Welcome to TrendsWatch, CFM’s annual forecasting report. This year the report looks at the trends museums must navigate in a complex future: the DEI backlash, changes in volunteerism, and digital vulnerabilities. Learn more about these issues and why they are as salient as ever in museum work today.

Members and Museum subscribers received TrendsWatch first, as the January/February 2025 issue of the magazine. Join today or renew your membership to receive future issues and access all member benefits.

In the report:

• Welcome to TrendsWatch
• The Next Era of Volunteerism: How can museums create equitable, accessible, and effective volunteer programs?
• Stop, Look, Think: How to manage digital vulnerabilities:  What risks are posed by our current reliance on digital storage, platforms, and tools? How can museums recognize and mitigate these vulnerabilities?
• Facing the DEI Backlash: How can museums serve their communities while avoiding culture war skirmishes? What can organizations do, individually and collectively, to continue to serve their communities in ways they feel are just, equitable, and appropriate?
• Short Take: Pulled in All Directions: In the past few years, the US has been wracked by conflicts over myriad values, actions, and causes. In the face of these challenges, museums can strive to reflect a civil, civic society.
• Trend Alert: An Artifact from the Future – the 990 of 2035: The majority of museums are nonprofit organizations filing a 990 with the IRS. Explore a hypothetical Form 990 from 2035, highlighting how museums’ income and expenditures may change in the coming decade.
• For Your Radar: “Managed Retreat” and “Targeted Universalism”: A brief guide to terms that may be popping up in your news feeds.

The format is designed to be practical and immediately actionable, providing a scaffold for discussions and decision-making by the museum’s staff, board, and stakeholders. Each chapter:

• Introduces the issue
• Suggests critical questions for museums
• Describes the challenge
• Summarizes how society, and museums, are responding
• Presents a framework for action
• Documents examples of museums tackling these issues
• Provides additional resources