Championing Museums Together
From Stories to Action
Learn how to make a difference for museums everywhere
Museums are vital spaces for education, cultural exchange, and community connection. Advocacy ensures their continued growth and impact in an ever-changing world. Through shared stories, practical tools, and actionable strategies, MAAM empowers museum professionals and supporters to stand up for these essential institutions. Whether addressing funding challenges, advancing equity, or navigating sustainability, your voice can make a difference. Together, we can strengthen museums and amplify their role in shaping a better future.
Impact Statements
In order for policymakers and other stakeholders to support your museum, they need to understand the impact it has in your community. An impact statement is a concise, professional document that details the most significant contributions of your organization to the public.
Museums contribute $50 billion to the US economy annually and $12 billion in tax revenue. Understanding the economic impact of your institution is a critical step in effectively advocating for its needs. Creating an economic impact statement can be an effective way of presenting your museum as an economic asset and encouraging support through funding and legislation.
Museums are widely recognized by the public as important resources for bolstering local economies and as centers of community. The density of cultural centers has even been linked to better overall quality of life in American cities by Bloomberg Reports. Museums are also very highly trusted as educational institutions, and often partner with schools to teach state required curriculum in new and engaging ways. An educational impact statement can display this outreach and mission to legislators and other stakeholders.
State Museum Association Resources
Museum Advocacy Day
MAAM is a proud supporter of Museum Advocacy Day. Each year, the American Alliance of Museums hosts this event in Washington DC as an opportunity for museum professionals to show their representatives the value of their institutions. Workshops include understanding the Congressional spending process, making direct requests for funding, and grant opportunities. There is also an opportunity at the conference to travel to Capitol Hill and meet representatives in person.
Communicate with your Congressmen
Whether it be an in-person meeting, writing a letter, or extending an invitation to visit your museum, contacting elected officials is a powerful way to convey the significance of your institution and its needs. AAM Has numerous resources to help you effectively engage with your representatives.
Redefining Narrative
Redefining Narrative, a series of YouTube videos featuring leaders in the cultural sector whose ideas and initiatives change the way we work and plan for the future. This series of five videos features the voices of thought leaders in the cultural sector, followed by conversations between our featured speakers and MAAM Vice President Deborah Schwartz.
Redefining Narrative is a project created by the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums and funded in part by Humanities New York with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Find all five videos on our YouTube Channel here.
Programs, Collections, and Curatorial
Collections Sustainability Rubric
Collections stewardship is not an island and not the sole responsibility of the collections management and curatorial staff. An institution that is stable and sustainable is one in which collections management is seen and treated as an integral and strategic aspect of the museum’s educational mission; its management, organizational health, and governance; and maintaining its relevance to its communities. Collections management staff, management and leadership, and the governing authority must work together and with equal diligence to promote institutional sustainability.
Deaccessioning is part of the life-cycle of an institution and an appropriate collections management practice. Generally speaking, deaccessioning does not cause institutional failure. However, deaccessioning is often a symptom of institutional challenge if it is considered as a means to financially stabilize an institution.
When ethical practices in administration and collections management are overlooked and when the necessary human and financial resources and support for collections and their management are neglected, sustainability is at risk.
The Collections Sustainability Rubric is an assessment tool to help you:
- gauge the health of your institution and stability of its collections
- self-check if your museum is going down a pathway towards a crisis that could lead to a decision to improperly deaccession collections