Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology

Name

Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology

Legal name

The Regents of the University of California

Website

https://hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu

Company type

Public

Founded year

1901

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Anthropology Museum and Cultural Heritage Services

NAICS

Museums, Historical Sites, and Similar Institutions (712), Libraries and Archives (51921)

akta.pro primary industry

Museums & Heritage Sites (History, Science, Specialty) (BPAGAHAA)

akta.pro secondary industry

Libraries, Archives & Special Collections (BPAGAHAF)

Keywords

• Anthropological museum
• Cultural heritage collections
• University museum services
• Museum educational programs
• Indigenous community engagement

Headquarters

HQ city

Berkeley

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Infrastructure, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Philanthropy and Donations: Tax-deductible donations through the Hearst Museum Fund (FU1053), supporting the museum's mission. Includes annual giving campaigns, planned giving, endowments, bequests, IRA Qualified Charitable Distributions, gifts of securities, wire transfers, and Donor Advised Funds.
2. Facility Rentals: Event venue rental of gallery spaces for receptions, lectures, conferences, screenings, meetings, and dinners. Weekday rental at $2400 for 4-hour blocks, weekend at $2700. Daytime meeting package at $150-200/hr with 2-hour minimum.
3. Collections Access Fees: Fee-based research access to collections. Waived for UC Berkeley affiliates, tribal communities, and post-doctoral scholars. Graduate students pay $75/day, non-UC researchers pay $100/day, government/commercial researchers pay $90/hour.
4. Media Permissions and Reproduction: Production and use fees for images, films, and sound recordings for publication, exhibition, or distribution. Editorial use fees from $110-375/image, advertising from $300-475, video/television from $150-375. Onsite filming at $300/hr minimum.
5. Loan Fees: Administrative and processing fees for loaning collections to museums and institutions. Research loans: $300 flat fee plus $65/hour. Exhibition loans: $500 first object, $300 each additional. Conservation and shipping charged separately.
6. Teaching Kit Rentals: Educational kit rentals for classroom use. $25 per week, free for Title I schools. Kits contain museum-quality objects, background information, and activities for K-12 education.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels8 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

The Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology is a university museum that curates, preserves, and provides public and scholarly access to a collection of more than 3.8 million anthropological objects. It delivers gallery visits, traveling exhibits, K-12 teaching kits, on-site facility rentals, collections access for researchers, object loans to peer institutions, and media/permissions licensing for collection images, alongside community-engagement programs such as the Breath of Life Workshop and NAMSI.

Product overview

The Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology is a university museum at UC Berkeley offering a unified portfolio of physical and digital services centered on its collection of over 3.8 million objects spanning two million years of human history. The core product is the Hearst Museum Portal—a Blacklight-powered digital collections discovery platform that provides public access to browse, search, and explore the museum's holdings. Physical offerings include gallery exhibits (currently featuring 'Fragments from Earth: Faculty Selections'), research and collections access services, educational programs including teaching kits and field trips, facility rentals, media permissions for using collection materials, and loan services for institutions. The museum also provides specialized services including NAGPRA/CalNAGPRA repatriation consultation, destructive analysis proposals, and archaeological repository services. Supporting programs include the American Indian Film Project archive, the Breath of Life language revitalization workshop, and the Native American Museum Studies Institute (NAMSI). Geographic collection strengths include Africa, North America (particularly California and the Southwest), Central America, the Mediterranean (Etruscan and Greek), Egypt, and the Ancient Andes.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Native American Advisory Council: An advisory council providing guidance on matters of interest to Native American communities, including exhibitions, education, public programming, cultural policy, and traditional care.
• Breath of Life
• Native American Museum Studies Institute (NAMSI)
• American Indian Film Project
• Phoebe Hearst Society

Products and services

• Public Gallery Visits and Exhibitions On-site admission to the museum's galleries and changing exhibitions, open to the general public, UC Berkeley students and faculty, families, and tourists.
• Online Collections Portal

Quantifiable outcome

• Co-sponsors Breath of Life Institute (biennial) supporting California Indian language revitalization
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers6 records

Segments6 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature3 records

Partnerships

Six partnerships are on record, tiered minor and core.

• Shung Ye Museum of Formosan AboriginesminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-host of National Student Taiwan Indigenous Poster Design Competition, with joint exhibition at the Hearst Museum featuring student designs inspired by indigenous motifs and traditions. Includes live performances from indigenous groups from Taiwan.
• Joseph A. Myers Center for Research on Native American IssuescoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-sponsor of Native American Museum Studies Institute (NAMSI), a 4-day museum skills workshop for tribal museum professionals, partnering with presenters from Bay Area museums and cultural heritage programs.
• California Indian Museum AssociationcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-sponsor of NAMSI (Native American Museum Studies Institute) providing museum training for tribal professionals and volunteers from tribal museums and cultural centers throughout the United States.
• Breath of Life InstitutecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerBiennial workshop (even-numbered years) assisting California Indians in language revitalization. Museum co-sponsor provides access to sound recordings, basketry collection tours, and online research guidance.
• California Language ArchivecoreTechnology or IntegrationUC Berkeley archive housing catalog of Museum's California Indian sound collection. Provides online access to indigenous language materials from archives across Berkeley campus.
• Environmental Volunteers (Transportation Funds)minorOthersBay Area organization providing transportation funds for schools visiting the museum for educational field trips.

Scale indicators17 records

Recent moves8 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Broad incumbents

• American Museum of Natural History: One of the world's largest natural history and anthropology museums with 34 million specimens. Comparable as a global anthropology/natural history collection, but operates at much larger scale and as a private nonprofit with broader science scope rather than a single university anchor.
• Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology (self-reference omitted; replaced with closest peer): Chicago's natural history museum with extensive anthropological collections, including Pacific and African ethnographic holdings analogous to the Hearst's. Functions as a private nonprofit rather than a university museum, but is a benchmark for comparable curatorial scale and public programming depth.
• Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History: Smithsonian-affiliated museum with 148 million+ specimens including anthropological collections. Directly comparable in curatorial scope (NAGPRA repatriation, ethnographic holdings, research access) but vastly larger scale and federally funded.

Regional players

• California Academy of Sciences: San Francisco-based natural history institution with anthropological components and Bay Area K-12 audience overlap. Comparable as a regional California institution with research, education, and exhibit programs targeting similar visitor demographics.
• National Museum of the American Indian: Smithsonian museum dedicated to Native American cultures with repatriation, language revitalization, and community engagement programs paralleling the Hearst's Breath of Life and NAMSI. Operates at national scale in Washington, D.C., rather than single university campus.

Direct peers

• Penn Museum (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology): University of Pennsylvania's archaeology and anthropology museum with over one million objects and similar Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Mesoamerican strengths. Directly comparable as a peer university museum with global collections, gallery admissions, and academic-research mission.
• Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia (MOA): Major university-affiliated anthropology museum at UBC with over 50,000 ethnographic objects and significant Northwest Coast First Nations collections. Closely comparable in mission, university integration, and indigenous-community engagement model (including repatriation programs).
• Fowler Museum at UCLA: University of California, Los Angeles museum focused on global arts and cultures, with substantial African, Asian, and Pacific collections. Comparable as a University of California peer museum with similar academic affiliation, donor-driven model, and global ethnographic holdings.
• Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology: Harvard University's anthropology museum, founded 1866, holding roughly 1.2 million objects spanning global cultures. It is the most direct comparator: another Ivy-adjacent university anthropology museum with comparable NAGPRA repatriation responsibilities, research access programs, and K-12 outreach.

Emerging players

• Robert S. Peabody Institute of Archaeology: Phillips Academy's archaeology institute focused on Native American collections and K-12 education. Comparable as a smaller university-affiliated museum with similar NAGPRA obligations and educational-outreach orientation.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/hearstmuseum
• Facebookfacebook.com/hearstmuseum
• Instagraminstagram.com/hearstmuseum
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/phoebe-a.-hearst-museum-of-anthropology

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology