Perhaps the robust U.S. economy of the past 25 years has allowed curators to show indifference to would-be donors capable of benefiting their institutions and to reject offered gifts, urging instead the support of projects in which the donors have no interest. But the outlook for museums has changed with the recent downturn. Institutional endowments are down sharply. Trustees at Brandeis University have responded to the decrease in its endowment from $712 million to $540 million by threatening to close its Rose Art Museum and sell the collection. Corporations that once sponsored exhibitions have disappeared, as have many of the hedge funds that had enriched free-spending new collectors. Museum personnel, if they want to remain employed, will make patrons’ interests and desires major concerns of their future fund-raising. Marketing myopia has no place in the museum world today.

Reba Williams has written two mysteries set in the print world. "Grattitude?" originally appeared in the April 2009 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's April 2009 Table of Contents.