country
activities

Consultants
James Bradburne • Paul Elicker • Jillian Poole • Julian Spalding

Activities Summary

Sofia Museum Seminar The Fund, in cooperation with the Soros Centre for the Arts and the American Centre in Bulgaria, organized a seminar for museum leaders in Sofia, October 8 to 11. James Bradburne, Director of the Applied Art s Museum in Frankfurt, and Jillian Poole represented The Fund. Participants came from various regions in Bulgaria, different types of museums and from different levels of the museum hierarchy.

Seminar in Sofia

The seminar focused on organizing exhibitions and special events as well as the process of fund raising. One characteristic of Bulgarian museums is that the composition of their staff has not changed a great deal in recent years , the exception being the introduction of some public relations specialists in a f ew museums. As a result, museums generally lack fund-raising skills. The seminar, therefore, covered such topics as how to prepare a viable project proposal, how to establish productive relations with potential donors, and reviewed the main mistakes applicants make while communicating with potential donors.

A representative from the United Bulgarian Bank provided concrete examples of forms of sponsorship possible with private companies such as banks in Bulgaria. Krassimira Teneva from the American Centre discussed preparing funding applications for both corporate and foundation sources .

That the museums must be designed for the public, not for the staff who work there, was stressed by Jillian Poole who provided vivid examples of her recent experiences in Bulgarian museums. She emphasized that accessibility of museums must be an utmost priority of museum directors and they must work with the media to inform the public about the activities in their museum. James Bradburne, the principal speaker, spoke about the new role of museums as social service providers and as places of informal learning. He explained the necessary change in philosophy a museum must adopt from seeing itself as a purely scientific institution to a public-oriented service institution – a change that has not yet taken place in Bulgarian museums. Mr. Bradburne effectively shared his experiences in diversifying museum audiences in Frankfurt and elsewhere and illustrated his points with a number of slides.

Future Work

It is likely that The Fund will return to Bulgaria in September 2002 to conduct a seminar in Plovdiv.

James Bradburne of the Applied A rts Museum of Frankfurt and Krassimira Teneva of the American Centre at the Sofia seminar