The Future Art Museum: Cuseum
State Of The Art podcast
Entering a museum, you’re often offered a clunky audio guide. Cuseum is a museum engagement platform that is transforming this awkward experience into a mobile app you can access and personalize on your phone. Founded in 2014 by CEO Brendan Ciecko, Cuseum has been featured by platforms including The New York Times and The Boston Globe. Cuseum has been hailed as the future of museums, and is now in over 100 cultural institutions worldwide.
Brendan Ciecko is founder and CEO of Cuseum. A self-described hipster, art-lover, and museum techie, Brendan brought his design expertise and business acumen to bear on the project of transforming the way we engage with museums. Cited as one of America’s Coolest Young Entrepreneurs, Brendan has worked on numerous entrepreneurial projects including Ten Minute Media and serves on committees of several art institutions, namely the Boston Museum of Fine Art and Boston Center for the Arts.
What do Hamilton, Sundance Film Festival, and Vietnam Veterans Memorial have in common?
These world-renowned and celebrated artistic endeavors would not exist if not for the initial support from the National Endowment for the Arts!
The NEA is an independent federal agency that works to give people across America the opportunity to participate in and experience the arts.The NEA funds artistic events, concerts, performances, exhibitions and readings, and also awards grants for research on the impact and value of the arts in the United States. While these amazing and disparate groups have all received funding through the NEA, the future of the agency is uncertain; the arts are under attack.
In March 2017, it was proposed that funding be completely eliminated for the National Endowment for the Arts. Since then, arts advocates, artists, lawmakers, and the public have banded together to fight for the arts, spreading a powerful message that the arts play a critical role in the lives of Americans. From bolstering the economy to encouraging creativity and innovation, arts funding is key to a happy, healthy, and prosperous community. On July 18th, the House made strides in helping to protect the arts by voting to continue funding the National Endowment for the Arts and other critical arts organizations. However, the battle is far from over. With the federal administration showing increasing resistance to arts funding, it’s now more important than ever to show your support and to fight for the arts!
Interested in learning more about the National Endowment for the Arts? Here are 6 interesting facts and figures.
1. The NEA recently celebrated its 50th birthday
Happy Birthday NEA! The National Endowment for the Arts was founded in 1965 under the Johnson administration through a bipartisan effort to inspire American creativity, nurture and preserve artistic traditions, and to elevate the nation’s culture. Since then it has funded over 145,000 grants totalling more than $5 billion. The organization has helped to kickstart some amazing contributions to American culture!
2. Its budget is relatively tiny, but its impact is huge
The NEA’s total funding constitutes .004% of the federal budget, or 4 one-thousandths of one percent. Per person, that’s about $0.45 a year to support arts funding. While this amount is insignificant to the average person, combined it helps provide life-changing experiences for organizations across America. The majority of NEA grants go to small and medium sized organizations, providing support to projects that reach audiences who might not otherwise have access to arts programming.
NEA grants show a significant “return on investment of federal dollars with $1 of NEA direct funding leveraging up to $9 in private and other public funds, resulting in $500 million in matching support in 2016.”
3. It helps to fund a $742 billion-dollar industry and economy
When the NEA funds a project, its reach is far beyond the direct recipients. Funds distributed into arts programs generate ticket sales, encourage community development, bolster tourism and help to export American culture. Consumer spending on performing arts in particular grew 10 percent from 1998 to 2013. The Arts adds millions of jobs to the workforce, including 2 million artists and 5 million arts-related positions. Dollar for dollar, the arts are a driving force in growing the American economy.
4. It partners with other federal agencies
The NEA has launched several successful partnerships with other federal agencies to serve the unique and special needs of the communities they serve. Creative Forces: NEA Military Healing Arts Network is one such partnership. With the Department of Defense, the Military Arts Healing Network funding creative art therapies at clinical sites for military members, veterans and their families. In 2016 Congress noted the success of this program, and increased the NEA budget specifically to expand this healing program. The Department of Defense also partners with the NEA on Blue Star Museums, a collaboration to provide free admission to museums for active duty military personnel and their families.
The Arts and Human Development Taskforce convened by the NEA conducts research on the impact of the Arts across multiple units of the federal government including the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Education.
5. It helps to make Arts accessible everywhere
Some have argued that the NEA is not relevant, because museums, cultural institutions and cultural projects can be funded privately. However, charitable individual giving is disproportionate to wealthy urban communities (rural areas only receive 5.5% of private philanthropic dollars). That’s where the NEA comes in. Their funding makes sure there is an equal distribution of funds, especially for underserved communities. Challenge America is a specific, dedicated grant pool for small & mid sized organizations serving underserved populations. This results in that:
65 percent of NEA grants go to small and medium-sized organizations, which tend to support projects that benefit audiences that otherwise might not have access to arts programming.
40 percent of NEA-supported activities take place in high-poverty neighborhoods.
36 percent of NEA grants go to organizations that reach underserved populations such as people with disabilities, people in institutions, and veterans.
More than half of NEA-funded art events take place in locations where the median household income is less than $50,000
6. It needs your help!
As a federal department, the NEA cannot lobby for its own funding; it also cannot accept private donations. Only lawmakers have the power to directly fund or defund it. Since its inception it has had to fight for the right to exist. Past presidents and politicians have sought to defund it, but time and again official inquiries, reports and studies have solidified the necessity of federal arts funding for the American people. Despite its importance, the NEA is constantly faced with the threat of budget cuts or elimination. Now again the arts are under attack. Thousands have already spoken up in support of the NEA, and you can too!
Ink For The Arts!
We believe that the NEA plays a crucial role in supporting the arts, and it is our job to protect it. To show our support for the the NEA, we are launching Ink for the Arts. To take a stance, snap a photo of yourself featuring your #InkForTheArts tattoo and share it on social media. Find out more about Ink for the Arts and how to get your own temporary tattoos at Ink For The Arts.
Further reading:
Here’s What You Can Do To Protect National Arts And Culture Funding
NEA Frequently Asked Questions
A Bill Funding Arts and Humanities Endowments Passes House Committee
Boosting Membership & Donations Through Your Mobile App
A sure-fire way to drive more memberships and donations is to ensure the process is quick and easy for your visitor. It is crucial to break down the barriers between the visitor’s intent to support your organization and the checkout process. This is often easier said than done...
Early on, we found that museums that link out to their website’s membership sign-up page weren’t getting any traction, so we built a tool specifically to this fix. In addition to addressing this issue, our primary driver behind developing a membership and donation tool is to provide a visitor-first, quick, and easy process.
Why is this so important? Let’s look at some concrete data to find out.
Slow Transactions = Lost Revenue.
Even a mere 2-second delay in load time during a transaction will result in abandonment rates of up to 87%! When you link out to a webpage, it (unfortunately) take several seconds to load everything, and even longer if your user’s connectivity and your website are anything other than lightning fast.
44% of online shoppers say that slow online transactions make them anxious about the success of a transaction. Do you want your visitor to feel anxiety while they’re signing up to be a member of your museum? Probably not.
Compare this to our native membership tool, which is... instant. Your visitors don’t need to leave the app or wait for a webpage to load. Problem solved!
Don’t force your user to create a new user account.
Have you tried to purchase something online and were forced to sign-up for yet another user account? You were hoping for a few clicks, check-out, and done… but you were required to create a new account and fill out another 10 fields. Ugh! There is even a decent chance you completely changed your mind due to the added time and burden.
When dealing with membership sign-ups, requiring your prospective member to register for a new user account is not only an inconvenience for them, but this requirement is actually detrimental to your organization’s efforts to attract members and donors. 23% of users would abandon cart because they had to create a new user account. Ouch!
With our membership tool, your visitor will be happy that they only needed to enter a few fields of information, tap, and they’re done. In the words of Staples (you know what’s coming): “that was easy.”
Keep it simple
As passionate museum-goers, non-profit supporters, and partners, we’ve seen tons of donation and membership forms over the years. Asking for too much information, or using non-traditional layouts can result in a confusing experience for your user.
If your checkout process is not optimized for mobile devices, that awkwardly scaled-down web page might be confusing for some users. And this isn’t ideal for anyone because 12% of users would abandon cart because the checkout process is confusing.
Call to Action!
Wouldn’t it be great if you could control the exact moment in your visitor’s journey when you solicit them to become a member or make a donation? Wouldn’t that be magical?! Well, we’re happy to tell you that it’s possible and easy to implement!With the help of beacons, you can trigger a notification to appear on your visitor’s phone right as they complete a tour or walk towards a specific location. As your future members or donor heads for the exit, take hold of the opportunity to thank them for visiting, remind them of the perks of becoming a member, and invite them to support your institution.
Ready for the knockout punch? When people are delivered a message that is based on their context and location, their intent to transact increases by up to a whooping 20 times!
When you marry great technology with philanthropy, the outcome is grand.
Ready to kick it up a notch?
These tools are all available and ready for the taking. Interested in boosting membership and donations through your mobile app?
Further Reading
55 Web Performance Stats You’ll Want to Know
5 Ecommerce Stats That Will Make You Change Your Entire Marketing Approach
Why Most Online Shoppers Don’t Make it Past the First Step of Checkout
New study shows 20x purchase intent lift from iBeacon
We invite you to follow along in our journey, stay tuned!
At Cuseum, we have the vision to transform cultural and museum interactions through mobile technology. We’re committed to empowering a new generation of art lovers and museum visitors, and are excited to help museums embrace new technology; especially beacons!
Through our blog, we will share exciting Cuseum moments as well as generate an open conversation about our favorites things: art, museums and technology.
Over the upcoming weeks, we’ll introduce our team and start showcasing the museums we’re working with.
