How Your Org Can Navigate Challenges & Opportunities

If you’re a leader at a museum, nature center, zoo, aquarium, or other cultural organization, you know that keeping your organization running includes a wide range of ongoing activities. Between engaging visitors, managing collections and exhibitions, planning programs and events, and developing a revenue generation strategy, you and your staff have a lot on your plates!

As you approach these activities, it’s important to be prepared for anything. Not only are there various challenges your organization might need to overcome, but also opportunities your team would benefit greatly from taking advantage of.

In this guide, we’ll dive into a few of the most common challenges and opportunities that admissions-based nonprofits encounter, as well as ways to navigate them. We’ll cover:

• Planning for Resilience
• Adapting to the Times
• Making the Most of Partnerships
• Leveraging Software for Change Management

Let’s get started by discussing how to prepare for the largest challenges that may come your organization’s way by building resilience into your operations.

Planning for Resilience

Although no one likes to think that their organization might face true crises, it’s still important to consider how you’d handle these types of situations so you’ll be able to recover if they happen. Work with your team to create response plans for major challenges like:

• Significant financial losses
• Data security breaches
• Natural disasters that affect your organization’s property
• Damage to your public reputation

In addition to laying out what you would do after these crises occur, you should also take actions to address them before they become real problems for your organization, such as:

• Performing a risk assessment. During this process, you’ll review your operational structures and systems to identify any inherent risks to your organization. Then, you’ll prioritize these risks based on their likelihood and the severity of their consequences and take steps to prevent each one. For instance, if you identify data breaches as a likely, consequential risk, you might turn on two-factor authentication and encrypt your databases to prevent them.
• Diversifying your revenue streams. Having multiple funding sources provides your organization with additional financial stability that will help you weather crises. Admissions-based nonprofits’ budgets are typically split into earned income (ticketing, merchandise sales, event revenue, membership dues) and contributions (donations, grants, endowments), so ensure your organization’s budget consists of several sources from both categories.

• Being transparent with your supporters. Communicate openly with your organization’s community about the problems you’ve identified and how you’re addressing them. Keeping them informed will help you protect your reputation and reduce the risk of losing loyal supporters when you most need their help.

Creating a proactive crisis management strategy will increase your admissions-based nonprofit’s resilience if and when these challenges occur.

Adapting to the Times

Generally speaking, your admissions-based nonprofit’s purpose is to bring communities together around educational experiences. To continue fulfilling this purpose long-term, you need to keep your offerings relevant to community members so they want to return to your exhibits and events again and again.

• Segment your supporters. Segmentation, or grouping supporters based on shared characteristics like demographics and interests, allows you to tailor your activities and communications to different audiences’ preferences. Let’s say you find that your segment of young adult supporters (20s and 30s) is growing. You might launch a monthly after-hours event specifically for them and communicate about it on social media where they’re likely to see it.
• Ask for feedback. After someone attends an event, participates in a program, or visits a special exhibition, send them a survey so they can tell you about their experience. Additionally, consider surveying your members on a recurring basis (such as monthly or quarterly). As your most loyal supporters, they’ll likely have many ideas about what they’d like to see from your organization going forward.
• Develop contemporary offerings. Stay on top of societal trends and news to keep your exhibits and events current. For example, if your community is interested in climate and the environment, your aquarium might host a presentation on how you’re making your facilities more environmentally friendly. Or, if your history museum is in a city where the Olympics have previously been, you might open an exhibit about those Games just before the next Olympics when excitement is high.

Making the Most of Partnerships

Along with strengthening supporter relationships, forming connections with other organizations in your admissions-based nonprofit’s community is another opportunity that can elevate your offerings. Some partnerships your organization could take advantage of include:

• Corporate sponsorships. Businesses of all shapes and sizes are often willing to sponsor nonprofits to give back to their communities while boosting their reputations as socially responsible companies. In most cases, your sponsor will provide financial or in-kind support (i.e., free goods or services) for an exhibit or event, and you’ll give them free publicity through your signage and marketing materials in return.
• Schools. Work with teachers and administrators at local K-12 schools to design field trips, presentations, or workshops that enhance students’ classroom education with experiential learning. For instance, you could arrange for a researcher from your nature center to present to an elementary school class during their botany unit in science. Or, you might invite a high school art class on a field trip to your art museum’s landscape gallery during their landscape painting unit.
• Other nonprofits. Charities in your community may be willing to collaborate with your organization on fundraising efforts—for example, you could collaboratively plan a walk-a-thon and split the proceeds. Additionally, admissions-based nonprofits often have desirable event spaces at their facilities, so you could rent out those spaces to other nonprofits for their galas and auctions.

No matter what organizations your admissions-based nonprofit partners with, always be clear about the mutual benefits of your partnership, since organizations that gain value from partnerships are more likely to stay connected with you long-term.

Leveraging Software for Change Management

To effectively navigate the challenges and opportunities discussed above, you’ll need the right tools. Ensure your admissions-based nonprofit has the following types of software in its tech stack:

• A robust supporter database to allow for easy segmentation and recordkeeping.
• A calendar of events and programs that includes notes about the target audience and supporting partners for each activity.
• Communication tools to help maintain transparency and provide quick updates during crisis situations.
• Solutions to assist with revenue diversification, including ticketing, membership management, point-of-sale, and donation platforms.
• Reporting and analytics software to track various types of data, from supporter feedback to interactions with community partners.

For a streamlined, user-friendly experience, invest in an all-in-one platform that includes these features and more—like Doubleknot! Doubleknot’s integrated management software is tailor-made for admissions-based nonprofits like yours, so it includes everything from a customizable membership management system to a color-coded programming calendar to mobile ticketing capabilities. Plus, you can integrate Doubleknot with many popular supporter databases via Zapier (and directly with ClearView CRM) for easy data transfer.

Wrapping Up

Although change management takes a lot of time, effort, and resources in the short term, being proactive about it will set your admissions-based nonprofit up for long-term success. With a solid strategy and robust software on your side, you’ll be able to weather any challenges that come your way and find opportunities to scale up your organization’s offerings so you can create even better experiences for your community.

For more information on navigating challenges and opportunities at your admissions-based nonprofit, check out these resources:

• Major Gifts: 5 Strategies to Solicit High-Impact Donors. Discover the essentials of another key opportunity for your organization—major donor fundraising.
• Running Your Children's Museum: How Software Can Help. Dive deeper into the specific challenges and opportunities associated with managing a children’s museum.
• Museum Software: FAQ + 12 Top Management Solutions. Learn what to look for in a management platform for your museum and explore our favorite solutions.