What Museums Can Learn from Amanda Palmer
On the way to New Zealand in the spring of 2016, I started reading Amanda Palmer’s The Art of Asking. I thought of it as “me time” reading, and as such it was relegated to snippets of time before bed. When I finished the book, though, I …
Is It Time to Break Your Museum’s Organizational Mold?
Over the course of the twentieth century, and into today, museums have witnessed dramatic changes in their organizational and funding environments—some driven from within the museum field, others from outside of the field. It’s clear that …
A Snoopy license plate delivers more than mere peanuts to California museums
A special interest license plate is certainly an unconventional way to raise money for museums, and Snoopy’s path to plate-dom was certainly unconventional. But in late 2015, after nearly fifteen years of effort, California got its first …
Assessing Museum Financial Sustainability: What Kind of Monster is Under Your Bed?
Has anyone besides me ever had a bad dream about financial sustainability? How about any nightmares along the lines of “What if the museum has to close down”? These kinds of disturbing thoughts can occur during a big crisis, or when there …
Time to Partner Up
When you build relationships with other community groups, your small museum can reach its full potential. My tenure at The Lewes Historical Society began what seems like a lifetime ago: on September 10, 2001. I had signed on to lead an …
Labor Pains at the Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose
One might think that a new restaurant chain called “Now Hiring” has opened in urban centers across the nation. Especially in the Bay Area, the blessing of “full employment” has become a curse. I would have liked to start this blog by …
Meet Me in Miami to Explore Museums and AI
Right now I’m working on the agenda for Museums and New Intelligences, the Alliance’s second Knight Foundation-funded mini-conference exploring museum applications of emerging technologies. I hope you will join me at the Pérez Museum …
Capturing the Spirit of the Field Museum
One of my current projects is helping museums figure out how to develop new mission-related-income streams. In 2016, I helped develop and teach a workshop at which staff from natural history museums worked on ideas to create products and …
Grant Opportunity: Museums & Creative Aging
Aroha Philanthropies has just released a call for proposals to museums interested in participating in its new Seeding Vitality Arts in Museums initiative. The Alliance is collaborating with Aroha and Lifetime Arts to usher a museum cohort …
Is “Tax-exempt” Becoming a Dirty Word?
Slate magazine recently launched “Slate 90,” a critical look at tax-exempt organizations as represented by the 10 largest nonprofits in nine nonprofit sectors. Museums on Slate’s target list include the Smithsonian Institution, the …
