Mission Focused Retail: The Met Store

Mission-focused. Mission-based. These are key words to me. I love to see an organization gaining momentum and building a strong base by staying focused on their unique and special mission. These are not just buzz words, keeping your mission as the center of everything you do, including fundraising, is practical and proven.

I want to share with you a great example of mission focus from my files.

My files are loaded with clippings. Although I rely on my computer for most tasks I still love to read the paper, magazines and books. I rip out pages or write notes whenever an idea strikes me. Often I read something in the obituaries that grabs my attention. I read the obituaries every day, first thing. Not the ones you pay to have printed in the paper. I just read the ones written by the staff of my daily paper, the New York Times.

Most days there are two or three; they are like short biographies of interesting peoples' lives. I learn about all sorts of things that might otherwise never get my attention. But the obituary that I'm sharing today was one for Bradford Kelleher, "Creator of Met's Store." This is not about baseball; the Met they are speaking of is the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

You've probably seen their stores at the mall or airport. Seems that back in 1949 Mr. Kelleher opened the Museum's Art and Book Shop (eventually renamed The Met Store). According to the obit, the Met now receives more than $1 million a year in net income from their stores! Not bad. Interestingly, the New York Times goes on to say "Nonprofit institutions like the Met are not required by the Internal Revenue Service to pay taxes on the sale of merchandise that has an educational or cultural function related to the purpose of the organization." I find that interesting.

The IRS is saying sales must be related to mission. I totally agree. But why, then, is my son's school selling wrapping paper? Or a homeless organization planning a gala? It sounds like the Met really wants the stores to spread the collection, their logic goes something like this: seeing a replica of a famous work of art printed on a note card or replicated as a piece of jewelry is better than not seeing it at all. And, yeah, they are making money too.

Seems that Mr. Kelleher worked for the Museum for almost 60 years and, according to his wife, never stopped thinking of new ideas. My kind of guy.