Community Engagement
Cultures & Literacies Through Art for the 21st Century (CALTA21) is a dynamic online environment that helps empower adult immigrants and their families through collaborations with museums, institutions of higher education and literacy organizations.
Community + Museum: Guidelines for Collaboration
These guidelines were developed over a three-year period of collaboration between Native and non-Native museum professionals, cultural leaders and artists. The guidelines are intended as a resource for community members working in collaboration with museums.
Editable Cultural Equity Statement
Americans for the Arts shares their Cultural Equity Statement and provides downloadable resources to create one.
Engaging and Empowering New Immigrants through Art
The Center for the Future of Museums blog post from June 28, 2010 featured how The Nassau County Museum of Art used an IMLS grant to fund CALTA21, a model initiative bringing English language learning into the museum setting.
Interpreting Native American History and Culture
Interpreting Native American History and Culture at Museums and Historic Sites, available through Rowman & Littlefield, features ideas and suggested best practices for the staff and board of museums that care for collections of Native material culture, and who work with Native American culture, history, and communities.
A practical guide for both individual activists and organizations to learn more about Intersectionality and its principles, and to provide a selection of activities to explore practice around inclusiveness.
The National Park Service shares LGBTQ America: A Theme Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer History. Each chapter is written and peer-reviewed by experts in LGBTQ Studies.
Museums as Site of Social Action (MASS Action)
Created as a collaboration between the Minneapolis Institute of Art and practitioners across the museum field, MASS Action provides a space for action-oriented dialogues around equity and inclusion. It offers free, downloadable resources for building equity in the field, including an organizational readiness assessment and a comprehensive toolkit featuring insights on both theory and practice.
Next Practices in Diversity and Inclusion
The Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) presents Next Practices in Diversity and Inclusion, a collection of 51 submissions from AAMD members exploring a wide range of ways that art museums are striving to become more diverse and inclusive places, both inside and out.
Racial Equity Impact Assessment Toolkit
Race Forward, The Center for Racial Justice Innovation, created this website to shares its Racial Equity Impact Assessment (REIA). The REIA provides a systematic examination of how different racial and ethnic groups will likely be affected by a proposed action or decision.
This site offers tools, research, tips, curricula, and ideas for people who want to increase their own understanding and to help those working toward justice at every level – in systems, organizations, communities, and the culture at large.
In this September/October 2015 Museum magazine article, Day Al-Mohamed discusses the lack of representation for disability narratives. (PDF, 4 pages)
Institutional Planning
Cultural Competence Learning Institute (CCLI)
The Cultural Competence Learning Institute is a partnership between the Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose, the Association of Science and Technology Centers, the Association of Children’s Museums, and the Garibay Group that helps museums boost their organizational capacity around diversity, inclusion, and culture. The Institute focuses its tools and resources around three 21st-century skills that are essential to effective inclusion practice: Creativity and Innovation, Communication and Collaboration, and Global Awareness.
Information on Disability through the American Community Survey
The U.S. Census Bureau provides several tools to help communities and organizations determine the needs for disabled persons in their area.
Keynote Address by Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole
The Alliance shares this video of the General Session Keynote Address by Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole from the American Alliance of Museums 2015 annual meeting in Atlanta, GA.
Museums As Site of Social Action (MASS Action)
Created as a collaboration between the Minneapolis Institute of Art and practitioners across the museum field, MASS Action provides a space for action-oriented dialogues around equity and inclusion. It offers free, downloadable resources for building equity in the field, including an organizational readiness assessment and a comprehensive toolkit featuring insights on both theory and practice.
Museums & Society 2034: Trends and Potential Futures
The Center for the Future of Museums and Reach Advisors share this discussion paper from 2008 exploring the challenges society and museums face in the areas of demographic change, globalization, new forms of telecommunication, and the consumption of culture. (PDF, 20 pages)
Race Equity and Inclusion Action Guide
The Annie E. Casey Foundation shares this downloadable Race Equity and Inclusion Action Guide.
We Must Decolonize Our Museums
Recorded at TEDxDirigo in November 2016, Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko shares the urgency of museum decolonizing practices and offers three ways to approach the decolonization of museums.
Website Accessibility
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has developed a number of resources to help organizations develop more accessible websites.
Developing Accessible Websites
The University of Washington provides information about accessible websites.
These guidelines were implemented at the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.
Web Accessibility Guidelines Checklist
This checklist can help build accessibility into the website development process.
WebAIM shares this great resource to divers deep into technical accessibility.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has a Web Accessibility Initiative and numerous resources; including guidelines, quick tips, checklists, techniques, and training materials for making web content accessible.