2023 AAM Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo Program

The session will cover a range of effective marketing tactics, including leveraging social media platforms, creating compelling content, optimizing email campaigns, and utilizing targeted advertising. Attendees will gain valuable insights on how to attract new visitors and keep current ones engaged, ultimately leading to increased attendance and revenue. Don't miss out on this opportunity to learn from an industry expert and take your museum's marketing efforts to the next level.

Explore how an online collections portal can be a platform for sharing the stories of individuals, as well as weaving narratives to address broader societal issues. Continue conversations inspired by in-person exhibitions online--introducing ideas and concepts, supported by artifacts and artworks, to a broad global audience.

Have you experienced the difference of a space with lights vs an environment that is illuminated exuding a mood and one of a kind guest experience. We observe a panting, then paint it with light finding the correct tools to meet the requirements. Track and heads are the paint used to illuminate spaces… but how you illuminate the environment… that’s the art of Lighting Design. See real examples on how to illuminate your spaces.

Vision Solutions AR will present a case study of the use of its Museum Vision augmented reality (AR) platform to create a digital self-guided tour for the Hindenburg Museum in Lakehurst, NJ. The presentation will show how the cost-effective, customizable platform was used to create an innovative visitor experience, supplementing the museum’s physical displays with digital content that included virtual video screens, icons, text and 3D objects throughout the physical museum space. Museum Vision AR allows museum staff to modify AR content using an easy-to-use, web-based portal so as to enable dynamic content that can be periodically changed without requiring expensive custom solutions. The highlight of the AR tour is the full-size 3D Hindenburg model displayed in both the historical airship hangar and suspended over the location of the crash site.

Description: Collections and loans are vital to every museum. But do you know how they are insured? How would the museum’s insurance policy respond in the event of a fire or pipe break? What if the museum does not have a full appraisal of its collections? In this session, learn what questions to ask in order to understand how your museum’s policy would cover losses to your collections and temporary loans. The presentation will review collection insurance essentials in ten easy questions. The Top Ten Questions will help you easily spot possible collection insurance shortfalls both for your institution and when loaning your collections out to other museums. Once addressed, you will be able to rest assured knowing that your museum’s collections are properly insured.

The social and environmental reckonings of recent years have caused immense shifts in how museums think about their buildings, visitors, and communities. Join HGA’s museum design and research experts for an overview of how architects, designers, and research anthropologists are responding to the most pressing issues museum face today. We’ll provide high level overviews of some of the most cutting-edge strategies museums can use to harness their buildings to combat climate change, address shifting visitor service expectations, and promote equity and diversity throughout their staff and communities. Q&A to follow.

Social media, paid digital, keyword, analytics, ticketing platform, membership CRM, local advertising, emails–the list never ends! Making sense of all of the different sales channels and marketing platforms is enough to make any marketer cry. It’s time to take control and leverage your data to discover what’s really driving results! In this session, you will learn strategies to unleash the full power of your data and sculpt your own thriving Marketing Ecosystem.

Join Smith + Howard and museum financial leaders on May 20 for an informative session on navigating the employee retention credit. Presented by Nicole Davis, expert on the Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERC), this session will provide practical guidance on how your museum can benefit from the Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERC). Learn the latest updates on the ERC and discover how to unlock the power of the credit to your museum's advantage. Our practical strategies and expert advice will help you navigate the complex landscape of the tax credit incentive while staying compliant with regulations.

Don't miss this opportunity to learn how to unlock the power of the Employee Retention Tax Credit for your museum's success.

Discover how museums can harness the transformative power of Art Therapy to enhance mental well-being for their communities, staff, and visitors. Join Heidi Bardot, Director of the Art Therapy Program at George Washington University, as she shares innovative methods to showcase art's therapeutic and healing benefits. Learn diverse strategies to seamlessly incorporate Art Therapy into your museum's exhibitions and visitor experience. Don't miss this engaging session by the .ART Registry, fostering a crucial conversation on mental health support through the Art Therapy Initiative.

Museums play a critical role in providing educational opportunities that go beyond the traditional classroom. In this session, we will explore how museums are partnering with local communities and schools to create innovative and effective education programs. From hands-on science workshops to interactive history exhibits, museums are uniquely positioned to provide engaging and immersive learning experiences for students of all ages. Through case studies and examples, we will highlight the ways in which museums assist schools as educational partners and how these partnerships are benefiting both museums and their communities. Join us to discover how museums can be powerful agents of change in education and how you can create your own successful museum-school-community partnerships.

Visit more than 200 exhibits showcasing a wide range of museum-related products and services. This popular reception includes a complimentary lunch light

Social media, paid digital, keyword, analytics, ticketing platform, membership CRM, local advertising, emails–the list never ends! Making sense of all of the different sales channels and marketing platforms is enough to make any marketer cry. It’s time to take control and leverage your data to discover what’s really driving results! In this session, you will learn strategies to unleash the full power of your data and sculpt your own thriving Marketing Ecosystem.

Blackbaud is here to maximize your impact! Purpose-built for general admission cultural organizations,?Blackbaud Altru™?is a comprehensive ticketing, fundraising, and membership management solution that empowers organizations to raise more for their mission. In this session, Blackbaud staff will give a preview of recently released updates and highlight things we’re most excited about in 2023. Intended for both prospective and current customers, ample time will be saved for Q&A. Join us to discover ways our technology is evolving to help you work more efficiently and empower your team to raise more money.

Many institutions have established DEI goals for their employee benefits programs, but measuring success poses a complex challenge. This panel will explore using data to inspect that benefits—specifically, retirement plan benefits—are being equitably and optimally utilized by all employees. Join us for a discussion on practical applications to help your institution overcome underutilization and common challenges as you advance your DEI initiatives and help #RetireInequality.

In 2023, cultural institutions are seeking innovative ways to reach new audiences and redefine the museum experience. Harnessing the power of AWS technology, The Barnes Foundation, an AWS Imagine Grant award winner, has pioneered a first-of-its-kind online learning platform that transcends geographical boundaries and enables global access to their renowned collection and educational resources. Join us for a Fireside Chat as we explore how your organization can leverage cloud technology to expand access, increase engagement, and drive revenue by delivering digital content and insight-driven communications to a worldwide audience of students, patrons, and members.

There is a complex interplay between cognitive and emotional pathways that can be applied to create a deeper connection with audiences. Real audience engagement requires more than a 'sugar hit' to the visual cortex. Join the experiential design and technology team from Art Processors to hear about the development of experiences that resonate deeply with audiences. Learn about immersion, storytelling, and the application of cutting-edge technologies. Examples of meaningful cultural experiences that explore the emotional relationship between people, place and authentic narratives will be shared.

As we enter the age of exponential digital transformation, rapidly developing technologies and new innovations present far greater challenges for museums and cultural institutions. Join us in this strategic educational session as we explore how museums can use digital transformation strategies and frameworks to identify unique opportunities, build community, cultivate influence, and create personalized, educational and memorable experiences.

Regardless of museum, exhibition lighting has a key role to play in the visitor experience. Whether that be appreciation of classical artwork, engaging with contemporary issues through photography, or learning about our history and culture through artifacts, light is a crucial component of the exhibit design. While each application is different, the basic tenets of lighting design help guide and define the process. This session will address how ambient, focus, and brilliance lighting are used to address the key concerns of accessibility, conservation, and engagement. Through the use of project images attendees will gain a better understanding of how to leverage improved lighting in their museums’ visitor experience.

By now, most of us know that websites should be accessible to all users—but what makes a museum’s website truly accessible? Digital accessibility entails much more than adding alternative text, for example. Review real museum websites (including yours if you’re up to it!) and go through a step-by-step process of how to find and resolve common issues.

Learn how a Smithsonian museum engaged with experts to develop toolkits that help students address disconnection, disempowerment, and discouragement. Engage in mindfulness and journaling activities and hear reflections from art therapists, museum partners, and teachers who contributed to the toolkits’ development. Reflect on how might we adapt national conversations about students’ mental health to urban and rural classrooms and the role museums might play.

Consultation between museums and Native Nations is the foundation of successful Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) implementation. But decades after NAGPRA’s passage, and with new regulations pending, there is still confusion about consultation requirements and procedures. In this session, facilitators will demystify NAGPRA consultation through four topic areas. Walk away feeling empowered to initiate consultation and move toward improved compliance.

What are the benefits of intentional intergenerational programs and activities that support young people and older adults? Presenters from the Denver Art Museum and LinkAGES, an organization that supports raising awareness of the power of intergenerational connections, will discuss how such exchanges can be used to enrich museum interactions and deepen audience engagement.

After three years of COVID, mid- and senior-level leaders may feel tired, discouraged, and lonely. Join a panel of empathetic, creative leaders as they share perspectives on leading up, down, and across at this moment, and discuss challenges that may present themselves now and next. Then ask your own burning questions and help other audience members ponder new insights.

At this session, you’ll be taken through the process of creating a strategic annual development plan, the document every nonprofit organization should have to identify how much money it needs to raise and how it will successfully secure those resources. Explore the various topics and questions that this plan should address.

There is no one way for museums to approach community engagement, but there is a new framework: Restorative History. Created by the Center for Restorative History at the National Museum of American History, the framework utilizes restorative justice principles to identify who has been harmed, their needs, and our obligations. Guided by this framework, join a roundtable to listen, reflect, and enact.

In the field of educational learning and teacher training, there is a concept called “critical friends.” This professional development technique centers on the idea that one way to grow professionally is to seek assistance—through critique, analysis, and group thinking—around an issue, project, or approach. See a model of this work, and explore what it might look like to be a critical friend to AAM.

In this session, the Gates Foundation Discovery Center team will share their unique experience of presenting a COVID-19 exhibition that focused on first-person storytelling with a community-driven narrative. This in-person and online experience created a forum for connection, empathy, and healing. Hear the lessons learned from a project centered a dialogic process between storytellers, institution, and audience.

Interested in learning how digital-touch labeling can deepen interpretation, enhance visitor engagement with objects, and streamline the label-editing process? In this session, staff of the North Carolina Museum of Art will discuss how they created an expandable digital-touch labeling platform for on-site galleries in one year. Hear best practices for implementing touch interactives of any kind into exhibition spaces.

Since spring 2020, homeschool numbers have doubled. This rapidly growing audience is also becoming increasingly diverse. Representatives from four museums will discuss how they serve their local homeschool communities by developing a variety of programmatic options. Understand why it is essential to serve this growing population of learners and how the relationship can be mutually beneficial.

Every museum wants to increase representation and promote diversity, equity, access, and inclusion—but how can we do this when our exhibitions are about, say, 75-million-year-old fossil shells? Based on a recent case study at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, this interactive session will provide suggestions for elevating community and DEAI principles in any kind of exhibition, especially one whose content may not seem relevant to today's crucial issues.

Museum leaders nationwide set out to develop best practices for museums with Native American collections. Using AAM’s Core Standards, the new document will set forth recommendations for all museums holding Native collections and working to integrate Native people, goals, and values into their institutional culture. This session provides examples of implementation strategies for the Core Standards and practical guidance for participants.

Learners of all ages benefit from conversations around race and ethnicity, yet these topics are being challenged in formal education in Texas. In San Antonio, The DoSeum and the Witte Museum recently opened exhibitions tackling these subjects. In this interactive session, hear about their experiences, and develop a road map for creating social and community impact through exhibitions and programs.

Research shows that relationships are built from everyday interactions. Reflecting on these interactions can build intention around the work that we do and cultivate appreciation for our relationships. As the culmination of a three-year IMLS-funded project, this workshop distills a large body of research into simple, practical strategies that individuals and organizations can use to strengthen human interactions.

Museums excel at measuring economic and educational impact, while social impact tends to be more elusive. The Measurement of Museum Social Impact study is working to establish best practices for measuring social impact within museums. During this roundtable, reflect upon your museum’s social impact, and consider how it could use the new social impact toolkit and data.

How can we stop accepting cultural appropriation and instead encourage cultural appreciation? What are ways that museum professionals, artists, and designers can learn with Indigenous objects while honoring the peoples, histories, and knowledge systems that created those objects? In this workshop, participate in hands-on activities with textiles and explore both clear examples of cultural appropriation and more nuanced case studies.

Community science increases equitable participation in science, engages communities in research that affects them, and enhances understanding and support for the process of science. Museums can go from curators to creators of scientific knowledge by facilitating data collection and analysis in the community. Join a dialogue about our role in moderating the interaction between community members and scientists.

Games and game design can unlock powerful ways for museum educators to engage people in interactive STEAM learning experiences and help build critical skills such as collaboration, systems thinking, creative problem-solving, and design thinking. Get an introduction to the Games for Change curriculum, which helps museum educators integrate game design for social impact into their programs.

Change-resistant museums that hesitate to take a stand against racism, decolonize their collections, or admit institutional accountability risk being left behind by younger generations, especially Gen Z. At this roundtable, emerging museum professionals will share their experiences of dealing with the challenges inherent in confronting museums’ racist pasts, dismantling damaging narratives, and respectfully communicating with a disgruntled public.

What challenges do you share with your international colleagues? Shifts in demographics and national leadership, destruction of cultural and natural heritage, and increasing socioeconomic disparity affect the sustainability of museums worldwide. Join members of the ICOM-US Board as they discuss issues raised during 2022 and how international collaborations might creatively solve problems.

In 2019, the Intrepid Museum and New York University Ability Project brought together staff of historic sites, disability advocates, and experts in historic preservation and museum accessibility to address how to remove barriers to multisensory interpretation. Presenters representing each of these groups will share key takeaways from the project, available in a digital toolkit, and their perspectives on this work.

Engaging diverse outside experts as advisors can powerfully shape exhibitions and programs and lead to institutional transformation. But what is needed to recruit advisors, structure these conversations, and act upon advisory committees’ guidance? Gather to discuss common experiences and challenges of working with advisory committees, as well as the opportunities they present for deep institutional change.

Cultural institutions are often quick to celebrate any progress toward racial equity while struggling to reflect on potential barriers. Museums & Race, a group of cultural workers committed to truth before reconciliation, has learned that organizations must start by naming the behaviors, policies, environments, and systems that keep them from moving forward. This session will focus on fostering honest dialogue and taking the next steps.

Museums must reimagine our relationships with our communities and prioritize the teaching and sharing of civic values. To develop a civic strategy, a museum must examine its institutional values, interpretive content and plan, and current and desired relationship with its community. Presenting several case studies, this workshop will investigate what a strategic approach to civic learning and engagement can look like.

You can’t manage what you can’t measure. For the first time, a group of researchers is measuring energy use in museums, zoos, aquariums, gardens, and historic sites nationally. This session will share the process, findings, and recommendations, and suggest ways for museums to measure their own carbon footprint and create plans for resilience.

Explore how museums are pioneering digital earned revenue models, leveraging digital strategies such as nonfungible tokens (NFTs), and cultivating a pathway for millennials to become next-generation donors. This session will reveal how innovative institutions are using NFTs and digital engagement tools to strengthen relationships with their audiences and contribute to more sustainable funding models.

How can museums support community well-being by addressing the needs of healthcare workers? In partnership with the Brooklyn Museum, the Arts in Medicine Program at NYC Health + Hospitals has been providing opportunities for staff to reduce stress and connect with one another. This workshop will discuss how the partnership has given hospital staff a calm and empathetic space for self-care.

At the Denver Art Museum, collaborations between the director, curators, and fundraising colleagues underscore institutional priorities that focus on the collections, strengthening their relevance among Denver’s diverse population. During this session, discover how the museum expanded historic collections through acquisitions and gifts of contemporary art, infusing present-day voices into exhibitions and programs and expanding opportunities for discourse and engagement.

The docent model that has underpinned art museum education for nearly a century no longer aligns with our evolving educational missions, values, and communities. While volunteers will always be a cornerstone of the museum field, it is time to reimagine gallery engagement. Four museum professionals will examine major shifts that are influencing museums’ decision to move from docent corps to alternative models.

Aquariums and zoos play unique and powerful roles in promoting climate solutions. On Earth Day 2022, the Aquarium Conservation Partnership announced a joint commitment that set ambitious goals for reaching climate neutrality. In this session, a diverse group of aquarium leaders will share their efforts to go beyond talking about climate change by implementing bold steps to mitigate it.

Both top-down hierarchies and grassroots organizing tactics demonstrate a unilateral approach to systems change work within museums. Neither is truly effective or sustainable when working toward diversity, equity, accessibility, or inclusion. This workshop will show that working unilaterally serves only to further empower traditional hierarchical systems of communication and will highlight the benefits of a multilateral approach to systems change work.

In this session, join discussion tables focused on three main topics of AAM’s 2023 TrendsWatch report: the post-pandemic workforce, the digital ®evolution, and the partisan divide. Attending the TrendsWatch session immediately preceding this roundtable and/or reading “TrendsWatch 2023: Building the Post-pandemic World” is strongly recommended.

This is a critical time for museum people to apply a foresight lens to thinking about the future. How can museums navigate the changing digital landscape, build their workforce while creating more equitable labor practices, and foster tolerance to strengthen democracy? Join AAM’s Center for the Future of Museums to explore key decisions that face our sector as our country and communities rebound.

The audience experience involves every museum staff member and takes place before, during, after, and even without a visit. Leaders of professional networks inside AAM (PRAM) and outside (Visitor Experience Group and the International Audience Engagement Network) will highlight fresh ideas—from simple and unique to groundbreaking and bold—used at institutions to engage diverse audiences.

Get your game on with pub-style trivia on the theme of accessibility and disability inclusion at cultural organizations! At this session hosted by staff from Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Turnstile Studio, teams will respond to three rounds of questions with increasing levels of difficulty, and hosts will review answers in an engaging talk show format.

The fallout of the pandemic, increasing anxiety about the climate, and political polarization have caused unprecedented crises of learning and mental health among youth. In this workshop, explore how museums can leverage the learning science and power of play to heal our communities and nurture educators, young people, and their families.

Resources squandered, stakeholders alienated, deadlines missed: we admit our biggest blunders and share what we learned from them. A fast-paced, crowdsourced contest will award the AAM Epic Failure Trophy of 2023 to the most honest person in the room—because admitting your mistakes is the first step in learning from them.

Climate change and environmental disasters are two of the most far-reaching threats to public life. A recent survey asked 180 U.S. art museum directors about their organizations’ creative responses to the need for environmental disaster preparedness and civic engagement. Review key findings from the survey, including the ways in which many museums have already taken action.

The pandemic and social justice movements such as Black Lives Matter have led to increased innovation and activism over the past few years. Cultural organizations are reenvisioning how they can collaborate with their communities to become stronger together. Explore innovative approaches that three organizations have implemented to further long-term community collaboration.

Partnerships with groups historically excluded from museum spaces are often problematic due to existing power structures, cultural ideologies, and systemic barriers. In this session, representatives from the Clyfford Still Museum and the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation investigate how museums can build community using their collections as a springboard for authentic connection, communication, and action.

In this session, authors of the Mellon Foundation’s 2022 Art Museum Staff Demographic Survey will present findings that analyze the demographics of 328 museums in North America. The results shed light on the trajectory of demographics in the field, the impact of the pandemic on staffing, and the relationship between the perspectives and attitudes of museum directors and the composition of their staffs.

Museums naturally want to help when their communities are hurting—but how? This session will examine how the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery worked in partnership with mental health experts to help its community respond to the mental health crisis. Come away with actionable steps to support the mental well-being of your own organization’s community.

As the country faces historic inflation, low-wage workers are facing extremely challenging financial conditions. In this session, presenters will analyze existing literature regarding pay equity, labor organizing, and basic staff needs along with data gathered from the 2022 Art Museum Director Survey and Art Museum Staff Demographic Survey. Findings show an urgent need for museum leaders to systematically address low wages in their institutions.

Born-digital works comprise a growing collecting area for museums, archives, and historical societies. Many institutions are not equipped to preserve born-digital collections for the long-term. Maintenance Culture was developed in response to this need. Through the Maintenance Culture guidelines and curriculum, learn practical steps to collect and maintain works like digital design, time-based media art, augmented reality, and net art.

What happens when a hip-hop artist and a gamer become curators at an Islamic art, culture, and design museum? How could these pop culture practitioners and mediums enrich museum curation and public engagement? The case studies presented in this session explore the unconventional use of social media and hip-hop education techniques to create an expanding network of user experiences and social practice.

Those tasked with Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) compliance often have to learn on the job, essentially reinventing the wheel and placing undue burden on tribal partners. Find out how the staff of one center set a new course for NAGPRA compliance by taking several steps to organize and formalize the process.

How can we make art museums more sustainable? Get pointers from staff of the Denver Art Museum, one of the first museums to be selected for the Frankenthaler Grant for Energy Improvement. Hear what they’ve accomplished, and exchange ideas on how to improve facilities for the protection of both art and audiences.

Many individuals and businesses can benefit from NFTs, but recent headlines and hype have all but overshadowed this. The reality is that NFTs are far more than just a way to create digital art. In this interactive session, discover how digital collectibles can allow museums to think outside of physical parameters and further their missions in ways they never thought possible.

With IMLS funding, the Measurement of Museum Social Impact study has spent months working with museums across the U.S. to validate a social impact instrument. Hear the study’s goals and how they’ve been achieved. Then learn about results from the social impact survey and how three participating museums intend to use the findings.

Many museums are already doing amazing sustainability work and highlighting its importance to guests. However, other museums are still early in their sustainability journeys. Getting started can be daunting and difficult, especially with limited resources and support. In a game show style, this engaging, rapid-fire session will showcase sustainability ideas from museums across the country.

Mixed reality is an exciting emerging platform capable of dynamic storytelling, but its implementation is often antithetical to the museum experience. In 2021, the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) opened Revealing Krishna, incorporating a mixed reality experience into the center of a scholarly exhibition communicating complex stories of provenance, conservation, and international collaboration. Though successful – garnering the all-time highest experience rating of any CMA exhibition - the CMA team will share learnings, outcomes, and what we would have done differently, providing a detailed roadmap for seamless incorporation of a mixed-reality experience. This presentation will touch on every aspect of the production process, from concepting and design through implementation and management, with a focus on CMA's partnership with Prime Access Consulting (PAC) around how museums can and should integrate inclusive design and accessibility considerations at each step, and what future experiences should consider to produce a welcoming experience for the widest possible audience.

This roundtable discussion will pull back the curtain on traveling exhibitions, providing an accessible format to share questions, challenges, or observations with a group of veteran practitioners. Hear from a diverse cross-section of experienced traveling exhibition enthusiasts, largely focusing on operations, logistics, and expectations from the points of view of traveling institutions, host institutions, and contractors.

Whether constructing a new building, growing your endowment, or simply raising money for a program, campaigns are complex endeavors. Even the most organized campaigns can put staff, trustees, and volunteers to the test. Join the San Diego Museum of Art and CCS Fundraising as they share the museum’s journey to launch its first capital campaign in over 40 years.

Ensuring a minimal carbon footprint and planning offset needs for a traveling exhibition doesn’t start at the loading dock. It starts months (or even years!) earlier, at the exhibition designer’s desk. Join this session to hear fascinating case studies and walk away with clear and concrete strategies to minimize transit costs, reduce handling and repairs, and plan for carbon offset needs.

The field is increasingly realizing that embracing and highlighting sustainability, in both operations and messaging, will be critical for the growth and welfare of our institutions and our communities. Based on the success of last year’s “60 Sustainability Ideas in 60 Minutes,” “Deep Dives” will explore 12 sustainability initiatives from museums across the U.S. and how to implement them.

The Promise was a research and art-making program that facilitated collective healing and creative expression for members of the Black community in Louisville, KY, who have been affected by gun violence. Hear how the program grew out of the Speed Art Museum’s 2021 exhibition Promise, Witness, Remembrance, which reflected on the life and murder of Breonna Taylor.

The Emerging Technology Demo, a new feature to the annual meeting, provides an opportunity to learn about some user-friendly web-based digital platforms utilizing blockchain and Web3 technology to increase accessibility to museum collections and to facilitate community while creating an additional revenue stream for museums. Find out how they enable museums to create digital collectibles, publish and monetize them as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), certify their provenance and authenticity through the security of the internet and blockchain technology, and engage new audiences. Join us for a facilitated conversation and demo of Iconic Moments, ID.art, and Momentable and get your questions answered on their potential for collections management, community-building, and opportunities for revenue generation.

The Mexican Cultural Arts Alliance provides Mexican leaders with the support and resources they need to fulfill the missions of their respective organizations. Find out how this group has evolved, how the model can be replicated, and how the alliance has impacted its members, their organizations, and the communities those organizations serve.

Latinos LEAD will share important lessons gleaned from LEAD with Intent, a pilot project designed to test several concepts in nonprofit governance diversity and inclusion. Many of these lessons contributed to significant changes in Latinos LEAD’s own governing board recruiting program. Come away able to navigate challenges that may arise during your organization’s efforts toward governing board diversity and inclusion.

How would you complete this session’s title? Speakers will share their experiences crafting effective exhibitions that build community, spark creativity, and provoke—strategies that challenge museums to share power and create more equitable relationships with communities near and far. Drawn from articles featured in the fall 2022 issue of Exhibition, these projects dare museums to think and work differently.

Museums that care for Native American cultural objects or educate the public on Native American histories must work with descendant communities. Outreach from multiple institutions, however, can overburden these communities. In this panel, museum representatives and members of Native American communities in Los Angeles will share insights on implementing a regional approach to working together.

The Accreditation Program is the field’s mark of distinction, a peer-based validation of a museum’s operations and impact. The power behind the Accreditation Program is that it recognizes and celebrates thriving, relevant institutions that people consider essential. Meet those involved in the Accreditation Program, learn the power of preparation, and explore how to ensure a successful review.

Building museum resilience begins with diversifying revenue sources and creating long-term philanthropic partnerships. Philanthropy—and its symbolic and lucrative community-centered sibling, membership—are essential to the sustainability of all museums. In this fast-paced, game show–style session, a panel of national museum development leaders will share insights about fundraising and membership programs that ensure their institutions’ futures.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is launching several programs in 2023–24 that consider climate change, social and community engagement, new partnerships, underserved communities, untold stories, and the needs of smaller and larger museums. NEH staff will introduce the programs, provide a brief overview of other offerings, and conduct small-group discussions to jumpstart ideas for proposals.

This workshop will critically examine the role museums play in communities’ local history work, particularly those that have been systematically marginalized. Using an example of an ongoing community collections interpretation project, reflect on museums’ responsibilities when working with communities, and identify the power dynamics associated with caring, interpreting, or making decisions for collections of communities that are historically underrepresented.

Museums often place great emphasis on large-scale programs and events, but these intensive productions can cost tens of thousands of dollars and countless staff hours. Are the human and monetary resources spent worth the results? In this roundtable session, we’ll work together to identify the strategic questions we need to be asking about the true cost of these programs.

When museums work together, everyone wins. Interdisciplinary projects can bring in new audiences, foster innovation, encourage systems-based thinking, and lend relevancy and inclusion. Hear about two examples of interdisciplinary museum projects in San Antonio, TX, and then participate in a creative, lightning-round brainstorm on possibilities that could exist between organizations.

Museums have benefited from the displacement of Indigenous peoples and the removal and historical misrepresentation of their arts and cultures. While we cannot change the past, we can decide how we move forward. Recognizing that museums occupy Indigenous land as part of a land acknowledgment is not enough. Consider what comes next by examining the Denver Art Museum’s commitment to Indigenous communities.

The presence of potentially hazardous artifacts in cultural institutions is a long-standing problem that poses significant health risks. While this issue is not new, museum workers have differing levels of knowledge about such hazards. Learn about a project that aims to close this knowledge gap, and to provide accessible and affordable solutions to address this widespread risk.

“Health” is a broad term, ranging from the deeply personal reality of our own physical or mental health to the science- and policy-oriented realms of public or environmental health. Exhibitions based on these topics are not only rewarding, engaging, and relevant, but also offer visitors a chance to make new connections. This session will spark inspiration for your next health-focused exhibition.