Museums are feeling the pinch as public funding declines and operational costs grow. But don’t worry—there are creative ways to boost your financial health without losing sight of your mission. Two recent studies offer fresh ideas to help museums thrive while connecting more deeply with their audiences.
Make the Most of What You Offer The first study, “Value Capture for Nonprofits: The Case of Museums’ New Business Models” (Thomas & Tobelem, 2024), urges museums to think more like entrepreneurs. Museums create tremendous value through exhibitions, programs, and digital content—but often struggle to turn that value into income. The solution? Find ways to align financial opportunities with what you already do best.
For instance, you could:
Introduce tiered pricing for digital experiences, like charging for premium virtual tours.
Partner with local businesses to create themed events that support your mission.
Offer exclusive experiences, like behind-the-scenes access, for a fee.
These strategies not only bring in revenue but also allow museums to stay true to their values. The takeaway: look at what you already offer and think creatively about how to monetize it in a way that feels authentic.
Are you ready to explore how the holiday season can transform your museum? Today at 12 pm Central Time (1 pm Eastern), the Illinois Association of Museums is hosting its monthly “Museum People Call”, and this month’s topic is Christmas at Museums and Historic Sites!
I’ll be joined by Ken Turino, my co-editor of the new AASLH book series Interpreting Christmas at Museums and Historic Sites, to discuss how your organization can leverage the holiday season to its fullest potential.
We’ll cover key topics to help you:
Leverage the holiday season to attract visitors and engage your community.
Increase financial stability through creative programming, gift shop sales, and end-of-year giving campaigns.
Enhance cultural sensitivity and inclusivity, ensuring your holiday interpretation is meaningful and welcoming to diverse audiences.
Whether your site has a long history of holiday programming or you’re just starting to explore the possibilities, this session will offer practical tips and inspiring ideas to align holiday traditions with your mission.
Let’s come together to make the holiday season brighter, more inclusive, and impactful for your museum and its visitors. We look forward to seeing you there!
The Burwell-Morgan Mill in Berryville, Virginia, which hosts the Art in the Mill shows in fall and spring.
On a recent road trip through the Shenandoah Valley, we passed through the small but charming village of Millwood (south of Berryville, Virginia). With its historic church, a corner gas station turned into a post office, a hip country store, and an 18th-century stone grist mill, it feels like you’ve stepped back into mid-century America. The mill, dating back to the 1780s, ceased operations in 1943, but thankfully the Clarke County Historical Association (CCHA) stepped in to preserve this important piece of local history. They restored and reopened the mill as a museum, offering milling demonstrations that continue to connect the community with its past—a business that, while no longer economically viable, resonates deeply with those of us who value local landmarks.
Fast forward 80 years, and the CCHA not only continues to produce flour at the mill but has expanded its offerings in creative and impactful ways for a county with 15,000 residents. Today, their mission—”to help preserve the historic resources and records of Clarke County and to foster their use, understanding, and enjoyment through stewardship and education”—may sound familiar, but their approach is anything but ordinary. Their programming stands out as a model for how historical societies can evolve, attract diverse audiences, and ensure long-term sustainability. Here’s a preview of some of the exciting events and initiatives they have planned for this fall:
Looking for new ideas to bring the magic of Christmas into your museum or historic site? Join us on Tuesday, November 26 at 3 p.m. Eastern for an engaging session of AASLH’s History Hour, where we’ll explore the many ways museums and historic sites are interpreting Christmas. It’s free to participate however pre-registration is required.
History Hour is a free, monthly online networking event hosted by the American Association for State and Local History that has grown from 6 participants in January to nearly 230 this month! It’s a fantastic way to connect with colleagues from around the country, share ideas, and pick up fresh tips.
I’ll be co-hosting with Ken Turino, and we’ll be diving into themes from our new book, Interpreting Christmas at Museums and Historic Sites, released in September. During the session, we’ll briefly introduce the topic and then jump into small group discussions where participants can talk through questions like:
How can historical and cultural traditions in your local communities be woven into your Christmas programs?
How have partnerships and sponsorships shaped your Christmas programming?
How do you ensure your Christmas interpretation aligns with your organization’s mission while staying relevant to today’s audience?
Given the diversity of Christmas traditions, how do you decide what to include or exclude in your interpretation?
What small steps have you taken to reinterpret Christmas at your site, and how have those changes influenced long-term planning?
After 30 minutes of lively group discussion, we’ll come together as a large group to share insights and takeaways. It’s a wonderful opportunity to gain new perspectives and learn from your peers.
Whether you’ve been interpreting Christmas for years or are just beginning, we’d love to have you join us for this festive and thoughtful event. Mark your calendar for November 26, and come ready to discuss your ideas and challenges!
I’m excited to announce that I’ll be co-teaching two Reimagining the Historic House Museum workshops in Texas this November with Ken Turino, hosted by the American Association for State and Local History in collaboration with the Texas Historical Commission. It’s a big state, so we’re offering it twice! If you’re a museum professional, volunteer, or student interested in exploring fresh strategies for engaging visitors and revitalizing historic house museums, these workshops are a great opportunity to explore new ideas and connect with colleagues.
Why Attend?
Historic house museums are at a pivotal moment, navigating changes in visitor expectations, community needs, and funding models. These workshops are designed to help you tackle these challenges, offering practical solutions for making your house museum more accessible, sustainable, and relevant. By focusing on innovative interpretation, strategic planning, and community engagement, you’ll be empowered to breathe new life into your historic house museum.
What You’ll Learn
This one-day, hands-on workshop explores the most pressing challenges and rewarding opportunities facing historic sites in America today. We’ll delve into the latest social and economic research to help you identify how these trends impact your own house museum, sparking new ideas for growth and engagement.
Throughout the day, we’ll introduce a variety of field-tested tools and techniques drawn from diverse areas like non-profit management, business strategy, and even software development. You’ll hear about innovative historic sites that are successfully adopting new models to engage their communities, offering fresh interpretation and programming, and generating income to boost financial sustainability.
A key highlight of the workshop is our facilitated brainstorming session based on Michael Porter’s Five Forces framework, where you’ll work with fellow participants to reinvent an event or program for an actual house museum. This practical exercise not only puts theory into action but also showcases the power of collaborative thinking to drive change.
Details and Registration
Mesquite Workshop (near Dallas): November 12, 2024 – Heritage Plaza Visitor Center
Houston Workshop: November 14, 2024 – Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens
Cost: $350 for non-members, $225 for AASLH members
Registration: Visit AASLH’s website for more information and to sign up. Participation is limited.
I hope to see you there as we explore how to bring new life and relevance to historic house museums. Together, let’s make these vital cultural spaces vibrant, engaging, and sustainable for generations to come!
If you missed out on purchasing a copy at the annual meeting or were unable to attend, you can order it online at Rowman.com or mail this order form. Use code RLFANDF30 at checkout to save 30%. This discount is available through September 2025. The book officially releases on September 20, so it should ship immediately when you order.
If you’ve had a chance to read Interpreting Christmas, we’d greatly appreciate a review on Amazon.com. Since history museums and historic sites are such a specialized field, your feedback can help others make more informed purchasing decisions.
In an earlier post, I shared a sneak peek of our book, Interpreting Christmas at Museums and Historic Sites. Next week, Ken and I will provide a comprehensive overview during the upcoming AASLH webinar, “Jingle All the Way: Maximizing Your Museum’s Holiday Potential.” This webinar draws from the book but is not an hour-long sales pitch. Instead, we’ll share key advice and ideas on leveraging holiday celebrations, researching the local history of Christmas, planning and hosting holiday events, expanding traditional programs, and enhancing cultural sensitivity and inclusivity. With so much to cover, we’ll be hitting the highlights. If you’re seeking inspiration for Christmas during these hot summer days, join us on July 23, 2024 at 3:00 pm Eastern. For more details and to register, visit here. Plus, you’ll receive a 30% discount code for the book upon registration.
With proofs in hand, the book is moving closer to reality with a publishing date in fall, but more likely later than earlier. It has 21 chapters, 40 images, and an extensive bibliography of nearly 175 books and articles packed into 270 pages, which is about 25% longer than my Interpreting African American History and Culture at Museums and Historic Sites that Rowman & Littlefield published ten years ago (btw, Rowman was recently acquired by Bloomsbury Publishing). It’s now available for pre-order at Rowman.com for $50 for paperback and a jaw-dropping $125 for hardcover (I don’t set the prices but a 30% discount code is available for webinar attendees).
Behind the Scenes of Indexing
Ken Turino, Sara Bhatia, and I spent nearly two months creating he index, despite the publisher allocating just two weeks. The delay was partly due to other commitments (I was closing out the semester and attending the Newport Summer School), but also because the scope of the book made it significantly more complex. As anticipated, there’s an abundance of content on gifts, trees, lights, ornaments, decorating, and a variety of Santas. Rather than list two dozen pages that mention “lights,” we added subheadings for candles and electric lights, as well as safety considerations, and included “see also” references to help readers find specific information more quickly. But geez, that was slow going.
My chapter, “I’m Dreaming of a Warm Christmas: Researching California (and Other Local Places)” was initially indexed by GPT-3.5, then corrected manually as seen in this example. GPT-4o is more accurate when trained for indexing, but every entry still needs to be confirmed.
We experimented with GPT to produce the index, and the results were mixed. While GPT can generate an initial index with proper nouns and some concepts correctly formatted with page numbers, about half of the entries are usually either missing or incorrect (see example above). Thus, manual review of the proofs is still necessary, but at least GPT provides a head start. If you are interested in learning more in using GPT for indexing, I’m happy to share what I learned.
The index eventually grew to 22 pages, which is longer than most chapters! Indexing required a meticulous review of every page, during which we discovered errors that had slipped past four proofreaders. Ugh. Should we consider these flaws a characteristic of an artisanal, handcrafted gift to the field?
Ken Turino, Sara Bhatia, and I are currently compiling the index for our book Interpreting Christmas at Museums and Historic Sites, while the other authors are meticulously reviewing the proofs for any final corrections. But we are much more excited to announce that we have a colorful cover featuring images from Old World Wisconsin and Strawbery Banke, and that Rowman and Littlefield have made the 270-page book available for pre-orders at this link.
To get a start on the holidays, join us in July when we’ll be hosting a live AASLH webinar, “Jingle All the Way: Maximizing Your Museum’s Holiday Potential.” Drawing from some of the insights in the book, we’ll discuss how your historic house or history museum can leverage December’s holiday season to enhance community engagement. Mark your calendar for July 23 at 3 p.m. Eastern and secure your spot by registering here for $45 ($25 for AASLH members).
For a preliminary glimpse inside Interpreting Christmas, I’m sharing the proofs for the table of contents and introduction. Just remember, they’re publisher’s proofs so they are subject to change!
This small selection of historic sites operated by The National Society of The Colonial Dames reveals the enormous diversity of house museums and historic sites in the United States.
In 2007, I helped organize the Forum on Historic Site Stewardship in the 21st Century, which resulted in an influential issue of Forum Journal that laid out the major challenges and opportunities, including the need for financial sustainability, a willingness to change in response to the needs of the community, and a balance between the needs of buildings, landscapes, collections, and the visiting public. It also recognized that museum standards may not be the best practices for historic sites and that the profession “must develop new measures, beyond attendance, that document the quality of visitor engagement at sites and the extent of community outreach beyond the bounds of historic sites.”
So what has happened in the 16 years that followed? We’ll find out this week as the American Association for State and Local History hosts a virtual summit on the Sustainability, Relevance, and the Future of Historic House Museums on July 11-12. Sessions will address measuring the impact of house museums, broadening interpretation, care of buildings and landscapes, and the evolution of mission statements.
For small non-profit organizations operating on less than a million dollars annually, programs are often the beating heart of the operation. The best programs balance mission and financial sustainability to serve their audiences. Program revenue (admissions, events, and membership dues) can be a vital means of maintaining financial stability and growth. For History-Focused Organizations [Museums (NTEE A50), History Museums (A54), History Organizations (A80), and Historical Societies & Historic Preservation (A82)] as overall revenue grows, so does the share of program revenue. This means as your organization grows, so should the prominence of your programs as a true revenue driver (see figure 1 below).
As small history-focused organizations expand, it’s crucial to manage their programs wisely to increase income while keeping the mission in mind. For small groups, program decisions can be very personal, often influenced by board or staff interests. Taking a strategic approach to these decisions can boost the organization’s growth and success.
Engaging Places 