The Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) has released its second annual American Art Museums by the Numbers report, which details a number of statistics about how museums in the United States, Canada, and Mexico have been doing over the past year. Generally, the report shows that North American museums are still heavily reliant on money that comes in from a number of sources. Endowments are still the largest and most important source of funds.
Also, new data in the report shows that in 2015, 60 percent of North American museums charged for admission. Thirty-three percent offered free admission, while the remaining 8 percent have a suggested-donation admission policy. The majority of American museums—75 percent, to be exact—have managed to keep their exhibitions free of charge, however. Meanwhile, about 85 percent of works that museums acquired in the past year came in through donations or bequests.
Head over to AAMD’s site for its 2015 American Art Museums by the Numbers report, which features colorful graphics and also includes data about total museum attendance across the continent.