Letter to the Community

Dear Community,

This morning, SFMOMA took the difficult step to eliminate 29 currently filled positions—approximately 7.5% of our workforce—including 20 full-time positions and 9 part-time roles, affecting union and non-union staff. Additionally, the museum eliminated 13 positions that are either vacant or that will not be backfilled. Although this decision was necessary, we recognize the impacts on affected individuals, and have provided severance packages, including enhanced packages to our union members above what is outlined in our collective bargaining agreement.

Today’s announcement reflects the financial challenges to SFMOMA’s operating model. Despite the important and steady progress the museum has made in recovering its attendance and re-balancing its budget over the past several years, we continue to grapple with some hard realities. While we’ve seen strong gains in participation during our popular public programs and incredible enthusiasm for major exhibitions such as Ruth Asawa: Retrospective, Get in the Game, and Amy Sherald: American Sublime, tourism to San Francisco and local traffic to the downtown core have yet to fully rebound. The pandemic also altered attitudes toward social gathering and cultural engagement in lasting ways, as people spend ever more time in the digital space. These external factors have limited year-over-year attendance growth more substantively than anticipated. And with new external pressures on the philanthropic and cultural sectors, we now know that we cannot simply return to a pre-pandemic era. We must set a new path forward grounded in the facts of the present.

We’re certain that, at least for the near term, we are programming for and adjusting our budget to reflect a reduced annual attendance normal in the range of 600,000 visitors. This means continuing the work that we began in 2023 to strategically reduce the number of our annual exhibitions and collection rotations, emphasizing presentations that reflect both SFMOMA’s deep commitment to artistic excellence and to embracing audience interests. Along with the ongoing thoughtful changes to our program, SFMOMA is focusing on new earned and contributed revenue strategies, with a view toward both closing our remaining $5M structural deficit and implementing a sustainable financial model sensitive to our changed environment. Establishing new revenue streams and growing philanthropic support, by nature, however, take time. As these efforts take root, we must continue to be vigilant about our budget and make critical decisions to reduce costs and scale the institution in alignment with our current context. Those reductions, unfortunately, include expenses both unrelated and related to our staff.

SFMOMA has an exceptional team—one that is immensely dedicated, passionate, and talented. For that reason, among others, today’s reduction is difficult to both implement and share. These are tough decisions, yet they are necessary in setting a sustainable future course for the museum. Throughout these tumultuous times, SFMOMA’s mission remains, as does our steadfast commitment to connect our audiences with the art of our time.

Christopher Bedford