Reopenings: What Museums Learned Leading Through Crisis
Over the past several years, museums have faced widespread and systemic challenges that have fundamentally changed the way our institutions serve their communities. We’re pleased to share the release of Reopenings: What Museums …
Reflection
Do museums have the power to change the world? Many people who work in the field believe so—that their institutions improve people’s wellbeing and strengthen, or at the very least contribute to, the social fabric of their …
Elevating Sustainability Efforts in Museum Dining Operations
As museums encourage visitors to learn and think about what is possible, sustainability is no longer a behind-the-scenes activity. Beyond LEED-certified buildings and facilities operations, sustainability initiatives are taking center …
How a South Carolina Library Became a Model of Social Impact Innovation
“Bad libraries build collections. Good libraries build services. Great libraries build communities.” —R. David Lankes – Professor and Director of the School of Library & Information Science at the University …
Museums Discover Impact Investing
CFM first flagged impact investing as a trend of significance to museums in 2013, inspired by a talk Seth Miller gave at SXSW in which he declared that “every time you spend a dollar, you are creating the world you live in.” Impact …
Blues on the Block: Connecting Communities through Live Music, Rhythm, and Public Health
The National Blues Museum was one of ninety-one museums, libraries, and cultural or tribal organizations that leveraged their position as trusted community partners to help bolster vaccine confidence in their communities as part of …
Measuring Social Impact for Strategic Change
Compared to economic and educational impact, social impact is elusive and challenging to measure. The Measurement of Museum Social Impact (MOMSI) project is working to create a valid instrument museums can use to measure their own social …
Why I’m Going to Boston
“It’s so good to see you!” How much new meaning has that simple phrase taken on over the last two years? Last September I attended my only in-person conference since the beginning of the pandemic (the AASLH Annual Meeting in Little Rock, …
Bolstering Vaccine Confidence
Pensacola MESS Hall met the community where it was to demonstrate the power of her…
How a Rapid-Response Pop-Up Inspired New Notions of Audience and Community
The events of 2020 and 2021 forced museums to innovate in ways and at a speed that would have been unthinkable prior. Our hope is that 2022 brings about a time of reflection, where we take the time to process what we created under …
