Posts
Volunteers
Yes, I’m a Real Person! Adapting Your Volunteer Program during Instability
This is a recorded session from the 2021 AAM Virtual Annual Meeting and MuseumExpo. As it cautiously reopened after closing for COVID-19, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum …
Volunteers Want to Give: How to Respectfully Cultivate Donors from Your Corps
If you ask museum leaders, their advancement teams, and volunteer program staff about cultivating volunteers as donors, you’re likely to get a mix of reactions, ranging from enthusiasm to …
The Top Ten Alliance Blog Posts of 2021
Though 2021 was a slightly more normal year than 2020, with mostly open museums gradually regaining visitors, the pandemic still loomed large and colored most conversations. On the Alliance …
Museums and Equity: Volunteers
Note: this post is adapted from a post originally published on the CFM blog in 2019. 42% male 22% African American, Asian, or Hispanic/Latino ethnicity 66% under the age of 55 49% with less …
Let’s Make a Match: Museum Volunteers
This is a recorded session from the 2020 AAM Virtual Annual Meeting and MuseumExpo. Learn how an effective application process prevents onboarding volunteers who are not a good fit for your …
Inside The Smithsonian National Air And Space Museum’s Virtual Docent Program
Since July 2020, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, an adjunct of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM), has dispatched virtual docents to guide and interact with visitors …
Supporting Your Volunteer Program through Risk Management and More
Since the release of the Designing a Museum Volunteer Program toolkit, museum professionals have faced many upheavals in the past year and a half, all while managing their museums …
How a New Era of Volunteer Programs Is Embracing Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion
One of the most powerful ways for the public to engage with museums is not as visitors. It’s as volunteers. Here’s why: the volunteer experience is direct and immediate. Volunteers spend …
Recruiting, Selecting and Placing Museum Volunteers
This recorded webinar addresses key elements of recruiting, selecting, and placing volunteers, from resources and strategies for articulating the benefits of volunteering and recruiting for …
Upcoming Events
2023 AAM Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo
Event Date:
Presented by:
American Alliance of Museums
Denver, CO
Latest Stories from AAM
Museum Colleague Shoutouts for 2023
Category:
Alliance Blog
Last month we asked readers of our Field Notes newsletter to share their shoutouts for outstanding museum colleagues in honor of the new year. Here were some of the responses they shared: …
Chatting About Museums with ChatGPT
Category:
Center for the Future Of Museums Blog
Two months ago, the research and development lab OpenAI released ChatGPT, an interactive “chatbot” powered by artificial intelligence. Chatbots aren’t new (I’ve been writing about …
Different by Design: A New, Inclusive Framework for Accessible Museum Exhibitions
Category:
Alliance Blog
In January 2020, I authored a post for the Alliance Blog about speechless: different by design, an exhibition that I curated for the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) and the High Museum of Art in …