Category Archives: Governance and management

Studying House Museums in Newport and London

The Newport Summer School visiting one of the many historic houses in Newport, Rhode Island. Source: Victorian Society of America.

George Washington University recently awarded me a semester-long sabbatical for fall 2024, which will give me a break from teaching in the museum studies program and allow me to more actively pursue my interests in:

  • the early history of house museums to better understand their formation and evolution of interpretive practices;
  • the interpretation of house museums; and
  • the management of historic sites, especially in strategy and leadership to move performance up to the next level or respond to an ever-changing environment.

For a deep dive into these topics, I’m delighted that I’ve been selected for two prestigious programs:

  • In June, I will be in Newport, Rhode Island attending the Victorian Society’s Summer School. Over ten days, our class will explore four centuries of American architecture, art, culture, and landscape guided by renowned architectural historian Dr. Richard Guy Wilson. The program will delve into Newport’s rich history, often referred to as the “Queen” of American resorts, and includes exclusive tours of private homes, behind-the-scenes access to America’s grandest mansions, and insightful presentations by leading scholars.
  • In September, I will be in England for Royal Collection Studies, organized by The Attingham Trust for the Study of Historic Houses and Collections. This ten-day residential course in Windsor provides extraordinary access to one of the world’s leading collections of fine and decorative art, all housed within the grand architecture of the royal palaces. The course combines lectures and tutorials, visits to both occupied and unoccupied palaces in and around London, and close-up object study, aiming to give heritage sector professionals a deeper understanding of this remarkable collection.

If you’re working in a house museum or historic site, these specialized residential mid-career courses are both incredibly educational and refreshing. Participating in the Attingham Summer School in 2008 significantly enriched my scholarship, and fifteen years later I continue to draw upon the principles and practices learned during our site visits and insightful discussions. You’ll find a professional development experience for nearly any interest or length of time, and many offer scholarships. For example, if you’re seeking a course more focused on management, consider the History Leadership Seminar or the SEMC Leadership Institute (it appears that the [Getty] Museum Leadership Institute is no longer operating).

And alas, this schedule also means that my plans for attending the AASLH Annual Meeting in September will be postponed to 2025 in Cincinnati, Ohio. And if I don’t see you there, I hope it’s because you’ll be participating in an incredible professional development opportunity (remember to apply 6-8 months in advance!).

Reimagining the Historic House Museum coming to Maryland in April

The Reimagining the Historic House Museum workshop at the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio in June 2023.

“Reimagining the Historic House Museum,” the one-day workshop co-led by me and Ken Turino (Historic New England) will be held on Friday, April 19, 2024, from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm at Montpelier, a 1780s house museum in Laurel, Maryland (between DC and Baltimore). This workshop is part of the professional development series produced by AASLH. Registration is $325 but it’s $200 for AASLH members (and you receive an additional $50 discount if you register by March 22!). Participation is limited to 35 people.

Our workshop, while inspired by the book Reimagining Historic House Museums (2019), provides a more comprehensive hands-on exploration of house museums’ challenges. We assess current programs using a “double-bottom” line for a holistic view, analyze influencing forces to pinpoint opportunities and hurdles, and spotlight how house museums have successfully reinvented themselves. While the day is rich with information and activities, we ensure a well-deserved lunch break and networking time. You’ll leave with new tools and ideas to enhance your historic site and have an enjoyable experience.

Demystifying Spending Patterns in Small Museums

In the world of small museums, location and audience significantly influence expenses, rendering a one-size-fits-all approach ineffective. However, gaining insight into the various types of expenses museums incur can shed light on common challenges and their causes. The non-profit financial Form 990 categorizes expenses into five areas, providing a framework for understanding spending patterns. Our goal is to simplify the concept of museum spending and guide museums toward prudent budget management by exploring these key expense categories.

Continue reading →

Mission, Vision, and Values: Foundations for Decision-Making

Students assessing mission statements in a museum management course at George Washington University, fall 2022.

Today I’m teaching my third class of the semester on museum management and we are discussing mission, vision, and values. I assign each student a museum as their case study for the topics we explore through the course, which is brought together in an organizational assessment based on MAP as the final project.

Because mission, vision, and values are the foundations for managerial decision-making in non-profit organizations, they are a good place to start the semester because it will affect their thinking throughout the course. As part of our readings, we draw from chapters in Reinventing the Museum: The Evolving Conversation on the Paradigm Shift, Second Edition edited by Gail Anderson; What Management Is by Joan Magretta; Mission Matters: Relevance and Museums in the 21st Century by Gail Anderson; and the AAM’s Standards. Erin Carlson Mast, president and CEO of the Lincoln Presidential Foundation, joined us last week to discuss how the Foundation and President Lincoln’s Cottage developed their mission statements and how they affected their thinking.

Continue reading →

Untangling the “Other” Revenue Stream

In the colorful tapestry of history-focused organizations, every thread of revenue has a role to play in the success of the organization. Perhaps the most unique collection of these threads is the “Other” revenue category. This singular “Other” thread houses a miscellany of revenue sources that don’t fit into the categories of “Investment Income”, “Program Service Revenue”, and “Contributions and Grants”. At first glance, this classification may appear insignificant, yet it often proves to be a silent contributor that underpins the fiscal health of History-Focused Organizations [Museums (NTEE A50), History Museums (A54), History Organizations (A80), and Historical Societies & Historic Preservation (A82)].

Understanding this “Other” revenue can be like deciphering an ancient dialect. It is made no easier by the fact that IRS Form 990 at times uses the terms revenue and income interchangeably. While some categories of this revenue such as royalties and inventory sales may be familiar, “miscellaneous” often contains difficult to parse odds and ends such as third-party events, insurance proceeds, ATM fees, and revenue from hosting satellite towers. Most often this miscellaneous revenue is unspecified and simply named “miscellaneous” or “other” which can make it difficult to get the full picture of a particular institution’s revenue sources. We advise limiting the classification of your total revenue as “miscellaneous” to no more than 1%. While judicious use of this category can help define your other revenue streams more clearly, overuse could lead to a lack of clarity about a significant portion of your revenue. It is crucial to maintain a comprehensive understanding of your financial situation.

Continue reading →

Historic House Museum Summit This Week

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.

Continue reading →

Impact, Sustainability, and Non-Profit Programs

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.

Continue reading →

How can History-Focused Organizations Invest in Stability?

Figure 1. History-Focused Organizations command large portions of the museum field’s revenue and institutions. Source: Internal Revenue Services and National Center for Charitable Statistics.

Over the past year, Engaging Places has been looking over individual segments of the museum field. While these segments are unique in specific ways, as demonstrated by the data, several of them do share a common theme and mission: an overall goal to promote history. These four segments are History Museums (A54), History Organizations (A80), Historical Societies & Historic Preservation (A82), as well as the broad Museums (A50) category. By combining these segments we can focus on the history-centric portion of the museum field that makes up close to half of its revenue and consists of a whopping 89% of its institutions (see Figure 1). This block of museums is incredibly dominant within the field and a major focus of Engaging Places’ work. For ease of reference, we will be referring to them as History-Focused Organizations.

It is important to remember that as an aggregate these History-Focused Organizations still trend small. Over 90% operate on less than $1 million in revenue annually, with contributions and grants bringing in over half of that vital revenue. For these smaller museums, financial security is a constant and essential priority. While many of these History-Focused Organizations are unable to achieve large pools of investment to stabilize operations, unlike some of their larger counterparts, they can develop practices to move them in this direction. 

Continue reading →

Should Local History and Historic Preservation Dominate the Museum Field?

Figure 1. Historical Societies & Historic Preservation (A82) organizations have an outsized presence in the field. Source: Internal Revenue Service and National Center for Charitable Statistics.

Of all the organizations in the United States devoted to arts, culture, and humanities, Historical Societies & Historic Preservation (NTEE A82) organizations have an outsized presence.   More than a third of all organizations “sponsor activities which celebrate, memorialize and sometimes recreate important events in history such as battles, treaties, speeches, centennials, independence days, catastrophes that had an important impact or other similar occasions.” “Historical society,” “historical association,” “heritage society,” “preservation,” and “restoration” are in the name of nearly 80 percent of institutions in this category.  They are also focused on local history—only one in twenty institutions appear to have a geographic scope larger than the county level.

While preserving and interpreting local history is their primary interest, these organizations are the smallest by revenue.  More than 90 percent operate with less than $1 million in revenue annually and have a median revenue near $64,000 (yes, the median is $64,000 annually for all A82 organizations for 2011-2017—half of these organizations operate with less than this amount).  Only Historical Organizations (A80) produce similar financials, albeit with slightly higher figures.

Continue reading →

HLI Seminar Returned in New Format, New Season

The Class of 2022 celebrating their graduation from the HLI Seminar.

The History Leadership Institute, AASLH’s professional development program for mid-career history professionals, introduced its long-running Seminar in a new format in June.

In 1959, the Seminar began as an effort to train newly graduated history students and directors of history museums in the unique skills of managing museums, historic sites, and archives in a six-week program held at Colonial Williamsburg, During the decades that followed, the Seminar has continually changed to meet the needs of the field and explore new and emerging practices.

Continue reading →