It was a miracle on Lincoln Avenue. Last fall, the Museum of International Folk Art and Museum of Indian Arts and Culture shuttered in response to pandemic-related state health orders. Their respective shops closed, too. A local family with deep roots in the real estate community offered free downtown retail space. A pop-up museum shop arose on Lincoln Avenue—just in time to save Christmas. The Holiday Pop-Up Shop is one example of how the Museum of New Mexico Foundation’s four dynamic museum shops have worked to stay robust despite the commercial ravages wreaked by COVID-19. Thanks to social media marketing and nonprofit networking, online sales are booming in broader markets, benefiting the Foundation’s brick-and-mortar and online shops. The hard work and enthusiasm of staff, including James Wood and Simone Ward in the Shops warehouse and the entire team of sales associates and volunteers, made these successes possible. Even so, economic uncertainties prompted the Foundation to take a conservative approach. During the traditionally slow winter retail season between January and March, the Shops paused in-person shopping and shifted exclusively to online sales at shopmuseum.org. On-the-ground retail spaces are expected to reopen in April. The Foundation’s distinguished Licensing program has also held strong in the face of international supply chain delays. The program’s wholesale partners have rolled out an impressive four new product lines inspired by museum collections over the past six months. The earned income from both Shops and Licensing—$2.4 million and $133,000, respectively, in the last fiscal year—supports the Foundation in shoring up its four Santa Fe museums, eight historic sites statewide and the Office of Archaeological Studies. But the goals behind the two programs are aimed at more than pure profit. Bringing awareness to museum collections and forging lasting relationships with consumers are of equal importance, along with one trailblazing rule that can best be summed up as “inspiration, not replication.”
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