Center for the Future of Museums Blog

The Center for the Future of Museums Blog shares musings on the future of museums and society.

Get more resources from the Center for the Future of Museums.

Explore all Publications from the Alliance.

Explore the AAM Resource Library by topic, and further filter by subtopic or resource types to find what matters most to you!

What’s your wish for U.S.? turns history museums into future-imagining incubators

By Caroline Klibanoff and Adam Rozan

In 2021, history museums across the nation, working in collaboration with one another and with Gen Z-ers through Made By Us, generated an idea to link together Juneteenth and the Fourth of July in a new tradition – Civic Season. Civic …
EO Impacts and the Next Era of Museum Funding Part 2: Earned Income

By Elizabeth Merritt

This is the second installment in a series of essays exploring the impact of executive orders and actions on museum income streams. It summarizes what we know about the immediate, accumulating effect of these actions, as well as offering …
Staying True to Mission: Why JANM Spoke Out

By Ann Burroughs

As my colleagues and I catalogue the damage being done to our sector, we take heart from a small but growing cadre of museums taking principled positions in the face of attacks on their institutions and the communities they serve. In 2019, …
EO Impacts and the Next Era of Museum Funding: Part One

By Elizabeth Merritt

Earlier this month I gave a talk at the AAM Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo on the impact presidential executive orders are having on our sector, and the implications for museum business models. Short version: not pretty, some bright …
Sharing Snippets from AAM 2025

By Elizabeth Merritt

It was lovely to see over 4,000 of you in Los Angeles last week! I hope those of you who did attend share what you learned through conversation, social media, blog posts, presentations to colleagues, etc. etc. You can search #AAM2025 on …
Join Us, LIVE FROM LA!

By Elizabeth Merritt

The recent wave of grant cancellations and other funding disruptions mean that some museum people have had to cancel their plans to attend the AAM Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo this week. And I know that, even in the best in the best of …
Cultivating Optimism: Signals of Hope

By Elizabeth Merritt

I’ve been on a deep dive into the world of optimism lately, looking for inspiration I might share to bolster our collective mental resilience in the face of massive disruptions. As I suspected, research shows that cultivating optimism …
Revisiting Wild Times: The Loss of Nonprofit Status

By Elizabeth Merritt

In 2018 I published a scenario titled “Wild Times” set in a version of 2040 in which museums lost their nonprofit status due to a combination of political attacks, economic stress, and a global pandemic. At the time, I emphasized its …
Your Guide to the Future at AAM 2025

By Elizabeth Merritt

AAM’s annual meeting is a gigantic buffet of content, and I know from experience that navigating the offerings can be somewhat overwhelming. In this post I offer one specialized menu of sessions related to issues I’m watching with a …
TrendsWatch: Download, share, and go deeper

By Elizabeth Merritt

The 2025 edition of TrendsWatch, AAM’s annual forecasting report, is now available as a free PDF download! In this post I’ll tell you how to snag your copy and preview some opportunities to delve more deeply into this year’s topics, …