$7.6 million in grants from William Penn Foundation will support $2 tickets for low-income patrons

A group of special grants from the William Penn Foundation will help ensure continued access to the Please Touch Museum, Franklin Institute, and other Philadelphia nonprofit attractions for patrons of modest means and/or disabilities.

William Penn has granted a total of $7.6 million to seven groups to underwrite the existing program providing access to $2 tickets.

Ticket prices are an obstacle for many, and arts and culture groups must weigh their desire to be open to all audiences, regardless of capacity to pay, against the reality of balancing their own budgets.

“Our general admission price is around $24 and we believe that’s competitively priced with other peer organizations,” said Please Touch Museum president and CEO Melissa Weiler Gerber. “But we want to make sure that we are committed to having folks come in the door and that not be a barrier.”

The William Penn money — $872,350 per year for each of the next three years — will support that ambition by underwriting the $2 tickets to the children’s museum in Fairmount Park.

The groups receiving the grants, in addition to the Please Touch and the Franklin Institute, are the Academy of Natural Sciences, Morris Arboretum and Gardens, the Philadelphia Zoo, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where the grant will support the museum’s restoration of pay-what-you-wish Friday evenings.

The William Penn money is being allotted on top of the regular funding the foundation gives to area arts and culture groups, which is expected to reach $32 million this year.

Art-Reach will also receive a grant. The group administers the program, which began in 2014 and provides $2 admission to area museums, gardens, theaters, musical groups, and other cultural offerings to those with low incomes and/or disabilities.

» READ MORE: How to get $2 museum admission with your ACCESS or Art-Reach ACCESS card

The six attractions were chosen because they are the most visited participants in the program, which is called Harvey and Virginia Kimmel Family Fund ACCESS Program.

But it’s worth noting that none of the six is a performing arts organization, and the program has about a hundred other groups of various kinds that could also use the support.

“I think that there is a lot of need for the rest of the partners in the program,” said Art-Reach executive director John Orr, adding that he hoped the William Penn action would be “catalytic” in inspiring other donors to support low-cost access to arts and culture groups.

Affordability was cited as a factor in deciding which cultural sites to visit by 91% of participants in a recent survey of ACCESS cardholders, Orr said.

At the same time, cultural groups are being buffeted by multiple challenges, said William Penn Foundation chief philanthropy officer Elliot Weinbaum.

“There have been lots of shifts and uncertainty around myriad funding sources. You think about federal sources — NEA, NEH, IMLS, National Science Foundation — all of them have seen big cuts and big uncertainty," he said. “These institutions received some money from some combination of those entities. There have been shifts in corporate giving in the past year or so.”

Hence the foundation’s decision to step in with new funding for the work of these organizations.

Said Weinbaum: “We want to strengthen the institutions, support them, and make it clear that for William Penn Foundation it’s important that a population that’s really representative of Philadelphia continues to have access to these great places.”

For more information about how the ACCESS program works, visit art-reach.org.