American Museum of Natural History

The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is one of the world’s leading scientific and cultural institutions. The Museum’s world-class facilities—which offer access to more than 30 million specimens and objects in its scientific collections—draw millions of visitors annually. AMNH is also an unparalleled educator of all ages, offering programs for children as young as kindergarten alongside an accredited graduate school, and conducting cutting-edge research on teaching and learning to contribute to policy at city, state, and federal levels.

AMNH initially approached Advance Collaborative following a period of significant transition for the organization. Years of staff turnover had led to a loss of institutional memory around corporate partnerships, corporate fundraising efforts that were siloed, and major gaps in stewardship systems. As a result, the corporate program as a whole was falling significantly short of its revenue-generating potential despite the Museum’s stature and legacy. AMNH needed a partner who could not only diagnose the operational inefficiencies but also provide the strategic leadership and capacity to course correct and unlock new revenue streams.

Advance Collaborative undertook a comprehensive assessment to evaluate the Museum’s corporate strategy, infrastructure, and offerings. The resulting strategy and our implementation of it focused on five connected objectives:

• Develop a consistent, effective pipeline for corporate relationship-building;
• Maximize the Museum’s return on investment for corporate sponsorship;
• Showcase the Museum’s impact for prospective and current partners; 
• Create efficient operational systems and processes around corporate philanthropy; and
• Ensure consistent high-quality experiences for all corporate representatives. 

We implemented this high-level strategy by also providing full operational support and systems design to close fundraising gaps while establishing a sustainable foundation for long-term corporate growth.

Based on our assessment findings, the Museum partnered with us to wholly redesign their corporate engagement strategy. We relaunched its corporate membership program, developed a new suite of optimized sponsorship packages, and rewrote the Museum’s institutional language to strengthen its case for support. We also centralized corporate philanthropy operations, built strong information-sharing systems across departments, and reconfigured the customer service infrastructure that supported partner interactions across the Museum. The strategy and infrastructure we established allowed incoming staff to join a stable, high-performing department, and enabled continued corporate growth in the years that followed. In total, our work resulted in $4M in new and incremental revenue within a single year.