Muse Software

Museum leaders, quick question. When did you last actually evaluate your software instead of just renewing it? 👀 For most institutions, the search starts with a vendor demo. But a demo shows you what the software does well, not whether it fits how your museum actually runs. Better to walk in with your own list. Our team wrote a piece for the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance on what to look for in digital tools. A few things worth adding to that list: ⭐ Design built around museum workflows, not generic business ones. Your front desk shouldn't need a week of training to sell a membership. ⭐ All-in pricing. If updates and support appear as separate line items, you don't yet know the full cost. ⭐ We also cover the part that is most often skipped: implementation. A cross-departmental change management team, real training time for staff and volunteers, and asking people how it's actually going. Read the full article: https://lnkd.in/eDUUQAY6 #museums #museumops #museumtech #nonprofittech

What a great few days at the ASSOCIATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUMS conference. 👋 We've loved the conversations in the expo hall this week. Museum teams telling us how they actually run ticketing, membership, and fundraising, and what they wish worked better. If you haven't had a chance to stop by yet, there's still time. Joshua Meyer and Paulo Cruz are at our booth until 4 pm today. Come talk shop, or let them walk you through the platform in a few minutes, or just swing by to grab some SWAG. We'd love to meet you before we head out. 🏛️ #AAAM2026 #museums #museumops #visitorexperience

👋 Say hello to Trent Duncan! Based in Sacramento, Trent joins Muse as a Senior Software Engineer. He came in with a clear view of the problem. Cultural institutions run on software that was never built for them, which usually means stitching together a handful of tools that don't talk to each other. Trent wants to put his engineering work toward something better: one modern, intuitive platform for the teams doing this work. 🏛️ His favorite museum is the SFMOMA San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. When he's not building, you'll probably find Trent: 🎧 Producing electronic music 🏋️ In the gym 🏔️ Snowboarding We're glad to have Trent on the team and are looking forward to what he builds for cultural institutions. #museums #museumtech #museumops #nonprofittech

We're heading to Philadelphia this week for the 48th Annual ASSOCIATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUMS Conference, August 19 to 21 at the Loews Philadelphia Hotel. Three days of programming around this year's theme, "This Land Holds Our Stories." Joshua Meyer and Paulo Cruz will be staffing our booth. Come talk ticketing, membership, fundraising, retail, or whatever's making your team's operations harder than they should be. They can walk you through the Muse platform and answer any questions you may have about partnering with our team. Stop by and say hello! 👋 #AAAM2026 #museums #museumops

The hardest part of new museum technology isn't choosing the software. It's the Monday morning your team logs in for the first time. Our own Joshua Meyer wrote a guest post for the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance on getting started with digital tools as a museum leader. Not just what the tools do, but how to make the change stick. Inside the article: 🎟️ What digital tools should do for your guest experience, from QR code entry to self-service member portals 📊 What to look for when evaluating systems, including all-in pricing and reports you can actually read 👋 Implementation practices that drive adoption, like forming a change management team from every corner of the institution before day one Thanks to the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance team for having us Read the full article: https://lnkd.in/eDUUQAY6 Museum leaders: what do you wish you'd known before your last software rollout? The comments are a safe space.

Museum leaders, quick question. What's the last piece of donor outreach that actually got a response? If you had to think about it, you're in good company. Member retention and donor engagement come up in nearly every conversation we have with cultural institutions. Chad Barger, ACFRE, ACNP, of Productive Fundraising, joins us to share practical, research-based tactics museums are using right now to identify, cultivate, and steward donors. Some with no budget at all. 📅 Tuesday, August 11 🕐 1 PM ET | 10 AM PT, 60 minutes, with dedicated Q&A time. Can't make it live? Register anyway, and we'll send you the recording. Save your seat: https://lnkd.in/efeYQibS And drop your answer to the question above in the comments 👇 #museums #fundraising #museumops #donorengagement

Quick gut check for museum leaders: how many revenue streams does your institution actually work? Not have. Work. Most museums, zoos, and gardens technically have six or seven. Admissions, membership, retail, programs, rentals, giving. But in practice, one or two get all the attention and the rest run on autopilot. That gap matters more right now. Government funding is shifting, attendance is still recovering, and the number of households that give has been declining for years. When one stream has a rough year, the others are what carry the budget. Our free guide breaks down 9 revenue streams and how to get more from each, with a practical starting point for every one. Download it here: https://lnkd.in/eBD7_CQC Which stream runs on autopilot at your institution? Be honest, we won't tell your board. 👀

A one-off campaign might fill the museum for a weekend. It won't build the year-round audience your mission needs. That takes a strategy where every channel supports the same story. We just published a guide to 11 museum marketing strategies that do exactly that. A few we don't see cultural institutions try that often: 🖼️ Crowdsourced micro-exhibitions, where your followers vote on what comes out of storage next month 📍 Teaser pop-up displays at transit hubs and airports that bring the galleries to the public square 📊 Google Ad Grants, which give qualifying nonprofits (museums included) up to $10,000 per month in free search advertising Most of the 11 cost little or nothing. The guide includes relative spend for each, plus a four-step launch plan for turning them into one connected strategy. Read the full article: https://lnkd.in/egYEYKM7 What's the most creative marketing idea your cultural institution has tried? We'd love to steal, er, feature it. 👀

One number in the new Giving USA report released last month deserves more attention from cultural institutions. Bequest giving grew 19.7% in 2025, reaching $62.19 billion. Over the past five years, bequests have grown faster than overall giving. And this is just the beginning. An estimated $124 trillion will pass between generations by 2048, and a meaningful share of it is expected to go to charity. Here's the thing about legacy gifts: they rarely come from strangers. They come from the member of 22 years. The docent who never misses a shift. The couple who bring their grandkids every summer. The gift arrives decades after the relationship starts. Which means the institutions that will benefit most from this wealth transfer are the ones paying attention to their longest, quietest relationships right now. 👀 Museum and development leaders: how is your institution thinking about planned giving? We'd love to hear what's working.

Your patrons are flooded with messages every day. Emails from brands, appeals from other nonprofits, notifications from every app on their phone. So how does a museum's renewal reminder or year-end appeal actually get noticed? That's the focus of our upcoming webinar with fundraising trainer Chad Barger, ACFRE, ACNP: Cutting Through the Noise, What's Working Now to Spur Patron Engagement. You'll leave with steps you can put to work right away, plus real examples from museums that built strong donor relationships without a dedicated budget. 👀 📅 Tuesday, August 11 at 1 PM ET / 10 AM PT 🎟️ Free to attend, and everyone who registers gets the recording. Save your seat: https://lnkd.in/efeYQibS #museums #donorengagement #membership #nonprofittech #museumops