Fundraising opportunities for Science and Technology Museums

The aim of this paper is to analyze the possibi
lities of private funding
for a special kind of
museums: science museums and technology centers.
In the last years the economic crisis has
impacted on the cultural sector, decreasing the p
ublic resources traditionally allocated to museums
and arts and heritage in general.
That has forced art professionals to develop alternative strategies to
get the necessary financial support for museum’s act
ivities. Although
the crisis has affected also
private companies and individuals,
nowadays fundraising from the private sector seems to be the
major alternative to the lack of
public funds. I will start this paper analyzing the ethical problems in
applying fundraising and marketing in general to museums and then proceed focusing on the main
private sponsors of museums in general (foundations
, private corporations a
nd individuals). I will
then concentrate on science museums addressing thei
r peculiarities and characteristics; I will later
deal with issues related to concre
te private sponsorship for this type
of museums. In the conclusion,
I will delineate what some of the major fu
ture challenges for this sector are