Center for the Future of Museums Blog

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Investing for Impact in Every Way

By Adam Levine

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 …
Say Cheese! A Candid Snapshot of the Museum Sector

By Elizabeth Merritt

Last month AAM released the results of our fifth “snapshot” survey of the field. These snapshots, which started as a means of checking in on museums and museum workers during COVID shutdown, now help us track recovery and continued …
The Earnest Work of Dreaming: Chicanafuturism in Visual Art

By Jadira Gurulé

Visions of the future created by and centering the experiences of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC) are essential to our collective potential to transform the world as we know it. For decades, BIPOC artists working in …
How Museums Are Helping Americans Bridge Divides

By Kate Doak-Keszler

This year’s TrendsWatch shared a few stories of museums working to bridge the partisan divide, but my research for the report left me wanting more. In today’s guest post, Kate Doak-Keszler, Partnerships and Communications Director for the …
Call for Content! Repatriation, Restitution, and Reparative Practice

By Elizabeth Merritt

This year’s TrendsWatch report included a short piece about recent shifts in museum practice with regard to voluntary repatriation, restitution, and reparations. AAM’s Museum will delve into the topic more deeply in the November/December …
Techno-skepticism: Rethinking the Costs and Benefits of Digital Technology

By Elizabeth Merritt

The night before my flight to Denver for #AAM2023, I went over my slides for the annual presentation on TrendsWatch. The talk was formatted around the chapters of the latest report (access your free download here), but rather than simply …
At the Barnes Foundation, Internal Internships Support Frontline Staff

By Scarlett McCahill & Erica Simonitis

What can be even better than a museum making a successful hire? Keeping the experienced, well-trained staff it already has. The Alliance’s soon-to-be-released latest snapshot survey of our sector documents that half of museums are …
Supporting the Mental Health of Museum Staff

By Ann Fortescue

I’ve been in close communication with some of the museum directors using CFM resources—including TrendsWatch reports and the AAM Strategic Foresight Toolkit—to inform their planning and management. Today, Ann Fortescue, Executive Director …
Releasing TrendsWatch into the Wild

By Elizabeth Merritt

Heads up! The 2023 edition of CFM’s annual forecasting report is now available as a free PDF download. TrendsWatch: Building the Post-pandemic World explores how museums can emerge from the past three years better and stronger, using …
An Afrofuturist School Program Empowers Children to Envision the Future

By Nina Woodruff-Walker

Futurism is a powerful tool to share with kids—equipping them to think about the world they want to live in when they grow up, challenging them to make it better. Today on the blog, Executive Director Nina Woodruff-Walker tells us how the …