Museums Can Change The World – American Alliance of Museums

Museums as First Responders: Museum of Homelessness

By Elizabeth Merritt

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed gaping holes in the systems that should shield communities from harm. Patching the frayed social safety net will require government, private, and non-profit sectors to work together, going beyond their …
#5WomenArtists Shaping Museum Practice

By Elizabeth Merritt

Museums are among the most trusted sources of information and can use that superpower of trust to nudge society towards preferred futures. Today on the blog, Amy Mannarino, Director of Communications and Marketing at the National Museum of …
Stone Soup

By Elizabeth Merritt

We’ve reached another milestone in the celebration of the Center for the Future of Museum’s first decade of work: the 10th anniversary of the CFM Blog. I think that the first post on the blog (published February 11, 2009) has …
A Role for Museums in the Urban Renaissance: Reviving Skills of Craftsmanship

By Elizabeth Merritt

One topic I’m researching now is how museums deploy their assets—tangible and intangible—to promote equity in their communities. In today’s guest post Erin Sheets and Russell Davidson tell us how the Albright-Knox Art Gallery used its …
Philanthropy in the Age of Scale: MacArthur Foundation 100&Change

By Elizabeth Merritt

Last year the MacArthur Foundation launched 100&Change—a competition for a $100 million grant to fund a single proposal to make measurable progress toward solving a significant problem. They invited proposals to address any critical …
When Leaders Won’t Lead: Taking Action on Climate Change

By Elizabeth Merritt

Museums can change the world, especially when they recruit their visitors to take action. When the Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site speaks out against mass incarceration, the B.B. King Museum fights for childhood health in …
Confronting the Trauma of War

By Elizabeth Merritt

I’m often challenged by people outside our field to convince them that museums aren’t just nice, but necessary–that museums can and do serve essential human needs. Providing healing, catharsis, reconciliation—I can’t think of …
Worldwide applause for museums and their role in addressing climate change!

By Elizabeth Merritt

I often rely on far-flung correspondents to cover events Alliance staff can’t attend. On learning that Sarah Sutton, former chair of the Alliance’s Green Professional Network, and principal of Sustainable Museums, recently relocated to …
Beyond Neutrality

By Elizabeth Merritt

In Season 2 Episode 2 of the Museum People podcast, New England Museums Association director Dan Yaeger argues that all museums should be social activists, describing the oft-voiced museum ambition of being “places to convene …
Museums and Migration

By Elizabeth Merritt

Mass migration, driven by conflict, oppression, political upheaval, climate change and economic distress, has been described as “the defining issue of this century.” As such, it is one of many critical issues that museums can address in …