Below are annotated references of books, articles, and websites related to issues of the museum field and peer review. Drawn from each issue of NEWStandard, this section will continue to grow. Submissions of annotated references by peer reviewers are welcome. Send suggestions to peer-review@aam-us.org.
Collections Stewardship
Community Engagement
Building Social Capital
Facilitation Skills
Financial Stability
Governance
Institutional Planning
Public Trust & Accountability
Collections Stewardship
From Fall 2001: Collections Stewardship: “The Big Picture” in Accreditation and MAP Peer Review
Museum Policy & Procedure for Holocaust-Era Issues
Learn how museums have incorporated the AAM’s Guidelines Concerning Unlawful Appropriation of Objects During the Nazi Era in their own policies. Includes samples of collections policies and procedures, the latest version of the AAM Guidelines, forms, and position descriptions.
Implementing the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
After a decade of experience with NAGPRA, museums have compiled policies, ethical statements, and collaborated successfully with tribes. Includes long-term collections policies and procedures, and guidelines for collaboration and claims are provided. The latest NAGPRA regulations.
CoOL: Conservation OnLine
CoOL, a project of the Preservation Department of Stanford University Libraries, is a full text library of conservation information, covering a wide spectrum of topics of interest to those involved with the conservation of library, archives, and museum materials. It provides current technical information, articles about rapidly evolving ethical and philosophical issues, FAQ's, and policy documents on audio materials, copyright and intellectual property rights, digital imaging, disaster planning, electronic records, environment, health and safety, bibliographies and resource guides, a dictionary/glossary, and links to preservation-related organizations.
Community Engagement
From Fall 2004: Community Engagement: Why, and Who Gets the Ring?
Community Tool Box
The National Park Service created a website to support its Civic Engagement initiative. It has resources for partners, educators, and employees, including case studies, a list of events, a bibliography, and a Community Tool Box. The Community Tool Box offers extensive tips, guidelines, and checklists on a wide variety of topics, such as building consensus, facilitation, planning a conference, developing a brochure, and holding a focus group.
Accessible Practices
The Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) supports the ongoing effort to open museum doors to all people and specifically to people with disabilities. Its resource titled Accessible Practices outlines a process to help match the institution's capabilities with the needs of the audience. It summarizes accessibility laws, has checklists for conducting a survey of the facility and services, and describes the process of writing a plan for removing barriers.
Fostering Sustainable Collaborative Relationships
The Support Center for Nonprofit Management has an article that discusses collaboration. It identifies a number of key factors which influence the success and sustainability of collaboration and offers seven guidelines for fostering collective efforts.
Building Social Capital From Spring 2001: Building Social Capital New Visions: Tool for Change in Museums
This tool kit provides all the tools and a structure for planning and conducting meetings that reach into issues and begin to address challenges directly. A good resource for museums involved in strategic or master planning or facing critical points in development.
Power Up: Transforming Organizations Through Shared Leadership
David L. Bradford and Allan R. Cohen, (John Wiley & Sons, 1998).
This book describes a method for transforming organizations through shared leadership, a system through which managers and subordinates can encourage and exercise mutual influence in order to produce better decisions, more learning, better ideas, greater employee participation, and higher morale. A great appendix, “a hands-on guide to supportive confrontation,” addresses how to deal with difficult people and resolve interpersonal disputes.
The Dance of Change
Peter M. Senge, Charlotte Roberts, Richard B. Ross, Bryan J. Smith, Art Kleiner, (Doubleday, 1999).
This book is the resource guide to the Fifth Discipline philosophy of managing change. It allows for easy searching for answers on specific questions and provides plenty of graphical illustrations of concepts for the visual learner, including icons to orient the reader to points along a specific topic.
Innonet – Helping Agencies Succeed
Innovation Network, Inc. (InnoNet) is a 501(c) 3 organization dedicated to enabling public and nonprofit organizations to better plan, execute, and evaluate their structure, operations, and services. The Web site includes online tools and tutorials that can help organizations with data collection and analysis, evaluation, strategic planning, budgeting, and fund raising.
Facilitation Skills
From Spring 2003: Conducting Effective Site Visits
Asking Good Questions
A number of theorists have organized intellectual activity into levels; one of the most well known of these structures was authored by Benjamin Bloom in 1956 and is known as Bloom's Taxonomy. The matrix was developed at the Appalachian State University as part of the College of Education’s teacher preparation. The matrix identifies six levels of questioning and suggests words to use in seeking information at each level.
Listening Skills
This website notes that “Listening is an art, a skill, a discipline, and like other skills, it needs self-control. . . . Hearing becomes listening only when you pay attention to what is said and follow it very closely.” The Web site was developed by the Department of Veteran Affairs as part of its Alternate Dispute Resolution & Mediation Program. It gives tips on verbal and nonverbal ways to let the speaker know you are listening, to build rapport, and to put the speaker at ease.
Listening & Empathy Responding
This website was developed by the Mental Health Net. While it begins with an identification of the common barriers to effective listening, the bulk of the site is focused on improving empathy responding skills. A listener’s response can trigger a range of reactions—from derailing the conversation to uncovering new insights. The site offers four steps to improve empathy responding and includes a short bibliography.
Group Facilitation
This website, developed by the University of Edinburgh, looks at the facilitator’s role in ensuring that a group works as a constructive and cohesive unit—whether in brainstorming a new idea or discussing a particular issue. The site provides a detailed discussion of the facilitator’s duties, the managerial and personal skills needed, and problems a facilitator may encounter.
Financial Stability
From Fall 2003: Strong Practices in Addressing Financial Challenges
Checklist to Assess Financial Activities in Nonprofit Organizations
The Free Management Library, which is hosted by the Management Assistance Program for Nonprofits, offers a wealth of online articles related to nonprofit financial management. This assessment tool, developed by the United Way of Minneapolis Area, is titled Financial Indicators under the heading of Assessments and Audits of Nonprofit Financial Management Practices.
185 Cutback Strategies
The Amherst Wilder Foundation offers an online checklist of 185 Cutback Strategies. The checklist is an excerpt from Coping with Cutbacks: The Nonprofit Guide to Success When Times Are Tight by Emil Angelica and Vincent Hyman, published by Amherst Wilder in 1997. The checklist can spur creative thinking about an organization, its culture, mission, and future as well as its response to immediate financial crises and long-term preparation for the changing culture.
Understanding Nonprofit Financial Statements
Steven Berger
Provides key accounting terms and concepts, important benchmarking ratios, and sample nonprofit financial statements with explanations. Published by BoardSource, the book’s explanations are helpful for board members, treasurers, finance committee members, and staff who prepare financial information for the board.
Core Competencies
C. K. Prahalad and G. Hamel’s central premise is that over time companies may develop key areas of expertise which are distinctive to that company and critical to the company’s long-term growth. This Web site provides a brief discussion of the concept of core competencies and three factors to help identify core competencies in any business.
Considerations for AAM Accredited Museums Facing Retrenchment or Downsizing
This document, issued by AAM’s Accreditation Commission addresses some of the appropriate and necessary steps taken by accredited museums responding to financial challenges through downsizing and retrenchment. It reviews issues such as downsizing of staff and collections, and the particular challenges to museums in non-museum parent organizations (such as universities). The intent of the Commission is for this to be a tool for accredited museums to use in leveraging support, and educating the governing authority, press, public, and supporters about the need for upholding professional standards.
Governance From Fall 2002: Diversity of Effective Governance Structures, Styles, and Techniques The Alliance for Nonprofit Management
It is devoted to improving the management and governance capacity of nonprofits. Web site resources include a Frequently Asked Questions section and Pulse! The Online Newsletter of the Nonprofit Management Support Community, which contains articles, survey results, and announcements of conferences and workshops.
Board Café: The Newsletter Exclusively for Members of Nonprofit Boards of Directors.
This electronic newsletter is self-described as “short enough to read over a cup of coffee.” Distributed monthly via e-mail, it offers ideas, opinions, news, and resources to help board members give and get the most out of board service. Subscriptions are free.
BoardSource
This organization is dedicated to increasing the effectiveness of nonprofit organizations by strengthening their boards of directors. The Web site has answers to a wide variety of frequently asked questions about boards, links to additional references, and a free e-mail-based “Ask Our Consultants” service.
Free Management Library
A service of the Management Assistance Program for Nonprofits, it is an integrated library of resources with information on 675 topics; the section on boards of directors links to numerous articles and online resources.
The Museum Trustee Association
A membership organization for trustees dedicated to providing ongoing board education programs, services, and resources for the special needs of museum trustees. MTA offers publications, workshops, and a variety of other member benefits.
Nonprofit Genie
A free service provided by the California Management Assistance Partnership to help nonprofit staff and board members manage more successfully, the Nonprofit Genie offers monthly features, frequently asked questions, links to other resources on the Web, and book reviews.
Institutional Planning From Winter 2006: What Is So Important About Planning? The Alliance for Nonprofit Management
In a series of 15 FAQs, explains key planning concepts, describes the basic steps in a planning process, provides tips for conducting a situation assessment and a competitive analysis, lists the elements of a strategic plan, and offers guidance in determining whether to use an external consultant. It also explains the purpose of an annual operating plan and identifies the three characteristics of an effective operating plan: an appropriate level of detail, a format that allows for periodic progress reports, and a structure that coincides with the strategic plan.
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)
Offers a planning toolkit with 27 articles and a bibliography. Peer reviewers may find these five of particular interest: “How to Conduct an Organizational Self-Assessment” reviews different methods for gathering information from internal and external stakeholders. It includes a sample questionnaire to use with the board and staff, sample focus group questions, and a sample agenda for a planning retreat. The “Organizational Self-Assessment Checklist” is a simple tool for evaluating 12 aspects of an institution's operations. “Data Review: Templates & Questions” has 10 templates a museum can use to summarize and analyze prior financial data and make future projections in a realistic fashion. “Plan Review Criteria” lists questions that potential funders may use when reading an organization's plan; museums may find the questions useful in strengthening their planning process and presentation. An article on the special challenges of “Public-Sector Planning” may be useful to museums that operate within a university or a unit of government.
The Support Center for Nonprofit Management
Describes the current traditional approaches to strategic planning in nonprofits, some emerging approaches, and the potential for further rethinking. The article notes that traditional approaches use a rational, step-by-step planning process that produces the "right" goals to allow an organization to exercise some control over the future. New approaches help an organization be more mindful of the constant changes and possibilities and to make value-based decisions.
Secrets of Institutional Planning
Edited by Elizabeth E. Merritt and Victoria Garvin (AAM, spring 2006). This book features museum-specific case studies, sample documents, and advice from experts, originally presented at an AAM seminar in 2003.
Public Trust & Accountability
From Summer 2006: Public Trust and Accountability
Independent Sector
An accountability checklist identifying nine practices that reassure stakeholders of a museum’s commitment to upholding the public trust and sample policies are available on its Website to help nonprofits:
Sarbanes-Oxley Act
Most of the provisions in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act apply only to publicly traded corporations. BoardSource and Independent Sector, however, urge nonprofit leaders to consider whether they should voluntarily adopt particular governance practices as a way to increase public accountability. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act and Implications for Nonprofit Organizations (PDF) reviews the provisions (concerning financial statements, audits, conflict of interest, and disclosure) and assesses their relevance to nonprofits. It also discusses the two features of the bill that require immediate nonprofit compliance (record retention and whistle-blower protection).
Quality 990
Quality 990 is a joint project of the Urban Institute, the Independent Sector, the Association of Fundraising Professionals, and other groups. The goal is to improve the quality of data provided on 990s and to increase the use of 990s as the basic tool for nonprofit accountability. To that end, the Urban Institute has created a site where nonprofits can fill out the 990 and file it electronically with the IRS. They also provide free technical support.
AAM Information Center
The AAM Information Center provides additional online resources that discuss conflict of interest, developing an institutional code of ethics, disclosure, record retention, and tax issues. All AAM members may access the online resources via the AAM Website . Select Museum Resources > Information Center > Governance & Support Organizations > Accountability & Ethics. In addition, staff who work at member museums may request sample documents related to these issues by sending an email to infocenter@aam-us.org.
