How Museums Can Be More Revenue-Driven in Today’s Economy

Museums cultural institutions face growing financial pressure in today’s economy. With budgets tightening and competition for grants and donations increasing, it’s no longer enough for museums to simply rely on ticket sales, memberships, and occasional donations. Museums today need to be more revenue-driven, maximizing every opportunity to generate funds while maintaining their core mission of education and community engagement.

However, many museums are still relying on legacy CRM systems, outdated technology setups, and siloed data, which are limiting their ability to capitalize on key revenue opportunities. In fact, disconnected systems are often preventing museums from tapping into some of their most lucrative opportunities!

Let’s take a look at some of the revenue opportunities museums miss because of their legacy CRMs and how integrating modern technology could unlock these potential streams.

Don’t worry, we provide some ideas for how to turn these weaknesses into strengths, too!

1. Missed Donor Engagement Opportunities

The Problem:
With legacy CRMs, museums often struggle with poor donor segmentation and targeted communication. When donor data is siloed between different systems or departments (think marketing, membership, or development), it’s hard to track engagement history and personalize outreach. Without a centralized system, museums can’t maximize donor engagement, leading to missed fundraising opportunities. If you ask your marketing team if this resonates, I feel 99.9% confident that they will scream yes at you.

The Opportunity:
By moving to a unified CRM, museums can track transactions across all touchpoints, segment them effectively, and personalize their outreach based on engagement history. A tool like Fundraise Up, which integrates seamlessly with CRMs like HubSpot, makes online giving easier and more accessible for donors. It allows museums to offer a simple, frictionless online donation experience while automatically syncing donor data with HubSpot. This makes personalized communication and targeted fundraising campaigns a breeze, increasing engagement and ensuring donors feel connected to the museum’s mission. With integrated segmentation, museums can easily identify high-value donors and engage them at the right time with the right message, driving more successful donation appeals

2. Untapped Ticketing and Membership Opportunities

The Problem:
When ticketing systems and membership management are not integrated into one CRM platform, museums miss the opportunity to cross-promote memberships to frequent ticket buyers or offer discounts to existing members. Many museums use different systems for ticketing, memberships, and donations, which results in fragmented data and missed upsell/ membership renewal opportunities.

The Opportunity:
A modern CRM like HubSpot can help unify ticketing and membership data, allowing museums to offer membership upsells at the point of ticket purchase. With the power of automation and smart segmentation, museums can easily target the right people with the right offers, whether it’s offering discounted tickets to members or promoting memberships to frequent ticket buyers. Dynamic pricing for tickets can also be implemented, ensuring that museums maximize revenue during peak times.

3. Missed Sponsorship and Corporate Partnership Opportunities

The Problem:
Many museums fail to effectively track and manage corporate partnerships and sponsorships, which are a critical revenue stream. Without a unified system, it’s hard to see which companies have supported the museum in the past, who their contacts are, or what their sponsorship history looks like. Additionally, many museums don’t log their meetings with key stakeholders at these companies, leading to a lack of transparency internally. This can result in communication mix-ups, as staff members may not know who is engaging with which partner, or the context of past discussions.

The Opportunity:
A unified CRM allows museums to track corporate relationships and target potential sponsors based on past engagement or shared audiences. It also enables museums to log meetings and communications with stakeholders in the system, so everyone has visibility into the partnership status. This centralized record reduces the risk of duplicate outreach, ensures that teams are aligned, and helps avoid missed opportunities for new sponsorships. With the ability to segment corporate partners and leverage cross-departmental insights, museums can craft personalized proposals, making it easier to secure funding for exhibitions, programs, and special events.

4. Missed Digital Revenue Streams

The Problem:
Many museums have been slow to adopt digital engagement strategies, especially when it comes to integrating online giving and e-commerce with their CRM systems. Legacy systems often don’t support these newer revenue models, or they don’t integrate with existing systems, leading to disjointed data and poor performance tracking.

The Opportunity:
By integrating online giving tools like Fundraise Up, museums can create a seamless donation experience for visitors both online and in-person. These platforms can integrate with CRMs like HubSpot, enabling automatic data syncing and smart segmentation for future campaigns. In addition, tools like Kind Kiosk allow museums to blend physical purchasing (such as event tickets, memberships, or donations) with easy upsells and digital experiences. For example, a visitor making an on-site donation could be prompted to purchase event tickets or a membership, and all this information is stored in HubSpot for easy access and follow-up. This creates new revenue streams and enhances the visitor experience, ensuring that museums don’t leave money on the table during high-traffic moments like events or exhibitions.

5. Missed Grant and Foundation Revenue Opportunities

The Problem:
The process of applying for grants or working with foundations can be fragmented and inefficient. Museums often use spreadsheets or different systems to track deadlines, relationships, and progress on grant applications. Without a centralized system to manage these processes, opportunities for funding are often missed or delayed.

The Opportunity:
A unified CRM can help museums streamline the grant management process, track relationships with foundations, and automate important tasks such as grant reporting. With automated reminders for application deadlines and a centralized record of communications, museums can increase their chances of securing funding by ensuring that they never miss a deadline and are always able to provide up-to-date information to potential donors or foundations.

6. Missed Community Engagement and Partnerships

The Problem:
Museums often miss opportunities to engage with local communities, educational institutions, and nonprofit organizations. With siloed data, it’s hard to identify potential community partners or track engagement with community-based events or programs. Similarly, without proper logging of meetings and discussions with community leaders or organizations, there’s limited visibility into who’s working with whom and which initiatives are being pursued. This lack of transparency can lead to duplication of efforts, wasted resources, and missed opportunities for collaboration.

The Opportunity:
A CRM system enables museums to track and manage relationships with local schools, volunteers, and nonprofits in one place. By logging meetings, emails, and communications within the CRM, museums can ensure that all stakeholders have visibility into ongoing engagements. This transparency allows teams to identify key partnerships, collaborate on community-driven programs, and optimize resource allocation. With automated engagement reminders and segmentation capabilities, museums can expand their audience, increase participation in community events, and create new revenue opportunities through stronger partnerships.

The Takeaway: Your Data is Your Friend - Unify it to Drive Revenue in 2026 and Beyond

For museums to thrive in today’s competitive landscape, they need to embrace modern CRM systems to unlock missed revenue opportunities caused by siloed data in legacy CRMs and outdated tech. By integrating key functions like donor management, ticketing, membership, and community engagement into one cohesive system, museums can streamline their operations, maximize revenue from key sources, and deliver better experiences for their audiences.

Odds are, your institution is sitting on multiple treasure troves of data. How much revenue could you drive for your organization if you put all of that data in one place?