Case Study: Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose preserves memberships and sustains revenue with Blackbaud

How a treasured museum stayed connected with supporters through an extended closure

Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose closed in March 2020 and remained largely shuttered for 13 months, reopening with strict capacity limits that wiped out earned revenue mid‑fiscal year. The museum — which typically runs on a roughly 50/50 mix of earned and contributed income totaling $8M annually — faced a severe cash shortfall and roughly $1M in active membership liability that threatened its financial stability.

Using Blackbaud Altru, Luminate Online and Omatic integration, the museum extended nearly 7,000 memberships by 11 months, launched a Welcome Series to nurture online ticket buyers, and captured more emails via required online reservations (growing the list by ~9% to over 60,000). Automated visitor surveys and targeted membership asks produced strong engagement (survey open rate 32% with 9.7% CTR; membership-email open ~26%), helping reduce liabilities, maintain supporter relationships, and smooth the path to recovery as earned income rebounds.

Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose

Cheryl Blumenthal

Director of Information Systems & Compliance