Facing slowing growth in attendance and increased competition from other forms of entertainment, some museums in the United States are beginning to offer free admission or customized membership programs in an effort to engage the public in new ways and cultivate repeat visitors, the New York Times reports.

In January, for instance, the Dallas Museum of Art began offering free admission and a no-cost membership program of engagement that emphasizes participation over the transaction-based membership model of years past. "We wanted to deepen community involvement and get repeat attendance," Maxwell L. Anderson, Eugene McDermott Director of the museum, told the Times. To that end, "friends" and "partners" of the program receive incentives and à la carte rewards based on their level of participation.

Elsewhere, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is working to engage members by allowing them to explore particular segments of its permanent collection. Since the "friends" program launched in September, the museum has seen an increase in its member base from thirty thousand to forty thousand.

Other museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, both in New York City, have taken steps to tailor their membership programs to meet the needs of a new generation of museum-goers. As Diane Ward, president of the membership consulting group Membership Matters, explained to the Times, museums face complications when dropping the admission fee "because it is a financial pillar that is not made up by philanthropic gifts. So the trend is to tweak membership because that can bring about a sense of real value."