Financial woes have Sault museum struggling to survive

Budget talk in Sault Ste. Marie has included the worsening financial state of the local museum, with board officials saying they could only have a few years remaining.

"Given our current finances, if we do nothing to change the museum, we'd be able to operate for another two to three years maximum," said Mike Delfre, Sault Ste. Marie Museum board president.

A deficit of just more than $100,000 has the museum in a tough spot. As a charity, it typically operated in the red, but post-pandemic changes altered the landscape, and government funds that helped it stay afloat during those lean years are now long gone.

"Over the past, I'd say two years, we have started to see a compound of deficit happen," said museum curator William Hollingshead.

"We're looking at inflation in the cost of utilities and the cost of wages, trying to provide living wages to our staff, trying to operate host events and the impacts that people are seeing on their own wallets kind of affects that too, right?"

Museum officials recently asked city council for a $40,000 funding increase, but they don’t expect that will make a significant dent in their deficit.

To climb out of its hole, the museum undertook a survey, crafting a plan based on the ideas and opinions of 500 respondents.

"We have identified about five key strategies that we're going to implement," Hollingshead said.

"First one that we're working on is redoing our Russ Ramsey Sports Hall of Fame. We're hoping to partner with Rotary. We're also working on a community neighbourhoods project. So the various neighbourhoods that comprised the development and creation of Sault Ste. Marie."

Those plans need to work, as the museum isn’t likely to receive grants to help it stave off cuts if they don’t show they’re moving in the right direction.

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"Very often, granting organizations are loath to put money into an organization that's in the red, in a deficit, but also doesn't appear to have the capacity to get out of that deficit," Delfre said.

"And so that's what a lot of the transformation that we're doing is about."

Within the last week, the museum has started a fundraising campaign, canvassing local businesses to help it hire four staff to implement the new initiatives and programs.

Museum officials are also asking the community for support in any way possible, whether it's buying memberships, donating or attending.