Community Engagement & Impact

An After-School Program Gives Refugee Children a Creative Boost

By Aimee Hunt

One of the many things that make Charlottesville, Virginia special is that it serves as a destination city for the International Rescue Committee, which helps refugees settle into their new countries. Since 1998, more than three thousand …
Discomfort in Learning: Museum audiences react to decolonizing practices.

By Starr Kelly, Angela Raup, Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko

This article originally appeared in the July/August 2019 issue of Museum magazine, a benefit of AAM membership. Traditional museum models of interpretation have historically failed Indigenous people by creating static spaces where the …
A Reading List on Creative Aging

By Bill Tramposch

I once had the privilege of interviewing Frank Oppenheimer, the founder of the Exploratorium in San Francisco. I asked him why he had created the museum, and he answered: “Both my brother Robert and I were struck with how, in our …
An Intergenerational “School of Drag” Connects LGBTQIA+ Youth and Elders

By Eli Burke

Last year, 20 organizations enrolled in a special museum cohort of Aroha Philanthropies’ Seeding Vitality Arts program. With funding from Aroha, and training provided by Lifetime Arts, these museums are developing high quality, …
What Happened at #AAM2019? Let Our Social Media Journalists Fill You In

By Joseph O'Neill

Each year, AAM invites a group of passionate museum professionals who are active and skilled on social media to attend the Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo as Social Media Journalists. Like any other attendees, they follow their curiosity …
Ageism is All Around Us

By Bill Tramposch

Greetings! This is my second blog as Aroha Fellow for Museums and Creative Aging, and I begin by reiterating my invitation to meet colleagues who share an interest in creative aging during the 2019 AAM Annual Meeting in New Orleans this …
Why the Tenement Museum Launched a Podcast

By Kevin Jennings

Earlier this year, I gave the keynote speech at the annual conference of the Council of American Jewish Museums. The theme of the conference (as well as the prompt I received for my remarks) was “The Creativity Challenge.” In my speech, I …
Designing for a Divided People: Planning the permanent exhibition for the Kurdistan Museum, Erbil

By Christine Echtner

“The next generation do not know about it. I talk to them, but it’s not like a film. If I tell them it may not stick, this way is more permanent.” Najiba Ahmad Hakeem, Kanitu Village, Kurdistan, Iraq about the Kurdistan Memory Programme …
The Loyalty Equation: How to develop constituent relationships that deliver sustainable financial impact.

By Suzette A. Sherman

This article originally appeared in the May/June 2019 issue of Museum magazine, a benefit of AAM membership. “Loyalty is the gold standard for measuring the quality of a relationship.” —Frederick Reichheld, The Loyalty Effect Almost two …
Crowdsourcing the Peabody Museum’s Future

By Jaan Elias

I’m often asked which topics featured in CFM’s TrendsWatch report proved to be of enduring importance, and which fizzle. I’m happy to say that so far, all the trends we’ve identified have continued to be significant for our field. Case in …