0.12 Chapter nine: the liabilities of nonprofit assets  (Page 4/5)

Again, an example will help illustrate the point. A wealthy alumnus chooses to donate a valuable painting to the art museum at his alma mater. When it accepts the gift, the university should take steps to protect its right to sell the painting under appropriate conditions. If, as a stipulation to the gift, the donor demands that the university exhibit this painting in the museum forever, a decision to accept the painting should be made very carefully. Accepting the painting with that restriction is justified only if the painting meshes with the museum's other col­lections and if exhibiting it furthers the museum's fundamental mission. Even then, who can predict whether that situation will continue to exist indefinitely? In such a case, a decision to accept the painting must balance the importance of the paint­ing to both the museum and the broader purposes of the university with the cost of incorporating the painting into the museum's collections, paying for curatorial and restoration work that may be needed, and again, providing funds for its long-term preservation and care.

Deaccessioning

This examination of the nature of nonprofit assets would be incomplete if it over­looked deaccessioning, an issue of great concern not just to observers of the Society but to all parties interested in culturally important collections and the institutions that manage them. The New-York Historical Society has been heav­ily criticized for its deaccessions over the years, most notably its sales of the Bryan collection of European paintings, the final stage of which took place in January 1995. The issues and controversy surrounding the topic are sufficiently complex that even a cursory assessment is beyond the scope of this study; a proper analy­sis would constitute a separate project. Still, this investigation of the Society's his­tory has uncovered issues and questions that should be considered carefully as part of the continuing debate.

First, it is clear that some way must be found to destigmatize deaccessioning. Feelings are so strong about the topic that a popular and uncompromising theology has evolved that is used to attack any institution that even considers selling. It is generally assumed that an institution engaged in deac­cessioning is doing so to raise money and that its board is searching for an easy way out of a financial bind. This assumption may be true in too many cases—but it is not always true. There are situations in which it is sensible to deaccession por­tions of a collection for reasons that have nothing to do with finances. Redundant items in a collection represent such a case. The nonprofit community would be better served if less energy were expended on attacking deaccessioning on prin­ciple and more effort were spent identifying the circumstances that define when deaccessioning is—and is not—a proper course of action.

The case of the Society presents an interesting illustration of the complexi­ties of the deaccessioning issue. For well over one hundred years, the Society had virtually no acquisitions policy. It accepted whatever was given to it with­out considering whether the gift was appropriate or relevant to its mission. Should the simple fact that an item was given to an institution in the past commit that institution to caring for it forever? Putting aside the Society's recent efforts to narrow its mission, what if the assets never were relevant to even a tolerably broad interpretation of the Society's mission? Should current management and trustees be saddled with the acquisitions mistakes of their predecessors? Independent of any desire to raise funds, a decision to sell irrelevant collections seems justified.