Business Plan for the Cavafy Project Centre aims to renew the Cavafy House-Museum into a cultural centre.
The Museum today
The Museum is in Alexandria, Egypt, the former home of poet Constantine Petrou Cavafy (C.P. Cavafy), run by the Hellenic Foundation for Culture (HFC). Cavafy spent the last 35 years of his life in this apartment where the Museum is now.
Notwithstanding the significant impact of Cavafy in literature, the Museum is mostly unknown to the public and thus suffers from low visitation. From 7000 visitors a year at the begging of operation in 1992 to 264 by the end of 2014.
Adding to the struggle, the Museum is not a legal entity the HFC runs operations and the Greek governing bodies in Alexandria are responsible for the apartment’s rent. Legally not being a Museum, means that it cannot receive any of the benefits enjoyed by cultural organizations or have any holdings. Leading to no organizational structure for the Museum and significant financial issues.
Moreover, the Greek Financial Crisis and the instability of the political environment of Egypt have strained the Museum.
The CPC plan
Acknowledging and conducting in-depth research of the issues the CPC proposed a plan to tackle them and create a multi-faceted cultural centre.
The first step is to turn the Museum into a Limited Liability Company (LLC). The Corporate Museum is not a new concept in heritage management, which enables cultural institutions to have financial independence and growth. The LLC serves the Museum, as it allows the HFC and the Egyptian and Greek authorities to work in harmony. Additionally, it bypasses the financial dependence on the state and the draconian Egyptian regulations for non-profits.
Furthermore, the strategies for the organizational structure, market and financial analysis encompass the Museum’s specificities.
Following is a fundraising campaign to acquire and renovate the entire building to create a cultural centre with services for the local community and internationally, the Cavafy Project Centre.
The plan proposes educational and artistic activities to fulfil the needs of the local community. Addresses activities and services for visitors and tourists and sets a strategy to include the Centre within cultural heritage landscape of Alexandria.
The CPC team
The CPC is a team of four heritage management professionals, (affectionately dubbed “heritagers”), who came together as graduate students to work on cultural heritage projects.
The plan came to life by the CPC team at the request of the Hellenic Foundation for Culture and submitted as a dissertation thesis (their MA studies in Heritage Management at the University of Kent and Athens University of Economics and Business). Earned the Best Thesis Project and later presented at the 3rd annual HERMA International Conference on Heritage Management as part of the Aeschylia Festival, Eleusis. Cavafy Museum: A New Approach
Local Approach founder Athina is part of the CPC.
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Read full paper on academia here.
Hellenic Foundation for Culture
Contact CPC: cpc-team@protonmail.com
