What does Museum Education look like in a Post-Covid World?
So what happens to cultural or museum education when our usual interpretations of “space” are no longer viable? In a landscape irrevocably changed by the tandem forces of a global pandemic and digital innovation, museum professionals must reconsider the role, efficacy, and format of educational outreach. So far, teams of coordinators, teachers, and program directors have been tasked with forging new virtual links to the most important audience imaginable: kids.
Protecting What Matters
At this pivotal April 2021 inflection point, we are starting to see the sunshine, and that sense of hope might have us convinced that the storm has now passed by us completely. Most cultural sites rely on various types of earned revenue to survive, even those with sizable endowments. As someone who runs a large living-history site, I think 2021 will include a different set of prevailing winds from the COVID-19 storm. “Open up!” is the increasingly vocal call heard from many sides. Cultural institutions are being thrown in to this loud arena – struggling to regain their footing and find balance. Persistent public calls to get “back to normal” belie the economic realities of budgets, staffing, attendance, funding, and safety of staff. Simply returning to normal is a losing proposition for many.
Supporting Women in the Workplace During and After the Pandemic
Women, particularly women of color, have been disproportionately impacted by the economic damage of the COVID-19 pandemic. We must commit to continuing to reflect on the present issues facing women and supporting them in the workplace and museum field.
Deaccessioning Redux: Two Days at the Syracuse Symposium
Joan Baldwin shares her thoughts on the recent deaccessioning symposiums host by Syracuse University.
Gen Z is leaning in. Are museums ready to make room?
Change is multifaceted, and demographic change is no exception. For example, the population of the US is steadily becoming more diverse with regard to race, culture, and gender. Children under the age of 15 are already “majority minority” (e.g., non white), and 1 in 6 young adults identify as LGBT. While some balk at lumping people into “generations,” the rapid pace of change in our world means that children born even a decade apart grow up shaped by very different experiences and those experiences shape how they want to engage with the world.
More People Really Are Engaging With Cultural Entities Online During the Pandemic
On the whole, it seems the increased digital presence of many cultural institutions may have succeeded in meeting audiences where they are. During the pandemic especially, they are online.
Selling in an Age of Pandemic (and Beyond!)
Ask yourself, “are you selling online”? If not, why not? Is it because you believe you don’t have the resources it would take to create an online store? Or some other obstacle? Or maybe you find such a task too overwhelming? You’re not wrong—without the right resources or experience, getting your shop online can be overwhelming when you don’t know where to begin.
Nonprofits can empower themselves to speak out
For funders to be more authentically inclusive, they will have to completely upend existing cultural norms in the philanthropic sector; specifically, norms which are rooted in white supremacist practices that were shaped when it was acceptable for power imbalances to inform funder-grantee relations. It is still the norm, even expected in some places, for nonprofits to show deference to the whims and expectations of their funders, however unnecessary or counterproductive that may be.
Strategic Planning 101: Strengthen a Nonprofit’s Board–Executive Director Relationship
When I talk to nonprofit leaders about strategic planning, they often voice some of the obvious benefits of aligning teams around organizational identity (mission, vision) and organizational priorities (goals). In contrast, they rarely voice a benefit I think is undervalued: The opportunity strategic planning presents for a board and executive director to strengthen their relationship.
How to Be an Antiracist Supervisor: Start with Changing What You Call Yourself
In her review of many business records of slave owners, Rosenthal found that modern business management practices employed by corporations and nonprofits—creating middle managers, performance management, productivity analysis, and workforce planning—can all be traced back to the management of plantation slavery. What would we call ourselves if we were not using terms rooted in oppression? What would we do differently?
Photo credit: Christopher Gower on Unsplash
10 Best Practices of Accessible Museum Websites
This post explores ten high-impact areas you should consider to enhance your website’s accessibility and bring it into conformance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), the set of rules and practices that aims to define web accessibility. In this context, the word “accessibility” means that users of assistive technologies (such as screen readers, zoom/screen magnifiers, voice dictation, and more) can use your website, because it has been built in a way that provides an equitable experience for all visitors, including those with disabilities.
The Four Principles of Purpose-Driven Board Leadership
In the face of increasingly pressing systemic inequities, nonprofit boards must change the traditional ways they have worked and instead prioritize an organization's purpose, show respect for the ecosystem in which they operate, commit to equity, and recognize that power must be authorized by the people they're aiming to help.
Discussions to Have Before Returning to the Workplace
For nonprofits preparing to reopen in-person operations as the coronavirus pandemic recedes, successful workplace strategies, which may include continued virtual work arrangements or flexible scheduling, will benefit from feedback from the people who will be most impacted.
...and What to Do When Your People Return to the Workplace
Returning to the office will look different to different nonprofits, and creating a level playing field for everyone—people working onsite and for those continuing to work remotely—will require careful planning.
Museum Nerds, Codified
Museum nerds LOVE to be Museum nerds. Don’t be fooled by the word “nerd;” museum nerds think that they are very cool. But all Museum nerds are not created equal. You’ve got your art museums, your science museums, the behemoth that is history museums, your zoos.
Primer for Cultivating More Inclusive Attitudes Among the Public
The American Alliance of Museums and Wilkening Consulting recently released a “Primer for Cultivating More Inclusive Attitudes Among the Public”. It is a 10-step “roadmap for museums to use radical curiosity and courageous empathy to crack open museum-goers’ worldviews and effect critical societal change while maintaining and broadening our audiences.”
What's Next? A Guide to Museum Transitions and Closures
One of the many lessons that history teaches us is that change is constant, and that beginnings and endings are frequent. This includes changes, and even endings, for museums, historic houses, and historical societies, too. You may be despairing about the financial struggle that your museum is facing, or have done some careful thinking about your organization’s mission and your community’s needs, and realized that you need to consider a transition or a closure. This resource introduces the process of closing (or merging, etc.) a history museum.
Refocusing Museums on People: My Dreams for Museums in a Post-COVID World
"Museum staff are overwhelmingly white, straight, and able-bodied, and museum leaders are overwhelmingly male. For centuries museums have told stories about a diversity of people, presenting these stories from the perspective of those in power. Thereby, museums have bolstered white supremacy, sexism, colonialism, ableism, heteronormativity, and a lot of other icky isms. The pandemic layoffs are only exacerbating this situation." Isabel Singer (she/her), Senior Exhibit Developer at Luci Creative and a Chairperson of the Chicago Museum Exhibitors Group, examines museums in her blog American Perceptionalism and this post offers her thoughts on the field and resources for ways it can improve.