Center for the Future of Museums Blog

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Is Your Museum Prepared for Ransomware?

By Elizabeth Merritt

You come into your office, juggling your gym bag and a cup of hot coffee, and boot up your laptop to an ominous red and black screen that announces: “All your files and documents have been encrypted!” Congratulations, you’ve been hacked. …
Come Future with Me at AAM 2020

By Elizabeth Merritt

I’m teaching a workshop on strategic foresight at the AAM annual meeting in San Francisco this May. This is a chance to learn how to use the Alliance’s futurist resources, including our TrendsWatch reports and scenarios, to enhance your …
An Opportunity to Report from the Future at AAM2020

By Elizabeth Merritt

Would you like to be a conduit from San Francisco to the world, from the future to the present? And get support to attend this year’s AAM conference to boot? The Alliance is seeking social media journalists for the 2020 AAM Annual …
Museum Pricing for Affordability and Profit

By Elizabeth Merritt

What does it cost to buy an airline ticket, book a rideshare service, or make a hotel reservation? Nowadays the answer to that question may vary minute-to-minute, as companies use data analysis and clever algorithms to calibrate their …
Sustainable Investing Part 3: Case Study of the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens

By Richard V. Piacentini

In parts one and two of this series, Anna Raginskaya introduced readers to sustainable investing, discussed its relevance to museums, and provided some practical advice for organizations interested in adopting the practice. In the third …
Teaching the World to Value Collections (while making some $$)

By Elizabeth Merritt

I hope you will join me later this month for a webinar exploring how museums can build income streams around their collections and win hearts and minds in the process. While the session is formally pitched at natural history research …
Toxic Philanthropy

By Elizabeth Merritt

We live in a time in which the public is hyper sensitive to the ethics of where money comes from, and where it goes. As I observed in TrendsWatch 2015, nonprofits don’t get a free pass in this era of soul-searching. Now the ethical …
Sustainable Investing: A Practical Guide for Museums – Part 2

By Anna Raginskaya

This is the second of a three-part series on sustainable investing. In part one, Anna Raginskaya, Financial Advisor, Blue Rider Group at Morgan Stanley reviewed the concept of sustainable investing and presented several reasons why museums …
Sustainable Investing: A Practical Guide for Museums – Part 1

By Anna Raginskaya

Earlier this year a guest post on this blog advocated for museums harnessing their endowments to mission-related goals through a financial practice known as impact investing. In today’s post, Anna Raginskaya, Financial Advisor, Blue Rider …
Sharing the Wealth: Museums as Equity Engines

By Elizabeth Merritt

Recently, I’ve been speaking of museums as banks—repositories of enormous wealth of reputation, knowledge, and influence, in addition to the sheer value of their endowments. I’ve advanced the thesis that by managing this wealth as a type …