The professor gave a case study and you have to identify the problem, statements and things of that nature not long at all.
DMAC Case Study: Spring 2024
THE DALLAS MUSEUM OF ART AND CULTURE
Organizational Background
The Dallas Museum of Art and Culture (DMAC) is the oldest and largest art and culture
museum in the state of Texas and surrounding regions. The museum employs approximately 300
people. The museum is located in the historic Brown Palace building, a 134 year old building
located in downtown Dallas. The museum is one of the largest and oldest collections of art,
sculptural, anthropological, and southwestern archaeological material in the country—in the same
class as such museums as the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the American Museum of Natural
History in New York city, and the Field Museum in Chicago.
A full day before the latest exhibition at the DMAC opened in 2017, the front page of The
Dallas Post proclaimed, “Furor Ahoy; DMAC Exhibit of Jones family Collections Stirs Questions
over Choices, Motives”. The exhibition featured the private collection of Allan Jones, one of the
original oil barons of the American West whose family help build the massive oil businesses of
Texas, Wyoming, North Dakota and Colorado that now produces 20% of the nation’s oil supply.
Jones is a resident of Texas, Colorado and Florida, who, as the article acknowledged, had
“assembled a collection renowned for its range and quality.”
What made the exhibition somewhat unusual was not the rare works of European
masters such as Monet, or American paintings and sculptures by Remington, but instead
remarkable pieces such as the firearm that killed the infamous outlaw of the American West,
Jesse James, and the two large racing yachts on the lawn of the DMAC. That same article
reproduced a variety of criticisms by arts, entertainment and media people of in Dallas and the
region for having Jones underwrite a significant portion of the costs of staging the exhibition and
publishing the associated catalog. An arts commentator on the NBC television station WDTW
charged that this exhibition was more to do with “glamorizing the collector than fulfilling the
museum’s educational mission,” obliquely suggesting that the exhibition was a means of enticing
a prodigal patron back into the fold.
The DMAC director, Celia Daniels, quite used to such criticisms, asserted that this was
just another step in her mission to bring new visitors to the DMAC. “It is as simple and
straightforward as that,” offered Daniels.
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DMAC Case Study
By 2018, Daniels had been working actively toward achieving that goal. Just months
before the Jones exhibition, another exhibition public exhibition, “Speed, Style, and Beauty: Cars
from the Ralph Lauren Collection,” had caused its own media fury with some traditionalists in the
art world deriding the exhibition as overly populist and commercial. Yet, while some were
questioning the exhibition’s artistic merit, male visitors (a scarce demographic for the DMAC and
all museums) were flooding through its doors. Many were avid collectors themselves who did not
typically attend the DMAC.
Dan Sommers, an owner of the Texas Rangers (Dallas’s professional baseball team),
noted, “When this invitation landed on my desk . . . my assistant put it right on the top.
Normally, the DMAC invitations wouldn’t be right at the top”.
Ultimately, through the use of direct mailings and some television advertising sponsored
by the Ralph Lauren Foundation, the car exhibition attracted 197,000 patrons, far exceeding initial
projections of 140,000 visitors.
The DMAC had been alert to its audience’s tastes in other ways as well. In an openingday tribute to the Texas Rangers at the beginning of the 2017 season, the DMAC presented a
special exhibition entitled “Rockwell and the Baseball”. The exhibition featured a Norman
Rockwell painting that depicted the 1956 Red Sox locker room and also included a special
selection of baseball memorabilia.
Daniels’s motivations for bringing new visitors to the DMAC were twofold. The first was
mission— the DMAC is focused on bringing art and people together to enrich lives. Without
appealing to a broader base of visitors, Daniels felt that the DMAC would be compromising its
mission, and indeed, some of the DMAC Board of Trustees felt likewise. To a great extent the
DMAC has continued to work toward achieving that mission – in spite of criticism in print and
broadcast media responses in the region.
The second reason for bringing in a wider audience was financial. Since the Great
Recession of 2008, base attendance (defined as purchasing a ticket to see the core collection)
has slowly declined, and special-exhibit attendance (defined as purchasing a ticket to a special
exhibition that also included access to the core collection) is volatile and unpredictable. Declining
attendance had an immediate impact on the museum’s operations and was an important priority
for Daniels and her management team, especially since the museum’s trustees expected the
museum to maintain a balanced budget.
Funding Background
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DMAC Case Study
European art museums can receive as much as 90% of their funding from government
agencies. In contrast, most U.S. museums rely on private donations from the public and wealthy
patrons to support half of their annual operating budget. The other half raised through admissions
and other revenue-generating activities.
Patricia Quattrone, deputy director of Public Relations for DMAC, remarked on the
reasons people gave to the museum:
“One group of our donors is simply devoted to art, another group feels that it is their civic
responsibility, and a third group believes that it is a social requirement. Many donors
devote much of their personal time to learning and expanding their knowledge through
collecting.”
She also noted that the Western states like Texas and Colorado were a unique market:
“Unlike many areas of the country where donors revel in the acknowledgment of their
donations or gifts of a collection, many people in the Western states don’t want to be
acknowledged. It is a quiet and dignified kind of support.”
The external relations group competed with other regional and national cultural
institutions for donations as well as with educational institutions (such as Harvard) and area
hospitals (such as the Dallas Cancer Institute).
“The bad news is that we are often targeting the same people as the Harvards; the good
news is that Harvard is so effective at fund-raising that donors become used to
considering multimillion gifts,” noted Quattrone.
The DMAC
In the words of its founders in 1870, the museum and its collection were to be “a means
of bringing art and culture to the public, of education to artists and artisans, and of enjoyment to
all.” Over the next 135 years, the DMAC attempted to live up to that mission and by and large
succeeded with only modest drift, according to Daniels.
“There is a perception that art museums belong to the visually literate elite, but I believe
that this is wrong. Two truths have motivated me as a museum worker and then later as a
museum administrator and director. The first is that great works of art embody much of
what is best and most enduring in the human spirit. The second is that great art institutions
are crucial components of a civilized society, resources for every member of the
community and indeed for citizens of the world.”
The DMAC is the leading cultural institution in the West and one of the leading art museums in
the country.
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DMAC Case Study
The museum’s expansive collection of works was organized into seven major
departments:
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Art of the Americas
Art of the Ancient World of the Americas
Contemporary Art of the Americas
Prints, Drawings, and Photographs of historical and ancient Americas
Textile and Fashion Arts of historical and ancient Americas
The background and tastes of the museum’s benefactors influenced the composition of the
DMAC’s collection. For example, the museum included masterpiece paintings of colonial Dutch,
English, French, and Spanish art. The DMAC was particularly strong in landscapes of the
America west by painters of Europe as well as impressionist paintings. The DMAC, in conjunction
with Southern Methodist University, the University of Texas and Harvard University, had sought
out collections and individual works for years from various corporate and individual collectors in
the American west and South America, resulting in one of the best collections of art in North or
South America.
Early in its development, the DMAC made a commitment to building a strong collection of
Western American art, and on August of 2017, it announced a major gift to that collection, now
known as the Rankin Institute of Western American Art. Rankin, a director of Marshall Oil
Company, pledged to give his fine collection of approximately 50 highly regarded works of
Western, especially Southwestern, art to the DMAC.
In July, 2023, the DMAC will host its annual black-tie Collectors Choice fundraising event,
which will honor Rankin and other donors and supporters. Proceeds from the event will go to the
DMAC acquisition fund for its collection.
The DMAC originally opened in 1876 in a dusty corner of Dallas warehouses, but over the
years transformed into a major cultural arts zone in the city. Over the next 80 years, the DMAC
went through several phases of expansion. In 1970, a wing was opened with space for a research
laboratory, library, dining facilities, education facilities, and administrative offices, opened on the
west side of the building. In the late 1980s, DMAC created space for special exhibitions, a large
auditorium, and enhanced dining and retail facilities.
In addition to its galleries, DMAC offers a restaurant and bookstore to sell copies of prints and
other Museum artifacts. It also provides a lighter food menu in the small Cowboy’s Café. The
Brown Auditorium on the first floor is a venue for films and lecture series. The DMAC’s largest
temporary exhibitions are displayed in the 10,000-square-foot Jones Gallery.
Leadership
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DMAC Case Study
In September 2016, Daniels was appointed the Director of the DMAC. In that year,
DMAC began a long-term planning effort that resulted in a news strategic plan: One MuseumNew Museum-Great Museum.
One Museum, focused on creating a team of employees that made decisions based on
the return to the entire museum rather than a specific department. The was charged to address
the DMAC’s programs and practices to create an organization willing to experiment and innovate.
The Great Museum plan sought to fulfill the DMAC’s potential as one of the world’s greatest art
museums. It was an ambitious strategic plan.
When Daniels arrived, the museum faced a financial crisis—five months after her arrival
she cut 20% of the workforce in what would be the most serious downsizing since she was hired.
Additionally, Daniels re-organized the museum’s departments, in several cases combining
painting and decorative arts that resulted in the departure of two senior curators.
“We are a world-class museum but without all of the world-class appreciation we
deserve,” commented Daniels, who had set for herself the goal of raising the profile of the
DMAC.
Access has been the focal point of Daniels’ leadership. Over the course of her work as
Director, Daniels’ emphasis on creating access for a diverse public had drawn both praise and
criticism. In 2017, Daniels reopened the museum’s main doors on Colorado Avenue as a
welcoming gesture to the community (five years earlier they had been closed for financial
reasons). In the following year, Daniels eliminated admission fees for children under 17 and then
extended the DMAC’s hours of operation so that the museum was available to the public seven
days a week and more than 60 hours per week. Under Daniels’s guidance DMAC reached out to
the community with three free open houses each year, expansion of the education program, and,
in conjunction with Dallas’ mayor, the renaming of Colorado Avenue as Avenue of the Arts.
Daniels worked extensively with staff to enhance and expand the DMAC’s collection. From 2014
to 2019, investment in curatorial and staff services expanded by over 50%.
Yet Daniels was also a self-described risk taker, and it was primarily in the area of
exhibitions that she drew fire. While traditional exhibitions like the works of Monet drew praise,
others, such as a the exhibit of popular photographs of subjects such as Madonna and Richard
Gere by fashion photographer Herb Ritts, the exhibit “Dangerous Curves: the Art of the Guitar”;
and most recently the exhibition of classic cars.
While certain critics questioned whether the works within these exhibitions were indeed
art, Daniels countered,
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DMAC Case Study
“Our work is to bring art into people’s lives. It is not just to preach to the converted but to make
conversions.”
Daniels was responsible to the DMAC’s 15 person board of directors. Members of the
board were initially drawn to the DMAC based on their own interest in collecting or their interest in
art. The board took on a governance role and was active in fund-raising for the museum. In
addition, the DMAC had developed a museum council of younger people interested in the arts. It
was hoped that these individuals would represent a part of the future board.
DMAC Performance
In the 2018 annual report, the chairman of the DMAC’s Budget and Finance Committee
remarked on the museum’s financial complexity and noted:
“The DMAC is a business made up of many businesses. We are a museum, a publisher, a
retailer, a restaurateur, a film theater, and more, each financially demanding in its own right.”
The DMAC’s expenditures in 2014 were approximately $81 million. With revenues from
program and support of approximately $83 million, the DMAC enjoyed a profit of about $2 million.
Approximately 44% of the museum’s revenues came from operations including membership,
admissions, sales of merchandise, and restaurant food sales. Another 24% of revenues were
received as school tuition for a small high school art school program operated by the museum.
(Although, slightly more than that figure was spent on the administration of the school). Of the
remaining of revenue, 20% came from the support to the DMAC through its annual appeal and
contributions, gifts, and grants, and 80% from the DMAC’s investments (short-term investment
income, investment return on the endowment that had been designated for current operations,
etc.). Following several years of deficit in the 1980s and early 1990s, the board stressed the need
for a balanced budget.
The DMAC relied almost exclusively on private funding, receiving only limited funding from
government. As Daniels notes:
“The DMAC is almost certainly the largest privately funded museum in the world, and
unlike the other great museums of America, we receive no generous dollars from our city
and less than half a percent of our annual income from public sources all told. True, and a
great tribute to Dallas and philanthropy.”
One report found that the the Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs contributed $870,000 to the
arts, compared with $5 million given by New York’s, $14 million by Charlotte, $28.5 million by
Pittsburgh’s, and $37 million by San Francisco’s.
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DMAC Case Study
Under Daniel’s guidance, the one pressing issue for the museum has been the decline in
revenue from general admittance. Taken together, the revenue from general and corporate
memberships, admissions, and exhibits had declined 15% from 2015 to 2020. This decline had
occurred in the context of a “perfect storm” – 9/11, a recession, a stock market collapse in 2008,
a massive slump in state oil revenues, and a large fall-off in tourism.
From an operating perspective, membership and attendance drove the profitability of
other revenue-generating departments such as parking, food service, and merchandise sales. But
more importantly, if fewer people were visiting the museum, it raised the question of whether the
DMAC could achieve the museum’s ultimate aim as stated in its mission statement: to encourage
and to heighten public understanding and appreciation of the visual world.
“Attendance is a key priority for us,” said Daniels. “We need to understand if the decline
is structural or cyclical. If it is cyclical, time heals economic cycles, but if it is a structural
problem we need to make investments to reverse the trend.”
This was especially important in light of plans to install a significant new exhibit in 2018“Cultural Diversity Through the Eyes of the Artists of the American West”.
The Walk Through
As museum director Daniels walked through the museum, she noted:
“This is a unique moment in the museum’s history. We want to build a new wing to house
our Western American history collection. Not only will this showcase our extraordinary
collection, it will allow us to reorganize our existing collections and exhibit many pieces that
have been in storage due to a lack of exhibit space. We will undoubtedly get focus and
attention in 2018 when the new wing opens, but we need to develop a strategy that will allow
us to take full advantage of the opening and then carry us forward once the focus has shifted
away”.
“But even as we get closer to the big event, we need to make progress on improving our
core attendance,” remarked Daniels. “We are bound to have cycles that correlate with the
economy, but the trend should be pointing upwards.” This concern was especially important
given the experience of museums around the country that were also facing overall declines
in attendance.
Management’s Vision for the Museum
The management of the museum has determined that the organization must refocus the
public’s perception of the museum as a growing and dynamic institution. In a recent interview on
KPEN radio, Daniels asserted that:
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DMAC Case Study
“The task ahead is a major overhaul for a major institution. We have a significant
collection that has important things to say to our collective history and to the cultural
history of the North American west generally. Our museum needs to take its rightful place
in the city, state, and the country.”
Staff members, many of whom were despairing a few months ago, are looking for signs
of hope. Quoted in a recent Dallas Magazine interview (the piece was titled “Dallas’ Oldest
Museum Fixes Its Leaky Roof”), Holly Hatcher, the Acting Curator of Art at the museum said:
“All of these years can’t be turned around in a few months. Every correct step that can be
taken, at this point, is being taken. Every hard question is being asked to address every
hard problem of this museum. In the past we ran ourselves like a private club. We had no
use for the business of fundraising and selling ourselves. We are beginning to change
that now.”
From September through December of 2023, Daniels led the management staff through
a series of planning sessions. These meetings focused on identifying problems and potential
solutions to DMAC declining membership and net revenues. The management group discussed
the issues and determined that a central problem was that existing membership viewed the
museum as an institution with displays, exhibits, and programs that seemed to change very little
from year to year or were of limited interest. In addition, the management team felt that much of
the leveling in attendance, membership, and donations were due to competition from the many
other cultural opportunities available to individuals and their families in the Dallas area.
Finally, the management team has further determined that since DMAC has always
offered an excellent membership value, the fact that it has not recruited and retained members in
the competitive cultural marketplace of Dallas seems to indicate that museum marketing efforts
were inadequate to the task of recruiting and retaining visitors. A large number of employees
have been with the organization for 10 years or more. While there is some promotion from within
the organization, the management team feels that job security has always been one of the best
benefits of employment. Thus, the view of senior management is that being more attractive and
competitive as an organization has as much to do with the attitudes and performance of
employees as it does with how people view the museum.
CLOUD COMMUNICATIONS
As the DMAC’s leadership team assembled in the museum’s conference room, the critical
questions on their minds were: What do we do about attendance and membership decline? When
and how should we go about fixing these problems?
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DMAC Case Study
Daniels has requested that your public relations/ agency, CLOUD COMMUNICATIONS, help the
museum become more competitive among locals and as a tourist destination among visitors to
Dallas. As the initial phase of that plan, she would like Cloud Communications to focus on:
(1) Developing a Situation Analysis of the Museum which includes identification of
significant internal and external, visitor, and competitor challenges and opportunities for
DMAC.
(Material from this case study is taken or derived from Rangan and Bell)
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SP 2024
Case Study #2: DMAC
Format for Situation Analysis
Name:_______________
(1) Overview of client and purpose of the document (3 paragraphs max)
•
•
Identify purpose of the document
Identify basic details of client
(2) Operational Challenges:
A. Internal Analysis
Challenges and issues within DMAC
1)
2)
3)
4)
Core Beliefs and values within the organization
Quality of Communication between employees
Types of internal media used to communicate with employees
Perceptions of DMNS goals among employees
B. External Analysis
Environmental challenges and Issues for DMAC
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
Competitors: Actual or potential; Direct or indirect
DMAC Positioning in public opinion
Key segments of Publics: nature, size, growth,
Benefits that consumers are seeking, tangible and intangible
Consumer information sources: where does the customer obtain information about
DMAC ?
10) Social and Cultural Trends: society’s trends and fashions- how consumer needs and
preferences might change over time
(Based on the Situation Analysis)
Identify 3 key Public Relations Issues/ Challenges
1) Public Relations Problem Statement #1:
(The Problem Statement should be in specific format and no more than 2 sentences.)
Target Public:
(Identify the specific Target Public and their significance to the client)
1) Public Relations Problem Statement #2:
(The Problem Statement should be in specific format and no more than 2 sentences.)
Target Public:
(Identify the specific Target Public and their significance to the client)
2) Public Relations Problem Statement #3:
(The Problem Statement should be in specific format and no more than 2 sentences.)
Target Public:
(Identify the specific Target Public and their significance to the client)
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