report to the community - The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and ...

Dear Friends of the Museum,Strong. In a word, that pretty much sums up 2008 for theRock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. We strengthened ourrelationships with Inductees, artists and musicians, members,donors, music fans, students and teachers across the country.We bolstered our deep ties to the Northeast Ohio communitywhile expanding our outreach across the state. We also formedrelationships in key markets around the country to extendour mission to new audiences. In short, we had a banner yearacross our entire organization.At a time when arts funding to schools across the countrywas being cut, the Museum filled an important curriculum gapand received national awards, accolades and attention for oureducational outreach programs. These outstanding programsserve increasing numbers of students of all ages each yearand continue to earn prestigious recognition and awards.With an increased focus on bringing music into the classroom,our educational offerings have become among the mostcelebrated and award-winning programs emanating from anyfine arts museum in the nation. From the music therapy-basedToddler Rock to the videoconference technology of On theRoad, we brought record numbers of students of all ages to theMuseum during 2008 and reached out to new locations acrossthe United States and in Canada, Mexico, Australiaand England.Meanwhile, Museum attendance remained solid despite thetough economy, coming within 2 percent of the number ofvisitors we welcomed in 2007. Those visitors found plenty totheir liking in our Museum Store, as the average spending pervisitor remained strong. And we extended the Museum into akey market on the worldwide stage with the opening of theRock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex in New York City.As a nonprofit organization, we fully appreciate the importanceof donations to support the work of the nonprofit community.Each year, we ourselves receive thousands of requests fromcommunity organizations for tickets or merchandise to assistin their fundraising efforts. In 2008, we were pleased to donatemore than $ 80,000 of support to local organizations.The Museum continues to attract hundreds of thousands ofvisitors from across the globe and enhance the Ohio economyto the tune of more than $ 100 million each year. Among ourguests in 2008 was the Rock Hall’s 7 millionth visitor, aConnecticut mother whose two teenage sons had convincedthe family to visit the Rock Hall during a cross-country trip.On the development front, we experienced a solid year as wesought and achieved generous financial support for programsand general operations, the capital campaign and the 2009Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. We havenearly completed construction of our new Library and Archivesin downtown Cleveland, the first component funded by ourcapital campaign. The facility, which will open to the public in2010, will solidify our position as the world’s pre-eminent sitefor rock research and the study of the most powerful art formever, rock and roll.Equally exciting, we laid the foundation in 2008 for the 2009Induction Ceremony, the first to be held in Cleveland in 12years. We worked closely with the City of Cleveland, PositivelyCleveland, local foundations and corporations and our Boardof Trustees to plan what would prove to be a very successfulweek of events surrounding the ceremony.As always, special exhibitions – ranging from MikeMcCartney’s photographs documenting the origins of theBritish Invasion to Marty Stuart’s collection of artifacts fromclassic musicians of the past four decades – reflected rockand roll’s diverse appeal and complemented the Museum’spermanent exhibits.Once again, our series of community festivals celebratedGreater Cleveland’s ethnic diversity, while the Summer inthe City concert series featured popular headliners as wellas local groups. We also honored outstanding women througha new event called Riot Girls and Rebels, a celebration ofwomen who rock.The Rock Hall’s presence on the Internet rose to new heightsin 2008. Our e-newsletter was launched during the summerand has grown to include thousands of subscribers,particularly driven by the success of the Cleveland Rockscampaign, which generated excitement for the 2009 InductionCeremony. Moreover, with the importance of social networkingat an all-time high, the Museum has an ever-growingpresence on top social media sites such as MySpace,Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter. This year we’ve reachedmore than 20,000 people – an impressive number whencompared to our peer museums around the country.We appreciate your interest and are pleased to share thehighlights of 2008 through this Report to the Community.We’d also like to recognize the passion, work and dedicationof the Rock Hall Staff. We have an exceptional team doinginternationally-acclaimed work here.With the strong support of the Rock and Roll Hall of FameFoundation and our Board of Trustees, as well as generousorganizations and individuals, we look forward to continuing toreinforce our place as the Rock and Roll Capital of the World.Peace, soul, and rock and roll,Terry StewartPresident and CEO