I often start the year on this blog by sharing some thoughts about what may be in store in the coming year. Usually that’s a low pressure assignment because, after all, the purpose of foresight is to uncover probabilities and possibilities, rather than “getting it right.” All I have to do, in order to succeed, is illuminate some important zones in the Cone of Plausibility.

This year, it’s much harder. As I wrote back in March, the Cone has expanded into the Hemisphere of Who the Heck Knows. Rather than each day being just a little bit different than the last, we may wake into a world in which the rules have, quite literally, been rewritten yet again. Some of the boundaries of the Cone are intransigent limits set by physics, biology, or technology. With time, we may chip away at these boundaries to invent seemingly magical things like teleportation, immortality, brain-to-brain communication, but those leaps could be decades or centuries out.

But some of the boundaries of plausibility are rules we establish ourselves, a shared understanding of how we operate as individuals and as a society. The past year has demonstrated the fragility of such consensus. Contracts, laws, institutions, regulations, unwritten codes of conduct are being broken every day. That makes it nearly impossible to map the boundaries of the possible for the next twelve months. But I’ll give it a go.

In this essay, I’ll offer a brief summary of five major disruptions facing museums in 2026 and suggest some sources you can use to monitor these challenges throughout the year. I strongly encourage you to read to the end, where I’ll offer some thoughts on two potential wild cards—less likely but still quite possible events that could swamp the effect of the big five. (If you can’t stand the suspense, jump to the last section.)

“Normal” Disruptions in 2026

In the most recent National Snapshot of US Museums survey, we asked directors to identify the biggest disruptions to their business strategy in the coming year. Their top concerns were:

• Shifts in philanthropy (63%)
• Inflation (53%)
• Financial/market instability (52%)
• Changes to travel and tourism (48%)
• Reduction or elimination of government funding (47%)

Five observations about these disruptions:

• They are becoming bigger. Concern about four of these disruptions has risen since last year. (We don’t have comparable data for inflation, as we didn’t ask about that in 2024.) The risks they pose may continue to climb for some time. My advice: plan for the long game, even as you craft short term strategies. Don’t assume that the world is going to rebound to some former state of “normal.” While these trends may slow down, or ever reverse direction, they also may continue to escalate, creating fundamental changes in the world.
• They all have a high degree of uncertainty. You can find a range of projections for any of these variables in 2026. My advice: identify credible, manageable sources of information about key indicators related to these risks, monitor them throughout the year, and continually update your plans to reflect the emerging situation.
• Many of these issues are granular. Inflation and market instability may have consistent effects across the nation, but other impacts differ from place to place. My advice: As you navigate your local environment, watch how other regions, states, cities, or communities are being impacted by these disruptions, and how your peers are responding. Even if your museum is buffered, for the moment, from some of these forces, it may be a temporary reprieve.
• Beware the “false consensus.” You may have the impression that the stories dominating the national narrative reflect public opinion or agreement among experts. Often, they do not. My advice: When you read invective about “woke museums,” the evils of DEI, or that the economy is great (or terrible), get the facts, and draw your own conclusions.
• It’s a lot. Uncertainty begets stress, and stress is cumulative. My advice: in the midst of guiding your organization through the coming year, remember to take time to care for the mental health and wellbeing of your colleagues, your staff, and yourselves.

With that in mind, here are some brief observations about each of these disruptions, with suggestions for sources of information that can help you monitor how they are playing out in the coming year

Shifts in Philanthropy

A diagram of trends in charitable giving would look like a wave tank—patterns created by the collision of multiple trends, with long, slow swells of change complicated by sudden impacts. The 2026 edition of TrendsWatch, coming out later this month, takes a deep dive into how philanthropy is being reshaped by generational change, rising wealth inequality, and reforms to foundation practice, and offers practical advice on how museums might respond to these shifts. TrendsWatch comes out later this month for AAM members (and will be publicly available in the spring).

Things to watch in 2026 include:

• Impact of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” on individual and corporate giving. The bill reinstated a deduction for individual contributions up to $1,000 and $2,000 per household: this may create a modest bump in small donations. However, a new cap on itemized deductions may reduce giving from people in the highest tax brackets. Perhaps of most concern: corporations will only be able to deduct charitable contributions that exceed 1% of their taxable income, which may lead some companies to drop giving altogether, if they don’t anticipate meeting this “floor.”

• How foundations respond to rising need. This may include increasing their giving as well as reforming their practices, to improve their support of the nonprofit sector. Some funders may direct their giving to urgent needs, including social services, or strengthening democracy and civic engagement. Others are directing giving to help nonprofits explore the perils and promise of artificial intelligence. In the face of attacks by the current administration, some foundations are pulling back from supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion, while others are doubling down on their commitment.

• Foundations and individuals may increase or decrease their giving to museums as arts, culture, and history are cast as partisan issues. (One bright signal that capped 2025: philanthropist MacKenzie Scott gave $20million to the Japanese American National Museum, validating that museum’s courageous stand against government attacks on civil rights.)

What Museums Might Do

Be transparent about what is happening, how it is affecting you, and what you need. Tell compelling stories of how current pressures impact your ability to provide programs and services, and how individual support, from large to small donations, can help ensure you can continue to serve your community.  Advocate with foundations, local and national, encouraging them to “Meet the Moment” by increasing their giving, providing unrestricted support, reducing administrative burdens, and offering additional help such as  access to legal services and risk assessment. (Note, TrendsWatch 2026 will offer additional suggestions for practical steps towards long-term sustainability in charitable support.)

Some sources to follow:

• The Chronicle of Philanthropy (subscription required, but a digital subscription is a good deal at $144/year). Best single source of information and commentary on individual and foundation giving.
• The Center for Effective Philanthropy blog, which offers a range of perspectives and commentary on philanthropic practice. Useful for context and understanding emerging trends.
• The next Giving USA annual report on philanthropy will come out this summer. Solid data about 2025, as well as Giving USA’s analysis of long-term trends, will provide useful context for assessing how philanthropy is changing in 2026.

Inflation

I scanned a bunch of sources, and forecasts hover around 2.3% to 2.8% next year, with Deloitte offering a pessimistic estimate of 3.1%. However (and this is a big however), some of the most important drivers of inflation are tariffs, immigration, and federal monetary policy, all of which are being disrupted by executive actions.

What museums might do

Hope for the best, plan for the worst. With so much economic uncertainty, it may be wise to factor the worst case estimates for inflation into budgets.

Some sources to follow:

• Deloitte’s United States Economic Forecast provides a helpful outline of these issues.
• The Tax Policy Center of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution provides (near) real-time tracking of President Trump’s tariff policies—a rapidly shifting and highly important variable affecting inflation. (In October, analysts calculated that a 10% increase in the US tariff rate could bump inflation up by 1.2%).
• The US Bureau of Labor Statistics regularly releases updates on the consumer price index.

Financial/market instability

Strangely (or at least, it seems strange to me), the stock market is doing really well, despite considerable financial uncertainty. (One commenter called this “defying economic gravity.”) According to what I’ve read, this resilience is driven by the fact that corporations are still making a lot of money, consumers are still spending, and the Federal Reserve may cut interest rates. But this top line masks some real issues. Overall, spending is being propped up by the wealthiest 10 percent of households—many middle and lower earning households are struggling with basic expenses. The stock market is being buoyed by investment in AI—see my commentary on that, below. Some drivers are good in the short term, but tenuous or damaging in the long haul. (For example, the value of the US dollar is down 10 percent since last January, which boosts short term corporate earnings, but is terrible in the long term.)

What museums might do

If your organization has significant investments (acknowledging that the majority of small museums don’t), you may want to reconsider your spending rate. Rather than applying the temporary windfall from a (say) 4 percent spending rate on your museum’s investments in an up market, you may want to plow some of that money back into the principal, as a buffer against financial challenges to come.

Some sources to follow:

• Investopedia Market News and Economic News are good sources of updates and analysis.
• The nonprofit public media outlet Marketplace provides podcasts and newsletters –highly recommended listening and reading.
• Reuters U.S. Market coverage provides real time tracking of market performance, and often useful commentary and analysis.

Travel and Tourism

Projections for overall inbound international and domestic travel and tourism are all over the map. On one hand, the overall projections are solid, on the other hand, that’s largely driven by tourism related to the FIFA World Cup, and it’s not clear that will benefit areas other than the 11 US cities hosting games (or even how it will benefit attendance at cultural institutions in those cities).  The America 250 celebration may boost tourism in some places—trackers are seeing localized hotel occupancy surges for July 4 in several places, including South Dakota and Washington DC. However, no bump has been projected for the country overall.

FIFA and America 250 aside, incoming international tourism trends are awful, with visitor arrivals from France down 7 percent, Germany down 12 percent, and Canada down 26%. Domestic tourism is picking up some of the slack, but not enough to fill the gap. The US Travel Association has pushed back its projected date for full post-pandemic travel recovery to 2029.

However, this is one of those disruptions that is intensely granular. My home city of Washington D.C has taken a big hit, driven in part by the deployment of the National Guard in August. (They are still here.) Seattle, Portland (Oregon), Detroit, Las Vegas, Buffalo and New York City are also experiencing significant declines in tourism, driven in part by the international travel slump (particularly from Canada), people feeling unsafe travelling to the US, and rising costs (including the new “visa integrity fees”). But a little over half of directors answering the snapshot survey weren’t worried about disruptions to travel and tourism, and I trust them to know their local situations.

What museums might do:

Learn from successful experiments both during the 2008 financial crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic. One strategy successfully deployed during past tourism droughts is to cultivate local travel and “staycations,” and repeat visitation from loyal museum goers. As Colleen Dilenschneider has pointed out on her blog, the biggest competition for visitors, both the general public and frequent museum goers, is the couch. Most people simply prefer to stay home over the weekend, where the leading activity is browsing the internet. Her advice? Meet people where they are. People are most likely to engage in “top of mind activities,” so creating a robust online presence (supported by an appropriate marketing budget), can ensure that visiting your museum is something people choose when they DO go out.

Some sources to follow

• US Travel Association data and forecasts.
• Know Your Own Bone, where researcher Colleen Dilenschneider shares data from IMPACTS Experience. Much valuable projections on visitation, and analysis of visitor motivations. (Subscription required.)

Reduction or elimination of government funding

Forty-seven percent of museum directors answering the snapshot survey anticipated impact from the loss of government funding. This may include the ripple effects of direct funding cuts—one director noted that as bigger local institutions lost federal funding, they started to compete with their smaller colleagues for local support. Another director shared that her university-based museum expects funding cuts as their parent organization has to reduce expenses due to the administration slashing the overhead rate allowed for research grants.

Some directors that had grants restored have found that the revised award contracts require them to censor their content or activities, particularly around DEI. Some nonprofits have decided not to accept federal funding, both to avoid these conditions and because of uncertainty about whether grants could be cancelled again in the future.

(FYI, the latest update from the Institute of Museum and Library services is that grants have been restored and all awardees should have been contacted about next steps. AAM is waiting for the passage of the FY26 Labor HHS Appropriations bill and at this point, our best guess is that will happen sometime this month. Both the Senate and House versions fund IMLS at slightly lower levels than 2025 but it does fund them. IMLS expects the next round of grant applications to open in mid-January for the same grant programs as 2025.)

What museums might do

For federal grants programs that are available in 2026, museums might conduct a risk-benefit assessment before applying.  What is your contingency plan if a grant is cancelled? What conditions are being applied to grants in the program you are applying to, and how do those conditions align with your mission and values?

Whether or not you currently have or intend to apply for federal funding, engage in local and national advocacy for funding and policies that support museums, as well as our sector’s independence to provide content informed by scholarship and grounded in mission.

Some sources to follow

Follow AAM’s Advocacy Alerts for the latest news on government actions, funding, and legal cases challenging threats to IMLS and grant cancellations.

Potential Wild Cards

The “greatest disruptions in 2026” question in the Snapshot survey presented respondents with a list of choices compiled from issues museums are actually dealing with now. That’s a great way to track trends, but it doesn’t account for potential disruptive events. Here are two things that could happen in the coming year, either of which would have massive effects on the nation (and your museum’s operations).

The AI Bubble Bursts

A number of analysts have warned there is significant risk of a stock market crash in 2026—researchers at Elm Wealth put the risk at 30 percent. (Whether or not you agree with their conclusion, I recommend you read their methodology and reasoning.) Much of this concern is driven by the fact that the stock market is being buoyed by massive investments in artificial intelligence.  Many experts feel that AI has created a financial bubble that is highly likely to collapse (here’s one thoughtful analysis from Yale’s School of Management.)

As fund manager Ruchir Sharma recently pointed out the billions of dollars being invested in AI account for 40 percent of US GDP growth in 2025, and AI companies have accounted for 80 percent of growth in American stocks. Another writer points out that last time so much wealth was tied up in one set of “obscure overlapping arrangements” was right before the 2008 financial crisis (which is NOT OMINOUS AT ALL). The AI economy is being driven by massive borrowing and circular financing deals all pinned to the expectation of eventual profits. So far, the profits that have been generated is going to companies selling the chips and building the data centers that power AI.  The pure-AI developers are losing money–one of the foremost, OpenAI, is losing $143 billion a year, and doesn’t expect to turn a profit until 2030. While big platforms like Amazon and Microsoft are getting a boost from integrating AI into their existing services, most companies using AI aren’t seeing a positive return on their investment.

Disruptions around the 2026 midterm elections

A disturbing number of signals point to the possibility of disruptions around the 2026 midterm elections. Some of those actions are playing out now, with attempts to gerrymander districts, curtail mail-in voting, or ban some voting machines. Some worry that the President may invoke a national emergency as a pretense for federal intervention, deploying the national guard, military personnel and immigration agents in a way that suppresses voting. The sixth greatest concern flagged by directors in the Snapshot survey was “ideological/political polarization,” with a third anticipating this a disruption to their business next year. The perception that the midterms are not free and fair, much less overt interference, could further fuel this partisan divide. On the other hand, it might be the shock needed to make the country realize that at some point, threats to “business as usual” risk tipping us into anarchy.

What museums might do

Museums aren’t even penny ante players in the AI economy. (Though I will take this opportunity to encourage directors and boards to use their investments to advance their mission and values, including an assessment of how you feel AI companies impact our society and the environment.) However, as trusted sources of information, museums can play a significant role in educating the public about this emerging technology and its potential impacts (good AND bad) and help them consider what policies and regulations they think the US should create, at the state or federal level, to curb potential harm.

Similarly, while museums can support participation in elections (for example, helping get out the vote or serving as safe polling stations), their bigger role lies in civic education. Get involved in one of the many excellent projects tackling these issues, such as History Made By Us, Educating for American Democracy, or Every Museum a Civic Museum. Museums can talk about history, the Constitution, and the founders,  in a nonpartisan way, and helps the public reflect on their values, what they stand for. They can combat apathy, help their communities believe they have a stake in the outcomes of elections, and that they can make a difference.

What’s Next?

As I mentioned, TrendsWatch comes out later this month, addressing philanthropy, the looming leadership crisis in our field, and emerging threats to the nonprofit sector overall. (As a bright spot, I also touch on lovely work some museums are doing to cultivate compassion.) I’ll write and speak on those topics, as well as the disruptions outlined above, in the coming year. You can follow my analysis, advice, and contribute your experience by:

• Following the CFM blog (and commenting on posts). There will be weekly posts throughout the year, a mixture of essays by me and by guest from in and around the field.
• Join the Future of Museums Community on the AAM discussion forum Museum Junction. I’ll be posting news stories, commentary, research findings and calls for examples in that community, and hope to connect with you there.
• Watch the AAM calendar of events and AAM social media for the dates and subjects for Future Chats and webinars from CFM.
• Keep your eyes open for an announcement about a new page coming to the AAM website, where I will be sharing the stories that used to appear in the weekly e-newsletter Dispatches from the Future of Museums. You will see a brief update from CFM in the one weekly newsletter you will receive from AAM going forward. (More information on that transition here.)
• If I can be of assistance to you at your museum or conference, reach out through Alliance Advisors and Speakers Bureau and we can explore how a lecture, workshop, or other engagement might support your work.

Warmest regards from the future and best wishes for 2026. I look forward to working through all this uncertainty together.

Elizabeth Merritt, Vice President, Strategic Foresight, and Founding Director, Center for the Future of Museums, American Alliance of Museums