cultural sector in general—represent a main field of activity for these entities (Ricciuti and Turrini 2018) and they are consequently one of the first targets of museum fundraising strategies.

Finally, we can also observe an important role played by individual donors in fundraising campaigns: museums therefore need to increase their engagement strategies with donors, involving them in their management. Some approaches include the organisation of special events and the use of the digital technologies of Museum 2.0 (Lopez et al. 2010). More generally, the aim of these activities is to encourage visitors to become members of the museums and donors, giving them a sense of involvement and engagement (Cole 2008).

This study has several limitations. The first is that it is necessary to compare the results obtained up to now by expanding the period observed and the number of cases analysed in order to verify the possibility of disseminating and generalising the results. Moreover, the obtained results could change when considering different types of museum, such as other public institutions (local museums, university museums, etc.) and private ones. Finally, future research could investigate in more depth the role, and above all the motivations, inspiring individual donors to participate in fundraising campaigns promoted by public or private museums; indeed, this represents a largely unexplored topic and more studies would be needed to reach sound conclusions. Furthermore, it could be interesting to explore whether or not there is a relationship between the juridical status of museums and the nature of the resources obtained.