FAQ

What is the Society's relationship to the Museum?

The Society for Asian Art is an independent nonprofit organization that provides programs on Asian art and culture and supports the Asian Art Museum. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, incorporated in 1958 by a group of enlightened citizens dedicated to winning Avery Brundage's magnificent art collection for San Francisco.

For over sixty years, we have offered a wide range of innovative, high-quality educational and cultural programs, along with social and culinary events where participants share their knowledge and enthusiasm. SAA's popular Arts of Asia Lecture Series, open to all, is the core of the museum's docent-training curriculum. We sponsor foreign and domestic travel, visits to private art dealers and collections, in-depth study groups, special lectures by leading scholars, literature courses and symposia. Much of our programming supports specific exhibitions.

Our Federal Tax ID number is 94-6104437.

Why do Society programs cost extra, after Museum admission?

The Society is a separate nonprofit organization that supports the Museum's educational mission, and we must cover the costs for organizing each lecture or program.

If I am a member of the Asian Art Museum, why don't I get the member's price for Society programs?

The Society is a separate nonprofit organization with its own membership. In order to get the member discount for our programs, you must be a Society member.

What are the benefits of Society membership?

  • Members-only exhibition tours
  • Advance notification of SAA programs
  • Reduced fees for programs. Your savings on a few programs pay your membership dues!
  • Members-only travel programs: international, with outstanding scholar-leaders and privileged access; domestic, to exhibitions, private collections, and Asian art events in other U.S. locations.
  • Subscription to SAA's scholarly online publication, Lotus Leaves
  • Subscription to the SAA members' bimonthly newsletter
  • Special events for Sponsor, Donor and Contributor (upper category) members
  • Meeting and socializing with other Asian art enthusiasts
  • Membership donation may be tax-deductible, depending on your tax situation

Join the Society

How does the Society support the Asian Art Museum?

The Society organizes over 100 lectures and events at the Museum every year. The Society has donated more than $3,900,000 to the museum since 1958.

How do I register for a program?

Locate your desired program on the website and click the appropriate Registration button (Society Member or Non-Member). Then proceed through the checkout process and pay by credit card. VISA, MasterCard, and Discover are accepted. You may also register by phone by calling us or by regular mail by sending a check to the Society's address.

What if I have to cancel?

The Society's cancellation policy requires at least one week's advance written notice in order to receive a refund of registration fees. This excludes our Travel programs, which have separate cancellation policies, as well as any programs where a specific refund policy is stated on the event page. Your fees will be returned to you through a check in the mail. To cancel, please contact us.

What is the Society's Privacy Policy?

The Society is committed to protecting your privacy. The Society's privacy policy statement describes the types of information we gather in connection with your use of the Society's website and the steps we have taken to safeguard such information. By using the Society's website or communicating with the Society by e-mail you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy.

Information Provided by Visitors

The Society does not collect personally identifying information about you when you visit our website unless you choose to provide that information to us. Information volunteered by you through your filling out of our optional online feedback form and "contact us" form is used to help us enhance our website and services.

Information Collected Automatically

The Society collects limited non-personally identifying information that your browser makes available automatically whenever you visit a website. This information includes the internet address of your computer or network, the date, time, and page you visited on our site, your browser and operating system, and the referring page (the last webpage you visited before clicking on a link to our site).

We use the aggregated information from all of our visitors to measure server performance, analyze user traffic patterns and improve the content of our site.

We sometimes track the keywords that are entered into our search engine to measure interest in specific topics, but we do not track which terms a particular user enters.

Information Sharing

If you choose to provide personal information to the Society through this website, the Society will use that information for Society-related purposes only.

Cookies

We use "cookies" (small files that reside in a user's Internet browser) to gather information when providing users with personalization services. We use information gathered through cookies to improve the quality of our service and not to track any personal information.

The use of cookies is a standard practice among internet websites. Most internet web browsers' settings may be customized to accept limited cookies or to reject cookies entirely. However, some features of the website may not function properly without cookies.

E-mail Communications

The Newsletter is our bi-monthly e-newsletter on news and special events sent to subscribers via e-mail. To subscribe to the e-newsletter, you will need to provide your e-mail address on our website, which will be stored on a secure server. You have the option to unsubscribe anytime with the REMOVE link on the bottom of any e-newsletter.

“Forward to a Friend” feature
If you use the “Forward to a Friend” feature in the Newsletter, your friend’s e-mail address will not be retained on our website or used in any way by the Society.

E-mailing the Society.
If you e-mail the Society, your message will be responded to in a timely manner. However, any information you submit may be saved by the Society and will be considered non-confidential.

Links

The Society uses link and search capabilities to navigate publicly available information from dozens of agencies that are not part of our website and over whom we exercise no control.

The privacy policies and procedures described here do not necessarily apply to those sites.

We suggest contacting these sites directly for information on their data collection and distribution policies.

Site Security

The Society monitors network traffic and takes other appropriate security measures to identify and protect the Society's website from unauthorized access, alteration, damage or destruction of data.

Policy Changes

Please note that the Society may revise this privacy policy at any time. Such revisions may be in response to changes in the law, policy, or other factors. We encourage you to review our current privacy policy periodically by visiting this site.