RESEARCH
“The business I founded, Dimensional Fund Advisors, applies academic research to practical investing. I am excited to see how Remuseum will apply research to museums, and I hope it will inspire museum boards and leaders to approach their work in new ways.”
David Booth, Remuseum supporter
ACCESS, SCALE & MARKET SHARE
Remuseum’s initial research report, “Museum Missions & Transparency” (published in the spring of 2024), demonstrated a shift in U.S. art museum missions and highlighted the lack of publicly available data about the field.
Given that nearly all U.S. art museums center the public in their mission statements but share limited data about their public impact, Remuseum followed up on that report by building the first nonproprietary database on operations and impact among over 150 major American art museums, one that uses data to illustrate ways in which museums can maximize their effectiveness in serving the public. Focused on 6 key data points, this database was developed using publicly available data, information provided by museums, and a rigorous academic research methodology.
In this report, the Remuseum database serves to present two key metrics: how effectively museums use their resources to generate visits (measured as cost per visitor) and what percentage of the museum’s regional population visits it in a given year (measured as a percentage of the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) in which the museum is located).

Research Partner
Remuseum’s research partner is I/O, an affiliate of Indiana University’s Center for Cultural Affairs, led by Joanna Woronkowicz and Doug Noonan. Remuseum is using publicly available data to develop a tool to measure and rank the effectiveness of American art museums at delivering on their public-facing missions.
Task Force
Remuseum’s research is advised by a Task Force of museum and non-profit leaders. Members are:
Rehema Barber
Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
Carol Colletta
Memphis River Parks Partnership
Juli Goss
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Colleen Jennings-Roggensack
ASU/Gammage
Stacey Shelnut-Hendrick
Chrysler Museum
Vivan Zavataro
Ulrich Museum of Art
Rod Bigelow
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Miki Garcia
ASU Museum
Daniel Hemel
NYU School of Law
Adam Levine
Toledo Museum of Art
Martha Winans Slaughter
Independent Curator/Museum Trustee
Jim Bildner
DRK Foundation
Sam Gill
Doris Duke Foundation
Diane Jean-Mary
Black Trustee Alliance
Kim Rorschach
Seattle Art Museum
Scott Stulen
Philbrook Museum of Art