Beyond Financial Sustainability: Nourishing a Healthy Financial Ecosystem
This is a recorded session from the 2024 AAM Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo. Financial sustainability has long and rightfully been among the primary strategic goals of museums and their staff and Boards – but what if the drive for …
What Works for Building Audiences? Let’s Review the Data.
One of the biggest issues museums face right now is diminished attendance. Years after most pandemic-induced closures have lifted, the majority of institutions have still seen only a partial return of their visitors—an average of 71 …
Striking a Balance at the Oakland Museum of California
The Oakland Museum of California has changed its financial decision-making to prioritize social cohesion. This article originally appeared in Museum magazine’s May/June 2024 issue, a benefit of AAM membership. During a strategic planning …
Museum Philanthropy & Fundraising Tipsheet
This tipsheet summarizes the transcript of a webinar presented by Charles Katzenmeyer, Eowyn Bates, Amy Burt, Shannon Joern, and Ginevra Ranney. It was developed with the help of ChatGPT. Building museum resilience begins with diversifying …
Planning for Sustainable Success: Building a Development Plan for Museums
A strategic annual development plan is the document every nonprofit organization should have to identify how much money it needs to raise and how it will successfully secure those resources. During this webinar, experts will take you …
Why Museums Need Internal Audit
How do you feel when you hear the words “internal audit”? For many people, the answer is a sense of anxiety and perhaps even a muttered “uh oh.” As a group of museum internal auditors, we’re used to confronting this reaction from our …
60 Ideas in 60 Minutes: Museum Philanthropy & Membership Post Pandemic
Building museum resilience begins with diversifying revenue sources and creating long-term philanthropic partnerships. Philanthropy—and its symbolic and lucrative community-centered sibling, membership—are essential to the sustainability …
The Future of the Museum Store
This post was originally published in 2014 and is republished with updates. Read more about how to get involved in Museum Store Sunday taking place November 26, 2023! I had the pleasure of giving a talk at the Museum Store Association …
Investing for Impact in Every Way
I’ve been tracking the rise of impact investing for a decade. On this blog, guest posts such as those by Laura Callanan introduced the practice, documented how museums are adopting impact investing, and explored how investing for good can …
Museum Budgeting: Putting Your Money Where Your Mission Is
In this recording, discuss museum budgets and funding. Some of the key discussion points in this video: A broad overview of the overall budgeting process Where do funds come from? How are funds distributed throughout the organization? …
