Museums and funding: practices in Malaysia and the United Kingdom

In my 1999 research project to investigate the state of public museums in Malaysia it became evident that Malaysian museums had limited autonomy and relied heavily on government subvention. In contrast, UK and USA museums, being historically different, enjoyed diverse sources of funding and a more sovereign approach to achieving their missions. Clearly, there were lessons the Malaysian museums could learn from their counterparts, particularly from the UK national museums. This research investigates the funding profiles and practices of three national museums in the UK, and three national museums in Malaysia. The UK national museums earned at least 25 per cent of their total income independently, were highly regarded internationally and were leaders in their categories. The Malaysian museums belong to the same category as their UK counterparts - art, history and science - and were the most prominent national museums in the country. The study covers a twelve-year period between 1990 and 2002, which in the UK witnessed the inception of lottery funding, aggressive fundraising and the setting up of museum trading companies. During the same period, tax exemptions were introduced in Malaysia to raise private sector involvement in the arts and culture. The purpose of the study is to understand the strengths and limitations of relying on contributed revenue and self-generated income by analyzing empirical data from annual reports, interviews with key personnel, funding agreements, corporate plans, bi-annual reports, and government reports among other sources. Museums' scholar, public and social and customer orientations were investigated via museum mission statements with the intent to understand what roles museums embrace in their pursuit of social relevance.