Innovations in museum financing: Potential of Civic Crowdfunding

Abstract

Recently, museums have been experiencing sharp decline in public funding worldwide. Innovative classes of financing are required to fulfill the gaps in museums’ budgets. This paper examines a particular technology-enabled class of financing – civic crowdfunding – as a potential mechanism for the attraction of sponsorships and donations for the museum operations. A specific questionnaire was designed to collect primary data on the potentials of civic crowdfunding of a specific project – the renovation of the Memorial Museum of Nadežda and Rastko Petrović. As indicated by the respondents (N=284), civic crowdfunding can be additional mechanism and viable alternative to the classical forms of public financing.