San Diego Museum of Man
San Diego Museum of Man
San Diego Museum of Man Balboa Park Aerial Video El Prado, San Diego, California, United States We seek to transform the Museum within eight years by reimagining all of our exhibits, public programs,social spaces, and ensuring proper stewardship of our collections. We will build on our successes over thepast two years-and-a-half such that—eventually—all of our offerings are infused with a creative, thoughtprovoking,relevant, and fun vibrancy that defines us as THE “must do” destination in Balboa Park. In otherwords, every aspect of the visitor experience will feel like BEERology, Instruments of Torture, watching askateboarder get air on the half-pipe on the South Balcony, or Border Crossing. Our goal: To serve as acatalyst of transformative experiences for visitors from all walks of life.From the outside (i.e. how the visitor perceives us), this means we use contemporary and popular culture as a springboard for exploring the past, present, and future of what it means to be human. We connect peopleto one another in surprising and meaningful ways. We facilitate that process through every exhibit, every public program, and every social space.We aim to be a site of wonder, in both senses of the word—instilling a sense of awe and inspiring thoughtful questioning. Creating environments that capture the imagination is one way to disarm visitors and open them to new ideas and perspectives (in line with the visitor journey above). From a financial perspective, we will grow our annual budget from $2.4m to $5m within eight years. We anticipate achieving this goal by increasing and/or creating a variety of revenue streams over time, including: doubling our paid admissions as a result of signature experiences only available at SDMoM, significantly growing our contributory revenue, Tower tours, a thriving Museum Store, a vibrant food offering, and gains from our portfolio. We will secure additional funding for transforming our exhibits/social spaces through major federal grants and/or a capital campaign at the appropriate juncture. We anticipate changing our name and embarking on a comprehensive rebranding campaign in July 2018. Transforming the Museum won’t be easy—and it will require significant (including some up front) investment in capital expenditures as well as operations—but we will do it.
