Curious about the AAM accreditation process and whether your museum is ready to take it on? Find out straight from the source. Martha Sharma and Danyelle Rickard, Assistant Directors of Accreditation at AAM, and Zach Garhart, Executive Director of the recently accredited Yellowstone County Museum, walk through the ins and outs of the program and share common issues and misconceptions. Learn how you can successfully unlock benefits like national credibility, enhanced relationships with peers and supporters, and institutional sustainability.

Transcript

Danyelle Rickard:

You know, the next slide, Martha?

I’m Danyelle  Rickard, one of the two assist assistant directors of accreditation at the American Alliance of Museums. I’m joined today by my colleagues, Martha Mumma, my fellow assistant director of accreditation, and Zach Gerhardt, executive director of the Yellowstone County Museum in Billings, Montana.

You will see on this slide a brief rundown of the session. We will share with you the basics about accreditation, the who, what, why, and how much information about the different parts of the accreditation process,           including the self-study, on-site visit, as well as details about the accreditation commission’s review and decision making.

All myth busting along the way with the help of Zach who has recently taken his institution through Accredited for the first time.

Zach, can you please tell us a bit more about your medium?

Zach Garhart:

Oh, yeah. Sure thing. You know, every museum is quite different. So for a bit of context, we’re the Yellowstone County Museum. We’re located in Billings, Montana. And we’re thrilled to have just got credited, and we feel great about it in July 2025.

We have three full time staff. We have 16 board members who also answer to our county commissioners. Have about 5,000 square feet of display space.

A local history museum. So our goal is collecting sharing and interpreting the stories of our local area. And we’re open five days a week year round with a total annual budget of about $300,000.

Danyelle Rickard:

Thank you so much.

Zach Garhart:

Uh-huh.

Danyelle Rickard:

Accreditation is a mark of distinction. A seal of approval, which is shown on the slide.

It is a circle with the AAM logo and name on it indicating that the museum is meeting the core standards of the museum field in all areas of operations.

There are currently 1,123 accredited institutions; attaining accredited status puts the museum into a select group.

Now for a little myth busting: Accreditation is not mandatory or compulsory. It’s completely voluntary.

You know, here are a few benefits. This is a common question that we get. Is why should my museum become accredited? So there’s credibility and accountability.

Its the national recognition of your museum’s commitment to highest professional standards in museum operations and public service. It’s a positive public image and validation of your museum’s work and accomplishments. It’s increased credibility with funding agencies and donors.

And stakeholders say the museum’s obligation to the public trust is fulfilled. A clear sense of purpose and understanding of your museum’s strengths, goals, and priorities and mission, and an opportunity for staff and board to be thoughtful of their practice.

It’s leverage and support. A valuable tool in allowing local and state governments improved relationships with other museums resulting in more loans and traveling exhibitions. And maintenance of accreditation can be a leveraging tool to attract support for capital improvements.

As well as sustainability and a stronger institution. It fosters sustained organizational development and improvement. It’s a governing authority that is better-educated about museum standards, with increased levels of professionalism, and it’s viewed a better risk by the fine arts insurance industry.    And the NEA’s Indemnity Panel.

Zach, could you share some of the benefits you’ve seen for your institution from its being accredited?

Zach Garhart:

Yeah. I think the process of accreditation has been hugely beneficial to us. But one example, we’ve only been accredited five months. We’ve been, the museum’s been around for almost a hundred years.

And for the majority of that, we were the cabinet of curiosities, you know, We had everything related to the West. People know us. They come in and say, hey. You wanna see that cabinet of curiosities? You go to that Yellowstone County Museum. Well, you know, twenty years ago, they’ve been trying to change that, become the modern museum, become a facility that fits in, that interprets, doesn’t just show objects.

But we still have to fight that public perception and that we were that modern institution.

About a decade ago when I started here, I wanted to get the schools up. And we had great success with rural schools, but not the local ones because they still had that perception that we were the cabinet of curiosities. We weren’t that modern learning facility that they were looking for.

So I’ve been trying to contact them back and forth back and forth. The news comes out that we’re accredited, all of a sudden, they respond to one of my emails, a month later after the news, and they say they noticed it in the news and they wanna see what we’re all about. And now in April, we’re gonna have 10,000 junior high students up every year.

So that’s just immediate results from being accredited.

That’s just my one example.

Danyelle Rickard:

It’s I love that. They’re going to talk to you that way.

So now we’re gonna talk a little bit more about eligibility requirements. The institution needs to a legally organized nonprofit institution or part of a nonprofit organization or government entity.

To have been in operation, meaning doors open, for at least two years. Who have been open to the public for at least one thousand hours, and to have a full time director to whom authority is delegated for the day to day operations.

There are several eligibility requirements- that they have accessioned 80% of the permanent collection. If it is a collecting institution. And successfully completed the core document verification program. Another little myth busting tip here is that non-collecting museums can indeed be accredited! A museum does not need to be about objects. It can be about people or even an idea.

Museums seeking accreditation for the first time are required to complete two prerequisites steps. The first is taking the pledge of excellence, which is currently on the screen.

This is a short but impactful statement that your museum is committed to operating according to core standards.

We recommend that the staff and board take the pledge collectively in a meeting. It’s a great way to get everyone excited about and committed to starting the journey towards accreditation.

After your institution has affirmed the statement, you can visit the AAM website on the Pledge of Excellence page and check the box that indicates that your museum has taken that pledge.

Museums that are already accredited do not need to take the pledge. By achieving accreditation, they’ve already demonstrated that they meet or exceed the requirements put forth in the standards.

Alright. Now we’re gonna talk a little bit about the how. The second prerequisite to accreditation is successfully completing the core documents verification program. Working with the museum field, AAM identified five documents that are fundamental for basic professional museum operations.

On the screen, you will see a set of five documents listed with corresponding images with each document title.

They are the mission statement, institutional code of ethics, strategic institutional plan, collections management policy, and disaster preparedness & emergency response plan.

The documents embody core values and practices for every museum, regardless of size or type. They provide guidance, codify practices, and promote institutional stability and the core documents verification application is on the AAM website. There’s short form to complete, a space to upload the documents, and then a fee is paid.

The cost of the program is based on the museum’s AAM membership tier. AAM staff review the documents against a set of required elements, which you can also find on our website. Staff then let you know if any revisions are necessary, and once the documents meet with requirements, they send you a certificate of core documents verification.

The core documents of already-accredited museums are reviewed as part of the periodic reaccreditation process, so they do not need to undertake this separate process. Though, I will say that doing an internal review of these documents is a great way prepare for your upcoming accreditation review.

You are already accredited.

A common pitfall museums make is trying to rush through this step. Not taking the time to scrutinize the documents before submitting them for review. Take the time to ensure they meet the standards, and that they meet the required elements prior to submitting them for verification. The expectation is that if you’re submitting them for review, they already meet those required elements.

Alright. So here’s the who, a little introduction. I said, I am Danyelle , and you can meet our accreditation staff here. Martha and I are assistant directors of accreditation. We work with you all along the way selecting your visiting committee and are in the room when the accreditation commission meets.

Our senior director, Julie Hart, oversees the accreditation process and AAM’s practice management and institutional learning efforts. She works directly with the accreditation commission chair to plan and shape the commission’s work. We each have been with the accreditation program at AAM for a long time and worked at accredited museums ourselves.

Another group that you’ll hear through accreditation is our peer reviewers.

This AAM group of volunteer peer reviewers is roughly 1,000 dedicated museum professionals, often including executive directors themselves, who want to share their time to travel and assess museums for the program.

They spent time away from their home institutions to give back to the field. They come from every museum discipline. Art, children’s, historic house, science centers, botanic gardens, automotive, natural history, and many more. They gather, learn, and write the site visit report, for the benefit of the accreditation commission, who uses that report aid in its decision making.

Peer reviewers serve the accreditation program and the field at large. And, also, they get to bring back ideas from the museums they visit to their home institutions. And our final who is our accreditation commission. On the screen, you’ll see several different pictures of commissioners over the years.

The accreditation commission is typically 9 museum professionals appointed by the AAM board. The accreditation commission is the body responsible for making independent decisions regarding a museum’s accredited status. It meets three times a year and is made up of museum professionals whose combined experience and expertise represent museums of varying disciplines, governance structures, and then budget sizes.

Commissioners have significant leadership-level experience and an understanding of a wide range of museum operations. Having experience with accreditation and demonstrate the commitment to standards and building excellence across the field. The commissions serve in a volunteer capacity for a term of five years.

Alright. And here’s the how much. The costs associated with the accreditation process are tied to the self-study. And the site visit.

When the museum submits itself-study, it pays a review fee based on its AAM membership tier. This ranges from $2,865 to $6,900. So AAM membership has its financial advantages since it saves you money on your accreditation program-related fees. The museum is also responsible for the costs associated with the peer reviewers’ site visit.

AAM reimburses the reviewers for their travel expenses and then invoices the museum for the total. We suggest that museums now budget around $3,000, although actual costs vary. Depending on the museum’s AAM membership tier, the museum may also be responsible for an annual fee to maintain its accreditation. More information about the fee is available on the accreditation cost page of our website.

Martha Sharma:

Hello, everyone. Thanks for joining us.

So I’m gonna go and give you a quick summary of the how. So this is a quick overview of the steps in the accreditation or reaccreditation process. So for those of you who are not already accredited, once the museum has taken the pledge of excellence, and then had its core documents verified, and is eligible in every other way to become accredited, it then can fill out an accreditation application.

So once that application has been approved or accepted by AAM, then the museum will complete the self-study. That’s step two on the slide. After the self-study comes in, then there will be a site visit that the museum will host with two peer reviewers who we call the visiting committee.

And that’s step three, the site visit on this slide. The visiting committee visits the institution then writes a report detailing its findings. And that report is submitted to the commission along with the rest of the museum’s self-study materials.

And then it goes on to the accreditation commission for review. So step four in the slide. Once the museum receives accreditation, it repeats the process every ten years. And for those museums who are already accredited and are just going through reaccreditation, clearly, it does not have to do step one, fill out the application.

But every other step, self-study, site visit, commission review, and repeat in ten years, is the same process for our reaccredited or a museum is going through reaccreditation.

So here is a process flow diagram, sort of another way to express how a museum migrates through the accreditation process.

So first, you’ve got the self-study. Then you move on to the site visit, then you move on to the accreditation commission review, which is abbreviated by an AC in the slide. So for over a decade and throughout COVID, we have been operating the program through a very streamlined process.

Accreditation or reaccreditation reviews follow a set of timelines, and we move museums along the process at a very steady clip. At the bottom, you’ll see a chart of the various timetables and stages, and the process stages are dictated essentially by the museum’s study due date.

So based on when you submit the self-study, you will have a site visit during a particular timeframe. And then your commission review will happen during a particular time as well.

And by the time the museum receives its commission decision letter, the whole process is wrapped up in approximately eight months.

So now we’re going to move on to the self-study. So there are two different types of self-studies that we have. One for accreditation, which is for the first timers or applicant museums, and another for reaccreditation which is a little shorter and both of these are available publicly on our website as PDF reference copies. These are on the accreditation process and timeline page for download at any time, and I’ve provided links to these within the resources of this webinar.

The link is to the accreditation process and timeline page. And on that page, you will be able to see the self-study PDFs and other resources we provide.

So we’re gonna get into more details about what the self-study gets into. So for those coming through for the first time -never been accredited before and the museum’s application is accepted- you will get assigned to a program officer.

Right now, that’s either Danyelle  or myself, whomever is on the accreditation staff at the time, there will be someone assigned to you to go through the whole process. That staff contact or program officer gives you a link to the online self-study. That link is not publicly available. It is given to the museum when it’s ready to start working on the self-study.

Now for our first-time accreditation participants, that self-study is going to ask a lot of data points related to your finances, staffing, attendance, facilities, collections.

And then it’s going to dive into more detail about things like your educational role, your public service role, your collection stewardship role, and your overall organizational health. Now for those in the reaccreditation process, we again reach out to you providing the link to the online self-study. We do that about a year in advance and give a specific due date for that self-study.

Now the reaccreditation self-study is quite shorter, and the reason for that is because the museum has already introduced itself to us. We know its history from past reaccreditation reviews. So the reaccreditation self study focuses, yes, on the financial, staffing, attendance, facilities questions, but it is also focused on changes since the last time it came through reaccreditation. And more particularly focusing on events in the last five years.

Regardless of what type of accreditation or reaccreditation process you’re going through, you are assigned a self-study due date and that is the date that you must turn in the self-study.

And there’s a whole host of documents you’ll be uploading along with the self-study questionnaire itself. Those types of documents are very basic, things the museum already has, like your core documents, and other things like your audits. Your budget. Your organizational chart.

Now the self-study materials, once they come in to us at AAM, they are reviewed by your program officer and your program officer will find and flag for you anything that is not meeting standards, is missing, or is incomplete.

We will give you time to go back and fix the problem.

So this is a bit of myth, a bit of myth-busting that I would like to do for all of you: and that is perfection is not what’s expected here; it is not required. But, of course, the more complete, more tidy, and well organized your self-study and all of the attachments are, the smoother your process will be through all the remaining steps of the accreditation process.

So if we, as your program officer, see a very sloppy self-study, then that kind of shows a lack of commitment on the museum’s part to get it right. And we also start to wonder if there isn’t some subterfuge going on. And perhaps it is just evidence that the museum is maybe not as ready for accreditation as it thought. But with that, I’m gonna turn it over to you, Zach, and ask you to share about how it was you approached the self-study.

Zach Garhart:

Yeah. I I thought it was a relatively straightforward process because of all the great resources you folks have put online.

Martha Sharma:

Yes.

Zach Garhart:

We you know, when I first, when I first started it, I went and found the core [documents]. Getting echo. Is there an echo here? Oh, there we go. Okay. Yeah. So when we first started the core documents process, we decided, hey. Let’s look at all the resources these folks have put out. And it’s all there. It’s all online. So I did my homework. I figured out what was needed of us, and we executed it. So when it came to the self-study, I went through it well before we applied, just roughly say, hey. Can I answer each one of these questions? And you kinda check with, hey, this one’s gonna be a little rougher. This one, oh, I don’t know about this one. An example for us is our educational role. We weren’t nearly as strong in education, and we know we should, we knew we should have been stronger in education.

So the self-study I flagged it as, hey, this is gonna be an issue. We put it into our strategic plan, another great part of the core document process. It all ties into itself. And we created a full blown educational plan to answer two questions in the self-study. But by preparing ourselves well before time, understanding what’s needed of us to become accredited, it made the what we began the process very straightforward, very easy.

But it’s all about that preparation. And that’s my take on it.

Martha Sharma:

Great to hear it. Great to hear it. So now we’re going to move on to the next phase of the process, which is the site visit.

So the site visit is generally one and a half to two days with a team of peer reviewers selected by your program officer.

So we, as program officer, work to match the museum with peer reviewers, with experience and expertise with institutions of a similar type, similar budget, staff size, and governance.

What we do on the AAM side is we send the museum a list of prospective peer reviewers, and we allow the museum to look at it and eliminate any names on that list that pose a conflict of interest because there’s too close a personal relationship with that person. Anyone else left on the list, we are free to contact, and we set about connecting two peer reviewers, generally, sometimes three, with your institution who can serve during the specific site visit window that your institution needs the visit during. So especially large institutions, for example, if it has multi sites, spread out across the entire state, then we might go to three people, or we might add an extra day.

Now the site visit is going to take place during a preselected or prescribed time frame or window, and it’s all again based upon when the museum’s self-study came in or when it was due. And it is up to the museum and the peer reviewers to negotiate the specific visit days or dates within the site visit window or time frame. And like I mentioned, the visit usually takes place over one and a half to two days. Again, we might add an extra day if needed.

And the museum is going to be the one to draft the site visit agenda. Basically planning out how the meetings are going to go throughout those one and a half to two days.

We, of course, at AAM provide all the guidance you’re going to need and we’ll tell you the kinds of meetings you’re going to have to arrange. But, basically, there’s going to be an introductory meeting with the director and a concluding meeting with the director.

The peer reviewers are going to have to meet with staff, governing authority, and any key stakeholders.              And, of course, your peer reviewers on your visiting committee are going to take an a tour of your entire facility.

And, of course, your peer reviewers are going to weigh in on the agenda and there are a lot of peer reviewers who know exactly who they need to meet with because they’re very experienced. And so they will flag for you if there’s key individuals that are not on that first draft agenda. They’ll make sure that meetings with those individuals are added.

So visits are in person. And what we learned from the pandemic is that virtual options like this meeting we’re having right now are absolutely essential in some cases. We know that sometimes a peer reviewer’s flight gets canceled, so you might have to create a hybrid situation where one peer reviewer ends up being there in person and the other peer reviewer has to participate virtually. Or, for example, if you have board members who are four states away and simply cannot fly in for this one and a half to two day visit, the use of virtual tools is absolutely a possibility to get the meetings concluded within a timely manner.

Now, Zach, why don’t I turn it over to you to see how it went for you in terms of organizing your site visit?

Zach Garhart:

Yeah. I think we had a really great experience. When you make it to this stage, you’ve done it. You, if you’ve genuinely filled out the self-study, you know your institution’s in that position, this is your chance to show your facility off to another peer reviewer and expert. And we embrace that opportunity, and we’re excited about it. Just like Martha was saying, you have to communicate with them, make sure just like anything, you’re setting up a visit. You gotta make sure everyone’s around.

Make sure your good PR people are there too. You know, they’re humans. Your site reviewers are humans, and you wanna sure they have a good visit, a fun visit. And then you get to show them off everything you’ve been doing. And a lot of them are gonna be in awe. And anything they point out that’s negative, well, that’s great because maybe you missed it. Or maybe you already know it’s negative. But the whole process from start to finish, I really just saw it as a chance to get to show off the facility. Enjoy during the time, learn from folks, and it’s really, I think, my probably, my favorite part of it. The only hard part, of course, is paying for it. But, other than that, fantastic.

Martha Sharma:

I’m so glad it was so positive for you. That’s what our goal is. And your peer reviewers want that too. So that’s a bit of myth busting. They’re not coming in there to, you know, play the white glove game and see where the dust comes off on the glove. The next slide is gonna focus now on the site visit report.

So the site visit report is used by the visiting committee to document for the benefit of the accreditation commission what the visiting committee has observed and it captures their analysis of the institution that they experienced over that one and a half to two days. So this site visit report is shared well ahead of time, not only with the peer review team (or the visiting committee team), but with the museum. The museum gets the blank version ahead of time.

This form that the visiting committee uses is built around the core standards, and there are checkboxes for the visiting committee to indicate whether the museum is or is not meeting each standard. And it also asks the visiting committee to add comments about any areas of concern that the visiting committee have or areas where they wanna commend the museum, for example, for exemplary practices. And it ends with a short concluding narrative in order to tie up all that the visiting committee observed in a nice summary so that the commission can digest the highlights of the visit.

Now if your program officer spotted any areas that in the self-study that the program officer feels needs more examination on-site, the program officer will add some special instructions to the front of the site visit report. The visiting committee [is] to look at more in-depth on-site and then comment in the report.

The museum, like I mentioned, gets a blank copy of this form well before the site visit but it doesn’t receive the final version of this site visit report until well after the commission’s reviewed it, and it comes to the museum with its commission decision letter.

So, Zach, tell me how your site visit report came across to you once you finally received it.

Zach Garhart:

Yeah. I think that it’s always fun to read through these. We’ve seen a museum assessment program one before this too. And it’s, I was looking forward to it. It’s enlightening. And you see, hey, did they have the same take on my facility? As I do?

And I was luckily enough that they did, but we definitely learned things. And the handful of things that we thought we were not doing too strong on, they did point out. And it’s helpful in figuring out, okay. How can we address those handful of things? How can we introduce them into our strategic plan? And I thought that our reviewers were spot on. There’s one or two things that [were] maybe miscommunication during it, but I think that’s just when you’re doing a review this big. Overall, it was all hey, let’s read it. Let’s understand it. Make sure it matched, and it sure did. So I felt really good about it.

Martha Sharma:

I’m so pleased. I’m going to switch to the next slide and then let you take it away with respect to what our, what we see as the qualities of [a successful] review and how your institution embodied those.

Zach Garhart:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sure thing. So I think it all came down to that preparation, the execution, the act you want your museum to be the best you can, and you mean it. You’re not pretending to do that. So we had a, well, a question in the chat [about], doing MAP. We, one of the reasons I think everything was so smooth for accreditation from us was we did a Museum Assessment Program before. And that strengthened us. So the strong leadership, we went through so many of the different exercises that are provided in the resources that the folks provide [at] AAM. It’s, and they’re great resources. And you figure out who are leaders [are] in different things, and you can identify who should be where and where they shouldn’t be. So some people might really be interested in your… Other people might be interested in your education on your board, and you can help identify where those people are and put them in the right direction.

And that right motivation on there. And that’s what I go back to. You just want your museum to be the best. You, and that’s what these accreditation is trying to help you do too. Communication is key to everything. You just make sure everything’s set up, and it’s gonna go as smoothly as you communicated to begin with. I think the openness to improvement is: don’t be offended when they point out something that needs to be improved. And quite often, I think museum people themselves know far more what needs to be improved in their facility than any outsider could possibly manage to get in two days. But they might see things that you’re just blind to, or you’ve been putting it off for a long time. And they might be the little kick you needed to get it done right. And that transparency, I think. One of the reasons it went so well for us, there was no-not even white-lies. We just said, hey, this is what we do. This is what we have. This is where we’re at. Let’s… are we there yet? And all that preparation and planning. I can’t stress enough how I essentially, I essentially read through it for a good year before I decided to start the whole process. And one thing that I really liked in that process was contacting other museums in our area that were already accredited. I think that really helped us too, because other museum professionals quite often love to talk about these processes and how they can help you. And we’re given so many resources from other institutions that all those items, built together, I think, made our review go very well.

Martha Sharma:

Bravo.

Alright. So how about, I think you’ve touched a lot on this, but please share more about, other tips for preparation and planning.

Zach Garhart:

Yeah. Sure. So I think the biggest one with especially the core documents when we started this process, since we’re based in Montana, we reach out to our state historical society to see, hey. What are your folks’ core documents? And they were so happy to help us, and we also reached out to the Buffalo Bill Museum. It’s in Cody, Wyoming. And they gave us a great starting point.

Especially if you can find something that’s more in Montana; we found relevant state laws that we didn’t necessarily know about. Staff of three. You know? We don’t know everything about the legal world. And that really helped us create those core documents that were very relevant to our facility. And I think it’s also nice to point out that if you’re a [Tier 3] member of the AAM, we got to see a lot of other people’s already. Accredited core documents, and that’s really helpful to you. Might get little snippets of ideas to put into yours or say what you don’t need too. And then at the end of the day, all those resources really are there for you.

This is an open book test, and it’s just waiting for you to fill it out. It’s just that time and budget. The only part that we had to kinda smoosh, invest was spending that about $6,000 total to get the process done.

Martha Sharma:

And Danyelle wants to jump in and share a nice quick comment.

Danyelle Rickard:

Yeah, I just want to make a comment as program officer for accreditation, I can really speak to how, thoughtful they were in their planning and how responsive they were with any feedback. And as Martha mentioned earlier, you can see a lot right when that first application comes in, when the self-study comes in. And it was just incredibly impressive. And you could tell right off they had done all of the hard work to get them there. So having done all of that, having a good connection with the AAM staff that’s working on it, it really does smooth the process. And just a thanks to Zach. It was a great experience.

Zach Garhart:

And thank you, Danyelle, for that. And the only reason we were so successful is because you folks have already put exactly what you need from us. And there’s no gray areas. It’s all black and white. This is what we need, and we just did it.

So

Martha Sharma:

OK. So now we’re gonna move on to the final step in the process, which is when the museum gets its review by the accreditation commission. And in particular, we’re going talk about the different types of commission decisions.

So first of all, the commission meets three times a year. February, June, and October. And you will know going into the process based on your self-study due date and your site visit window when the commission will review your institution.

So Danyelle and I have a very good insider perspective into the workings of the commission because we are always in the room for each of those meetings through every discussion. We are the ones who take their unique crafted language that applies to the institution they’re reviewing, and we are the ones to place it in the letters that eventually go to the museums. Those letters are signed by the chair of the accreditation commission. And I wanted to just quickly summarize the types of commission decisions that they make.

So first, obviously, is accreditation or accredit. We congratulate our museums, and the award is typically for ten years. But sometimes, some institutions are flagged for a shorter review which would be five years, but that’s not very common.

Now the second decision type is to table. The commission tables its decision because the museum has one or more specific items or operational deficiencies that the commission is concerned about, and that the commission feels are barriers to the institution’s ability to meet the core standards and / or accreditation program eligibility requirements.

But when the commission tables an institution, it has every confidence that the museum can address the issues within the one year or twelve months that the tabling period lasts. The commission has confidence that any plans or policies that they’re wanting to get from the museum can be successfully implemented during that tabling period. And I will share that about 25 to 30% of museums do get the tabling decision but our success rate is extremely high somewhere between 95-98%.

Because we do a lot of interventions along the way, and the commission does not table institutions that it doesn’t think will be successful. Another option is for the commission to defer its decision.

Essentially, it needs more information or clarification in order to actually make a decision. And so it will ask for what it needs and then it will discuss the museum at the next meeting and make a final determination.

A pending decision means that the accreditation is awarded pending receipt of something. Typically, accreditation pending means okay, we noticed that your strategic plan is brand new. It just hasn’t had time for the board to approve it. Send us your, send the accreditation staff your final plan, they’ll validate it, then you’ll get your accreditation award.

And then finally and sadly, sometimes the commission has to deny an institution. And a denial happens when a museum fails to meet multiple core standards for museums or eligibility requirements. And there are numerous serious deficiencies that are so fundamental and so systemic that those deficiencies affect many or all aspects of the institution’s operation and its ability to fulfill its mission.

When these concerns are so complex and pervasive, or simply so numerous that they cannot easily be remedied during a one year long table, tabling period. Then the commission has no choice but to deny an institution. And I think our statistic is around 3% of institutions receive a denial decision. So what I wanted to also do is do some additional myth busting about what it is the commission does or how it behaves.

So first, the commission approaches every review wanting the museum to succeed. Succeed. Just like your program officer and your visiting committee, the commission is in your corner. Also, the commission has a diverse collection of experiences, size of institution, type of and numbers of years of service in the field. So it’s not just all large art museum directors serving on the commission.

The commission all see the common problems across the width and breadth of the field. They’re museum directors themselves. Many times they’ve seen the same situations at their own institutions or with other institutions that they’ve reviewed.

They see common flaws in planning. Instability.

Many of the challenges the museums in the program face are not unique to just that one institution.

Let’s also demystify the tabling decision. So when a museum is tabled, it’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes it can be a very healthy and good thing. Too many institutions come in afraid of being tabled. But we say don’t panic. Because it’s just oftentimes a very cut and dry fixable problem that the museum can address within that twelve month tabling period and successfully move on to an accreditation award.

And we also want to demystify the types of museums that get accredited. It’s not just the big guys who get accredited and then the small ones getting tabled. There are many small museums that are doing everything right and receive accreditation swiftly and promptly. And there are very large museums that get tabled too.

We also want you to know that the commissioners don’t always agree, but they always come to an agreement. So the con[versations], the discussions within each commission meeting are very robust.

So let’s move on to what happens after a museum is reviewed by the commission. So we hope that every institution comes out with a accreditation decision. And if so, it gets a wonderful award kit that includes the accreditation commission decision letter, a copy of the site visit report, it gets window decals, certificates, and other collateral materials, plus information about how AAM helps promote and publicize your success.

Now if the museum doesn’t get accredited, at that first commission meeting stage, it’s okay. You will still get your decision letter. And you will get all of the information, including your site visit report. You will get instructions and guidance on how to proceed and complete your accreditation review with a very successful outcome, hopefully, at the end of it all.

So on this slide, I wanted to just share some various ways museums have publicized their accreditation. So the top center is the banner of the AAM press release. And as we work around this clockwise, in the bottom center is of course, Zach’s institution at Yellowstone County Museum, and its posting of its award on its YCM news page of the website.

Zach Garhart:

Oh, yeah. Sure thing. Well, you feel like you won the Super Bowl, the World Cup. You’ve worked your butt off. We did for five years. Thinking we’re gonna make our facility the best we can do it and getting the confirmation letter in the mail: you did it. We have achieved that national recognition. We felt so good.

Our only downside is we wanted to have a party, but we’re in construction. So we’re gonna have a party soon, but it just feels so good, and all the effort is absolutely worth it.

Martha Sharma:

Well, we are thrilled for you and for any museum that receives accreditation. And in fact, [for] the latest round of accreditation awardees, the press release is coming out from AAM, from the October meeting, in AAM’s Aviso in the coming days. So you will see the next group of museums that just got accredited at the October 2025 commission meeting.

So with that, we can turn it over to your questions. And, as Ariel noted in the chat, feel free to put your questions in the Q and A segment of the Airmeet platform. There is a Q and A thought bubble icon, and you can put your questions there. And we’ll try to address them as quickly as we can.

So, the first question was someone had asked, do you recommend a MAP? And you see Zach definitely did. Now the MAP program is changing, but it’s still around. It’s more of a fee for service and it’s, it’s still working in the same manner.

The museum assessment program is a assessment program where you get feedback from your single peer reviewer who writes the report for the benefit of you, to improve your institution and work out a road map for how to make those improvements.

Danyelle Rickard:  

There…

Martha Sharma:

Zach, the next question.

Danyelle Rickard:

…there also oh, yeah. Martha, I was just gonna jump in. There are several other types of assessments you can do too. We would encourage any type of assessment as AASLH has the steps workbook. CAP program, conservation assessment was also in a similar boat with the MAP program with funding. So just keep an eye out there for other assessment programs. It’s always great to have someone with an outside eye come in and look at your institution.

Zach Garhart:

Yeah. Yeah. So that was our… we’re tier three members, so we pay that about $3,000 for the review fee. I think it’s a little less, and the numbers are posted online. And then I think it was about a thousand five hundred per peer reviewer, which totaled to another 3,000, and that was our six. But everyone’s gonna be different, obviously.

Martha Sharma:

Next question is from Hillary. Curious about additional considerations for institution under the branch a larger nonprofit and then in addition, a museum that has facilities spread across different states. Oh. So Danyelle , did you wanna take this one since I know you are particular experience for these extremely large [museum systems].

Danyelle Rickard:

Yes. Thank you, Martha. I have had several come through in the last few years. And we absolutely do have institutions that are accredited that have many, many sites, often four, five, six plus hours away from each other. I think generally, they’ve stayed in the same state, but it’s a conversation that you could have with us individually, about your specific site, but it is something that we do see. And when we line up a visiting committee, we often have people from those types of sites come to your site. So they understand just a bit of a difference when you’re working with that many institutions tied to one in different areas.

This is no problem to have them come through accreditation that way.

Martha Sharma:

And I’ll add another is that perhaps maybe one of the multi-site [system] is the stronger, and that might be the first institution that comes through. And then maybe with the subsequent accreditation, you add on additional sites. A lot of large state institutions start out with the main headquarters museum receiving accreditation. And then ten years later, they’ll add in two or three sites more and then grow the number with each subsequent accreditation review.

The next question from Alex was, how far in advance are museums given self-study due dates? We give you at least a year. So we reach out a year in advance saying, hey. Heads up. Your self-study due date is a year a year plus from now.

This is the time for you, your board, and your staff to start working. Here’s all the resources you’re going to need.

Get working. And then we’ll keep nudging you throughout, at six months and two months prior to the self-study due date.

Next question is from Sam. Wouldn’t the significant deficiencies that would trigger a denial show up in the self-study process well before the site visit was scheduled and a report meets the commission?

Very often, it is. And so what happens is your program officer flags all the deficiencies upfront, and sees how well you can address them. Now our reaccreditation museums automatically get a site visit. It’s not a condition of the quality of your self-study. Regardless of how messy the self-study comes in for reaccreditation; the site visit happens.

For our first time accreditation, sometimes we do counsel the institutions to withdraw if it’s quite clear that the institution is just not able to overcome those deficiencies, it’s more than just a typo or missing document. It’s more institution-wide problems. But, again, if the museum wants to proceed anyway with the visit, we will [get] them a visit, and we ultimately leave it to the commission to make a decision on denial. That is not the job of the program officer to make.

Danyelle Rickard:

That’s true. And, also, for us to share, we see these red flags very quickly. We are also often your core documents verification program officers. So we are seeing these documents before you are applying for accreditation. So if the red flags start there, we are counseling you far ahead of time. We don’t want you to have to spend money or time on something that maybe your institution just needs a couple more years to work on and to progress on. And maybe to get buy in from your board. It’s not a problem to have this be a plan.

Once your core documents [are verified], that verification is for five years. So you don’t have to apply immediately after. You can wait a few years, get those things settled, and then dive into accreditation.

Martha Sharma:

I wanted to answer Billy’s question is when will you find out? What is the time frame? So depending on when your site visit happens and your commission review happens, then you get your decision approximately four weeks later.

So if your museum has its visit in [spring] ’26, then it will get a commission review in June ’26, and it will have its decision letter four weeks later in July 2026. So we can’t promise a specific date of when the letters go out, but we have a general four week time frame from the end date of the commission meeting. And you are given the specific commission dates well up front based upon when you’re in review.

The next question is, is accreditation standardized, meaning one size fits all, or do the accreditation take into consideration the type of museum and the age of building? So the core standards are applicable to every type of institution regardless of size. And I just want to be mindful of our time

We’ve got three more minutes.

But it is always taken into account the museum’s capacity and all the other factors. So museums like Zach’s with three staff, right, is going to be considered a little different based on its discipline and its size, compared to a museum within the Smithsonian Institution.

And all of those things get factored in.

Alright. How about Danyelle , do you wanna take the next one? Have you seen an institution use grants to fund the cost of accreditation?

Danyelle Rickard:

I’m happy to take that one. I have I have seen museums apply for local grants. I’ve also seen them get donors, often from their boards, who are really behind wanting to have this process done, but who know that the museum maybe really isn’t in a position to pay for, say, the site visit. So it really can get them to have a different level of buy-in when they want you to go forward in this thing, and they’re ready to back you financially to do it.

Martha Sharma:

We have one minute left. I’m wondering, Zach, would you mind taking that last question? We don’t have a benchmark document, but what did you, Zach, use to determine if you were even ready? To becoming accredited?

Zach Garhart:

Well, I think you can go to these slides you had in the beginning and say, hey. What are the requirements? Like, 80% of your collection [is] accessioned. For example, we, we did not have that. So that was something we had to immediately start on. And then you just want to look at okay, I meet… I really think it’s all on these slides. So here’s what you need to [meet] requirements. And then here’s the core documents. And can you write all these core documents? Are they all relevant to your institution? And then in the end, you complete the self-study.

Danyelle Rickard:

You know, we hope that this process is as [transparent] as we can be. All the information we have gone over is on the website. And you can contact us at any point for clarification on those. It’s not meant to be a mystery. We hope that this is as clear as it can be.

Martha, you’re on mute. There you go.

Martha Sharma:

We are at 03:00. Thank you, everyone, for joining us. And, in the chat, we’ve provided the accreditation@aam-us.org email, and it’s gonna be right here on this final slide.

Danyelle Rickard:

Thank you, everyone, so much.