Demographic Transformation and the Future of Museums

CFM's 2008 forecasting report, Museums & Society 2034: Trends and Potential Futures, highlighted a disconnect between trends in American demography and patterns of museum visitation.

CFM's new report Demographic Transformation and the Future of Museums, explores the implications of these findings. The U.S. population is shifting rapidly and within four decades the group that has historically constituted the core audience for museums—non-Hispanic whites—will be a minority of the population. This paints a troubling picture of the “probable future”—a future in which, if trends continue in the current grooves, museum audiences are radically less diverse than the American public, and museums serve an evershrinking fragment of society. The vision of the museum field, our “preferred future,” is one in which our users reflect our communities. It is a future in which the scientific, historic, artistic and cultural resources that museums care for benefit all segments of society. To bring this to pass, we need to understand the story behind the current trends.Why do some groups have a track record of not using museums? What can museums do to become a vital part of the lives of people they don’t serve now? What more do we need to know in order to find the fulcrum where strategic use of our existing resources can significantly alter the course of the future?

Demographic Transformation and the Future of Museums was prepared for AAM by the Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago. It is a catalyst for the field to expand their efforts to reach diverse audiences. The report: summarizes current research on demographic change, patterns of museum use tied to race/ethnicity; explores the attitudes of the Millennial generation towards museum; presents case studies from six museums pioneering ways to reach diverse audiences; recommends improvements to how museums conduct research and share data; points to online resources for demographic information and socio-economic indicators; and concludes with a call to action from AAM to individual museums and the field.

Readers of this paper may also want to watch the related 2009 CFM lecture by Gregory Rodriguez, founder and executive director of Zocalo Public Square.

Download the report now.