Ethics in Museum Fundraising: Evidence from the Czech Republic

Abstract

Museums constantly face challenges from the ever-changing political, economic, technological, and social environment. One such challenge is to thrive despite the difficult economic climate and decreased public funding. This difficulty pressures museums to develop stronger engagement with the corporate sector. Consequently, such tendencies have sparked discussion as to the ethics of the corporations’ involvement and with whom museums should cooperate. Ethics has become a focal point of museum funding. This paper investigates, based on the data from questionnaires and interviews with museum professionals, this emerging topic and explores the role of ethics among museums using the Czech museum sector sample.

Keywords:

• Museums
• fundraising
• ethics
• code of ethics
• arts funding

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.