MUSEUM campaigners last night said times were too tight to rely on donations to help them stay afloat after Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt visited Oxford.

Mr Hunt looked at the progress being made on the new Ancient Egyptian galleries at the Ashmolean Museum.

The £5m project has been largely funded through private donations, including grants from Lord Sainsbury’s Linbury Trust.

Last year, the trust gave £1.47m to the Ashmolean, one of a series of grants made since the start of the redevelopment of the Beaumont Street museum.

Mr Hunt told the Oxford Mail: “It is really tough out there, but the lesson from the last few years is that cultural organisations need to do everything they can to sustain their financial resources.

“Equivalent cultural organisations in the US have endowments worth many millions, which even with very low rates of interest, provide some kind of buffer.”

Mr Hunt said the Internet offered opportunities for fundraising and theatres could use their ticketing data to tap audience members for extra cash. Cultural organisations could learn from Oxford University, which uses its network of alumni to appeal for funds.

He added: “It will not be right for all organisations to start endowments, but a lot have really got to start fundraising in a way that perhaps has not happened before.

“Some small museums are very good at it, and endowments make a big difference. Everyone is at a different stage.”

Mr Hunt visited Oxford as many county organisations are struggling to find money. Smaller museums across the county say it is impossible to find private donors who can make up for public funding cuts.

Earlier this year, Wallingford Museum had to abandon plans for a £100,000 extension because it could not raise enough money to go ahead. The museum had written to 180 private charities, trusts and grant-making bodies for support, but could not get the necessary cash.

Managing director Stuart Dewey said: “It is a very difficult time to raise money. Basically, there is not much out there.”

And The Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock faces a 40 per cent cut in its budget because of county council cuts.

Elsewhere, Banbury Museum is to be handed over to volunteers to run, to save Cherwell District Council £67,438 a year in business rates.

Deborah Hayter, of Banbury Historical Society, said: “The Ashmolean and Oxford has a long tradition of bringing on wealthy donors. I am sure there will be samller museums that go to the wall.”

Last year, Oxford University’s Museum of the History of Science in Broad Street suffered a £105,000 funding cut from the Higher Education Funding Council for England.

Cogges Manor Farm Museum in Witney closed in 2009 to save Oxfordshire County Council cash, but has been reopened underneath the volunteer-run Cogges Heritage Trust.