The Peoria Riverfront Museum needs to do a better job of writing grants and booking rental space to boost revenue. That’s the message from new museum President Sam Gappmayer. Museum attendance also came in under original projections. Gappmayer says museum consultants can over estimate attendance numbers:
“We always want more people to come, I don’t want to be misunderstood. But it’s not an area where we’re deeply under performing right now, whereas the number of grants that we’re writing is an area where we are underperforming compared to other institutions.”
Gappmayer says he hopes to increase the number of grants the museum writes each year by about seven times the current levels. He says the museum has more than $11 million in total funds. Gappmayer says that’s being used to fill a 600-thousand-dollar budget gap in the first six months of the fiscal year. He says the Riverfront Museum brought in more money from attendance numbers and memberships when compared to other institutions in similarly sized cities.