Own Revenues as Sword of Damocles for Non-Profit Cultural Institutions with the Case Study of National Museum of Valjevo

Abstract

Practice over decades required that work of non-profit cultural institutions has to be almost absolutely financed by the founders, mainly state authorities. Since the end of the last century, due to general social changes, faced with an increase in budget expenditures, the founders have difficulty maintaining the usual level of budgetary allocation for culture and often they recourse it, and they expect from management of institutions these funds to be provided. This has led to dismay of a new, uknown way of doing business, and to the negative practice that those institutions that have succeeded in earning additional assets are "avanged" by the reduction of their grants, which leads to an additional fear that in the next year, there will be no possibility that previous successes can be repeated. The justification of such fears is also indicated by the case study of the National Museum of Valjevo, which illustrates the situation in which the museum managed to increase the number of visitors, and thus the flow of its own revenues. That is the reason why this museum, as a successful institution, was first "avanged" by the city of Valjevo as the founder, through a considerable increase of obligations, but without additional grants for their realization. When this cultural institution managed to develop new socially useful program activities on the basis of additional own revenues, it faced a series of major and minor crises caused by external factors, which are difficult to predict, control, and annul.