Skip to content

Posts

Steering Your Museum’s Search for a Volunteer Management System

This tipsheet was developed by Elisa Kosarin, CVA, a Volunteer Engagement Specialist at TwentyHats, and Abbey Earich, Lead Volunteer Coordinator for the Smithsonian Office of Visitor …

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

Courier Training Workshop

Event Date:
Presented by: Association of Registrars and Collections Specialists (ARCS)
Portland, OR
View All Events

Latest Stories from AAM

#AAM2023 Keynote: Gregg Deal

Category: Annual Meeting
Gregg Deal (Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe) took the stage as the 2023 AAM Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo keynote speaker. Deal is a multi-disciplinary artist, activist, and “disruptor.” His …

Empathy Interviews: A Tool for Museums to Understand the Feelings and Experiences of Others

Category: Alliance Blog
Imagine sitting down with local community members and hearing stories about the places they feel they can show up as their most authentic selves, or where and how they have learned …

Techno-skepticism: Rethinking the Costs and Benefits of Digital Technology

Category: Center for the Future Of Museums Blog
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 …

Subscribe to Field Notes!

Packed with stories and insights for museum people, Field Notes is delivered to your inbox every Monday. Once you've completed the form below, confirm your subscription in the email sent to you.

If you are a current AAM member, please sign-up using the email address associated with your account.

Are you a museum professional?

Are you a current AAM member?

Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription, and please add communications@aam-us.org to your safe sender list.