Research and Reports

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Museums as Economic Engines

By Robert Stein

Museums play an essential role in cultural and social life across the US. They tell our stories, preserve our heritage, interpret the past, and explore the future. In this way, museums enrich our lives daily—feeding a hunger for knowledge …
Building the Future of Education

By Cecelia Walls

The Building the Future of Education report summarizes the content and shares ideas coming out of a convening organized in September, 2013 by the Alliance and The Henry Ford. Essays by educators, students, researchers, and reformers …
Stand for Your Mission

By Robert Stein

Every nonprofit has its own unique history, culture, and mission, and, therefore, its own view regarding advocacy. But, no matter where you are on the continuum—from doing no advocacy to doing a lot—the path toward greater impact through …
Building the Future of Education

By Elizabeth Merritt

Click to Download the Report In September 2013, over four dozen educational policy experts, practitioners, funders, education innovators, reformers, student activists and others shaping the conversation about U.S. education converged on …
TrendsWatch 2013: Back to the Future

By Cecelia Walls

TrendsWatch 2013 highlights six trends that CFM’s staff and advisors believe are highly significant to museums and their communities, based on our scanning and analysis over the past year. For each trend, we provide a brief summary, list …
Exploring the Educational Future

By Cecelia Walls

This article by CFM director Elizabeth Merritt includes a short scenario of the future titled “A Learning Day 2037” that dramatizes one potential future of learning through the story of Moya, a young girl growing up in a walled community …
TrendsWatch 2012: Museums and the Pulse of the Future

By Cecelia Walls

TrendsWatch 2012 highlights seven trends that CFM’s staff and advisors believe are highly significant to museums and their communities, based on our scanning and analysis over the past year. For each trend, we provide a summary, list …
On the Horizon: Building the Future of Education

By Cecelia Walls

On the Horizon: Building the Future of Education (PDF, 9 pages). This paper, co-authored by CFM director Elizabeth Merritt and Scott Kratz, vice president for education at the National Building Museum, provides an overview of educational …
Tomorrow in the Golden State A Guide for Forecasting and Planning Museums and the Future of California

By Cecelia Walls

This guide builds on the results of a working session, “Forecasting the Future of California Museums,” held in Los Angeles on May 25, 2010 at the annual meeting of the American Alliance of Museums (AAM, formerly the American Association of …
Demographic Transformation and the Future of Museums

By American Alliance of Museums

Commissioned from the Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago, Demographic Transformation and the Future of Museums explores the majority-minority future of America and issues a call to action for museums to better serve their …