Advocacy

Choosing Roles: Facilitator or Advocate?

By Elizabeth Merritt

Would you rather be loved, or would you rather save the world? You can’t necessarily have both. I pondered this choice, as it applies to museums, yesterday morning at the last half day of the 21st Century Learning in Natural History …
Advocacy Day 2027: museums fight to regain nonprofit status

By Elizabeth Merritt

I looked across the table at the poised young woman politely scanning the figures I had pulled up on the airscreen between us. “Ms. Guerrera,” I said, palms sweating, “as you can see, in the ten years since the Federal Government withdrew …
Civic Duty Calls

By Elizabeth Merritt

In this blog post, AAM Director of Government Relations and Advocacy Gail Ravnitzky Silberglied explores why advocacy—like voting, jury service, and paying taxes—is a civic duty that furthers our nation’s democracy and prepares us and our …
The Backward ABC’s of Museum Data

By Elizabeth Merritt

This week’s blog post comes from Philip M. Katz, assistant director for research at AAM. This was going to be an essay about the power of museum financial and operating data—robust, reliable numbers that can help museums plan for the …
Your Secret Weapon: Your Board

By Gail Ravnitzky Silberglied

This article originally appeared in the May/June 2011 edition of Museum magazine. Advocacy directed at elected officials is very much like the work you do to cultivate donors and engage the public. It’s all about pairing the most …
Advocacy Day 2026

By Elizabeth Merritt

“’Lizbeth! You’re going to miss our Advocacy Day appointment!” “Damn, is that now?! I thought we were down for 10:30.” “We were…they just pinged us, pushing it up a half hour.” “Of course they did. When will I learn?” Dashing into the …
Museums as Community Catalysts: Museum of Northern Arizona

By Elizabeth Merritt

Many museums aspire to be “conveners,” “dialog centers” and “safe places for conversation.” So it’s nice to be able to share stories of museums living up to this aspiration. This week the Museum of Northern Arizona provided a forum this …
A Clear View: The Case for Museum Transparency

By Maxwell L. Anderson

This article originally appeared in the March/April 2010 edition of the Museum magazine. Museums continue to operate largely as we always have, with minimal regulatory oversight of the kind routinely accorded institutions of higher …