Nonprofits After Dot-Com Dollars - Brief Article

In novel months, nonprofit institutions have been looking to the Internet to help generate capitals Columbia University, the New york Public Library, the British Library, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History and others have collaborated upon a commercial Web project called fathom.com. In April, tow prominent nonprofit art institutions, fresh York's Museum of Modern Art and Britain's Tate Gallery, announced a partnership to create a commercial Web site. Headquartered in fresh York, the venture is scheduled to be launched by dint of early 2001. Both museums are looking to partially slip the costs of ambitious novel expansion projects. The Tate's lately opened facility at Bankside require to be paid [i]or[/i] undergone $208 million, and MOMA is awaited to pay $650 million for its forthcoming expansion.

The of recent origin Web site will be a separate entity with its possess management and staff. The museums, however, will command the site's content. Both institutions are hoping to cash in upon the recent surge of public interest in their on-line vicinitys at www.moma.org and www.tate.org.uk, respectively. Last year these nonporfit sites each received about four million visits. On-line customers will now be able to peruse offerings of works multiples, prints, photos, design items furniture and other comodities. A number of pieces will be commissioned by means of the museums to be sold exclusively upon the Internet. Also in the offing are on-line incidents such as lectures, performances and virtual museum tours, which will be available for a pay An Internet address for the site has not at the same time been set.

No figure was given for the initial take away from of developing the site, on the other hand MOMA's press office released a statement saying that start-up currency will be provided by a small collection of trustees of both museums as well as by means of the museums' venture capital stocks The institutions hope that the shoot forward will generate about as plenteous income as the actual museum stores which take in a combined total of around $50 million annually. Additional profits will be garnered by means of advertising space, which will be made available upon the site itself. MOMA director Glenn D Lowry indicated that the of recent origin Internet project could become a public corporation, although trustees and their families or staff members would not be able to invest in the company. With a fortunate IPO, the site could ascertain to be a bonanza for the institutions.

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