Mengyang Li ID: 110021165 IELTS ESSAY MUSEUM

Much concern has been given to the issue that whether government should grant on museum with public money, especially during such a period of economic depression. Further, the public are holding a wait-and-see attitude towards the methods that museums use to raise funds by themselves if government will not be the strong backing for them any longer. Some people suggest that in a country where thousands of people are destitute, homeless and where a series of socio-economic dysfunctions are rife, it cannot be truly justified by spending public money on luxury museum. According to their views, it is unfair to allocate a huge sum of public money on meaningless artworks appreciation while millions of people are suffering from poverty and starvation, which means that governments should prioritise funding based on the public needs. However, others who are supportive of granting public money retort that the amount money which government spends on museums will not be the way to solve the poverty or any social issues neither, such as homeless, crime, education, health care and so forth. For them, the serious question is how government spends public tax money to benefit the majority of people without fraud. Whatever the money the public paid or donated should be used under highly supervised. Moreover, the poverty and community infrastructure should be supported by both the government and private organisation in the area of job training, financial support, health care, mental consultant and other services, rather than the money that should be allocated on the arts. As far as I am concerned, it is reasonable for the government to spend public money on museums, yet it should be a clearly defined budget that is small in comparison to security, hospital, industry, agriculture, education and so on. The decision on whether to put money on these museums would have to be made by experts in discussion with the authorities and government. Whether it is possible or not would depend on how much is in the budget and whether this is the best use of it. This is a pragmatic approach, but it has to be, to keep a just balance within a national budget. In addition, some money needs to be granted to the arts education rather than to museums only. It seems that there is less of interest and appreciation of arts in the museum since little or no exposure to the arts in schools. A free museum of statue in the park means nothing for people who do not care them at all. Museum is supposed to enrich the lives of all people, but it appears that only a fraction of the people really benefit. As for raising funds, it is unrealistic now for some museums to keep implementing free of charge under the pressure of economic difficulties, although the free entry policy did bring more visitors to them. Thus, besides the public money from governments, the financing will also be generated by entry charges. Meanwhile, company sponsorship and public subscription do contributions as well.

Page 1 of 2

Mengyang Li ID: 110021165 IELTS ESSAY MUSEUM

According to the Office of Policy and Analysis of Smithsonian Institution, the best strategies a museum can do to raise money evolves spending money on fundraising effort more efficiently, increasing involvement of board members in fundraising by soliciting their support directly, attracting new major individual donors including the younger generation, producing more blockbuster exhibitions, re-organizing the development office to be more effective, to name a few. All in all, museums still need to be funded by the government with public money. However, they need efforts from themselves as well. In addition to the public money, museums should be good at using strategies to increase private donations to make sure operating normally.

Page 2 of 2