The Bellevue Art Museum is launching a new campaign to keep its doors open. The goal is to raise $300,000, which would go directly to operation costs like employee salaries and building upkeep.
Executive Director Kate Casprowiak Scher said the museum’s financial situation has been many years in the making.
"Our financial problems stem from 24 years of not having an endowment and having a 40,000-square-foot building," Scher said. "We've been operating consistently with about a quarter million dollar deficit year and year out."
In the past year, the museum had just half the number of visitors as they did prior to the pandemic in 2019, according to Scher. She said that without visitors, the museum loses engagement which is needed for fundraising. And one of the largest pieces of its income has historically been major fundraising events. But Scher isn’t discouraged by the situation; she’s even optimistic.
"It's a really amazing opportunity for partners in the community to step up and have a role, potentially a significant role, in shaping the arts and cultural landscape of the east side, because it doesn't work as it is," Scher said.
The six-week-long campaign hopes to help the museum survive until its annual gala in the summer. After its first week, the museum reported they raised $45,000.
Scher hopes that this campaign can be the start of a something new for the museum that gets them out of this deficit cycle. Next year would be its 50th anniversary and 25th anniversary of the museum’s building. She said those are two opportunities to fundraise around and even possibly secure an endowment.
Bellevue Arts Museum is just one of many arts institutions in the state feeling the lasting impact of COVID. The Seattle-based ArtsFund conducted a survey and found that between 2019 and 2020, there was a $95.9 million decrease in overall revenue across the 121 arts organizations.
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