Crafting a New Role

Museum’s new mission spurs big increase in donors and visitors

The Fuller Museum of Art had a reputation for playing it safe. The museum, located about 25 miles south of Boston in Brockton, Mass., had followed a tried-and-true approach for most of its nearly four-decade history — playing host to exhibits of largely conservative artwork that drew modest crowds and generated little buzz.

The approach was effective enough to keep the museum alive. But in culture-rich New England, where massive institutions such as Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum boast international acclaim, Fuller simply did not stand out. It was a small, community museum that had done little to distinguish itself, and it was in danger of losing relevance.

“It was a little tired, a little shabby, a little run-down,” says Simon Young, a retired Brockton business owner and longtime museum supporter. “It needed focus, it needed to find a place for itself in the overall community.”

Last year Fuller’s board decided it was time to get bold. The board — recognizing that few museums of national renown focused on contemporary crafts — decided to change Fuller’s mission. Instead of continuing its traditional, broad-based approach, Fuller would become a museum that centered its energy solely on crafts.

The results of the conversion have exceeded the expectations of those most passionately involved with the museum. Since formally changing its name to the Fuller Craft Museum in April 2004, the number of dues-paying members has grown by 40 percent, to more than 1,000 people. Openings that once drew 200 to 300 visitors now attract more than 1,000. And a new effort to honor donors of $1,000 or more, created this spring, has already raised more than $250,000 for the museum’s operations, says Gretchen Keyworth, Fuller’s director and chief curator.

But those involved with the museum — including board and staff members, as well as donors — say Fuller’s near-instant success has been about much more than simply changing focus. It has been the result of a deliberate effort to promote the museum’s mission in an entirely new way. “They didn’t just ease into this,” Mr. Young says. “They went after this with vigor.”

‘Neglected Space’

The seeds of Fuller’s transformation were laid three years ago, when several of its board members began talking in earnest about focusing on contemporary crafts. The museum had long included crafts in its exhibit rotations, and those exhibits had drawn more visitors than some of Fuller’s more traditional exhibits, Ms. Keyworth says. As a result, she says, she knew the museum had a chance to extend its reach.

In addition, as the board conducted research on other museums, it found that crafts did not get much attention compared with public interest in crafts and the number of high-quality crafts available to display.

Andrew Maydoney, a member of Fuller’s board who is also vice president of Sametz Blackstone Associates, a strategic communications consulting firm in Boston, says many museums included crafts in their collections, but fewer than 10 nationally focused solely on crafts. In fact, one of the few museums devoted to crafts, the former American Craft Museum, in New York, had decided in 2002 to expand its exhibits and to drop the word “craft” from its name. It is now called the Museum of Arts & Design.

“In the world of art, craft was a somewhat neglected space,” says Mr. Maydoney. “We saw that as a great opportunity for us. We were making a focused effort on that space.”

But simply identifying a need was not enough to guarantee success. To make the transition work, Mr. Maydoney says, the museum needed to figure out how best to promote its new mission to potential collectors and donors. It also needed to make sure the change did not rankle donors who had been attracted to the museum’s longtime mission.

“There’s a lot of rigor that goes into it that a lot of nonprofits are not used to,” he says. “A lot of organizations think they can apply a coat of paint, and that’s it. They need to make sure the paint seeps in. They really need to start from the inside out.”

To help accomplish that goal, the board hired Mr. Maydoney’s firm and gathered board members, staff members, and donors to work together to define the museum’s new mission. (Mr. Maydoney says he did most of the consulting work himself and did not charge the museum for it; the firm offered other services to the museum at a discounted rate to avoid any conflict-of-interest concerns. The board includes several other marketing and communications experts who also donated their services.)

The process was designed not only to develop a marketing approach, but also to get key people in the museum to understand and support the change, Mr. Maydoney says. “There were people who were opposed to this,” he says. “We listened to them. We gave them a place at the table.” By making sure that people who didn’t like the change had a chance to air their views and make suggestions, Mr. Maydoney says, most of the dissenters were turned into supporters.

The mission statement that followed focused on creating museum space for contemporary crafts, as well as creating an experience for visitors and patrons that would help them experience the artwork more closely. In exhibits in traditional museums, art is typically mounted on a wall or placed on a pedestal. At the Fuller Craft Museum, the art would be interactive. Instead of simply looking at a piece, visitors would be encouraged to touch some of the pieces, to inhale the aroma of the baskets, wood, and other pieces that permeates the museum, and to learn the stories behind the artworks and about the artists who created them.

“You know what it’s like when you attend an art museum,” Mr. Maydoney says. “The typical experience is you buy your ticket, put your hands behind your back, and look at the art. It’s very clinical. We wanted to create a whole new vision for how you go into a museum.”

The idea, says Mr. Maydoney, was to connect patrons to the museum on a deep, emotional level — to create an atmosphere that would help give Fuller a stronger relationship with its patrons.

To describe that connection, touch became a central theme for the museum.

Fuller adopted the tagline “Let the art touch you” as the theme of its communications. The tagline reflected Fuller’s new approach and attitude, which was centered around the idea that art has a tangible personality. And that idea was reinforced by a series of new programs, such as “Meet the Maker” sessions with artists and classes for aspiring craft artists, that were designed to further connect the museum with its patrons.

Seeking Attention

To spread the word about its new focus, the museum also reached out to collectors of contemporary crafts. For its inaugural exhibit, the museum set out to create what it called “The Perfect Collection” — and it invited collectors throughout New England to lend pieces to the exhibit.

The approach quickly proved successful, Mr. Maydoney says, as hard-to-reach collectors who had heard about the exhibit through their peers began getting in touch with the museum to offer to lend their rare pieces. To keep the theme of touch in this exhibit, the museum had to negotiate special deals with the artists to ensure that they would allow visitors to put their hands on the pieces. (Visitors are given gloves to help minimize damage to the pieces.)

In the 18 months since that initial exhibit, Ms. Keyworth says Fuller has established a national reputation. Its exhibits are featured regularly in trade publications, and collectors are beginning to seek it out when they visit New England.

“We have had all kinds of people coming from California, North Carolina,” Ms. Keyworth says. “There are very passionate craft collectors across the country. I don’t believe this museum ever had people coming from that far away.”

To capitalize on that interest, Fuller is taking its first exhibit on the road this fall, to California. The traveling collection is what Ms. Keyworth hopes is a first step toward bringing national artists to Fuller’s 22-acre campus for artist-in-residence programs. She says she also hopes to create a school for aspiring craft artists.

Such talk seemed impossible less than two years ago, when Fuller was still a small, conservative, community art museum.

“What has exceeded my expectations is how quickly the branding made a difference,” Ms. Keyworth says. “In my experience when you brand something, it takes a long time for the brand to get out there, to get it embedded in people’s consciousness.”

But because it was able to find a void in the art world, and devise a creative and effective way to fill that void, Fuller’s new mission is already well established. “This is the kind of thing everyone can relate to,” says Mr. Young. “Originally, I was a doubter. Now, I know I need to get behind this.”