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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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New NEH Interpretive Planning Grant for Small Organizations

Scholars reviewing the archives at the Haas-Lilienthal House.

The National Endowment for the Humanities, a federal granting agency, recently announced a special grant program to support interpretive planning at small organizations for up to $25,000, no match required.

What does “small” mean? You need to meet at least two of the following:

Annual operating expenses of less than $1,000,000
Located in a community with less than 300,000 residents
A staff of less than 50 people
Rely primarily on volunteers or part-time staff.
A mission to interpret under-told stories or serving a non-traditional audience

Hmm…that describes most history organizations in the US, so if you’re reading this post, you’re probably eligible.

Now, what will it support? Nearly anything that improves or enhances the interpretation of your collection, site, or community, such as:

help you think creatively about the hidden strengths of your collections or historic site
generate new ideas for engaging with the community
train staff and volunteers on interpretive methods and techniques
develop a framework for developing public programs
creating interpretive plans for exhibitions, tours, or school programs
visiting other historic sites or museums to sharpen skills and knowledge
evaluating existing tours or exhibitions
testing new programs for their ability to engage new audiences
conducting historical research to support new interpretive themes

Projects must include at least one scholar from a humanities discipline (e.g., history) or one consultant specializing in interpretation to the public (Engaging Places can help you with this), as well as at least one expert on your local community.

Applications are due June 28, 2023 for one to two year projects beginning between March 1 and May 1, 2024. You will need all of that time to prepare an application and NEH will read draft applications submitted by May 24. Remember to register in advance with the System for Award Management (SAM) and Grants.gov—those are steps you cannot do at the last minute.

For more details, scan the overview or jump right to the 35-page grant application instructions (officially called a Notice of Funding Opportunity).

Planning for the 250? This Webinar Will Help You Get Started

Join Conny Graft and Max van Balgooy on May 24 at 3:00 pm Eastern for a ninety-minute webinar on interpretive planning as we prepare for the U.S. 250th anniversary in 2026. To help you feel more confident in this specialized topic, we will discuss the basic process of interpretive planning, provide a simple rubric to develop goals, and distinguish topics and themes (and why themes are more valuable). As a bonus, we’ll briefly mention ways to identify target audiences and expand your thinking about methods and formats. Registration is $20; $10 for AASLH members.

It’s the start of a three-part series on interpreting the 250th at historic sites and house museums. Other sessions will dive into the field-wide themes for the 250th with Ashley Jordan (African American Museum in Philadelphia) and Steve Murray (Alabama Department of Archives and History) and offer an interactive platform to workshop ideas with fellow practitioners with Sarah Pharaon (Dialogic Consulting). Whether you have a clear tie to the Revolution or not, this webinar series will help you make history relevant and captivating for your audience. Attend all three webinars for $55; $25 for AASLH members.

The American Association for State and Local History is hosting these webinars. Scholarships to attend all three webinars are available on a first come, first served basis, thanks to support from the Classical American Homes Preservation Trust.

What Drives Revenue at History-Focused Organizations?

If a well-managed museum has robust programming, a large endowment, and a profitable gift shop, should they still rely on contributions and grants? Often regarded as a fundraising burden to reduce or eliminate, instead we might want to consider these revenue sources as one of the best ways to sustain and expand an institution. Sixty-six percent of History-Focused Organizations [Museums (NTEE A50), History Museums (A54), History Organizations (A80), and Historical Societies & Historic Preservation (A82)] depend on contributions and grants for at least half of their annual revenue and nearly forty percent rely on contributions and grants for more than three-quarters of their revenue (see Figure 1 below).

To maximize revenue, museums must navigate fundraising in the present and future. Understanding the donor and engagement pyramids simplifies fundraising and ensures focus. Small history-focused organizations, in particular, must invest their limited bandwidth strategically to achieve success.

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The Field of Local History at Your Fingertips—Free!

The third edition of the Encyclopedia of Local History, edited by Amy Wilson, is now available for free to members of the American Association for State and Local History. The print version is a nearly two-inch thick, 814-page resource to a wide range of topics related to the issues and practices in local history, but now available digitally as a pdf to AASLH members. This edition includes my contributions on mission, vision, values and house museums in the 21st century, plus a photo of the Gamble House—but there are dozens of experts who share their knowledge of the field in one place.

For more details, visit the AASLH Resource Center or you’re not a member, you can purchase it for $161.50 (hmm, membership is less than half that cost).

Reimagining Historic House Museums Workshops Returning in 2023

*Our last Reimagining House Museums workshop was held at Dumbarton House in Washington, DC in June 2019!*

Ken Turino and I will once again lead our workshops on reimagining historic house museums in 2023 after taking several years off due to the pandemic. Our first workshop will be held at the Gamble House in Pasadena, California on Friday, April 1 and our second will be held at the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio in Lancaster, Ohio on Thursday, June 22. AASLH is managing the workshop and registration is $325 but it’s $200 for AASLH members (and it’s $150 if you register by February 1!). Participation is limited to 25 people for the April workshop.

The workshop is closely related to the book, Reimagining Historic House Museums (2019), but we take a much deeper dive into the challenges facing house museums, assess current programs against a “double-bottom” line for a big-picture perspective, analyze the five forces that affect programs and events to find opportunities and obstacles, and highlight some of the ways that house museums have reinvented themselves. The day is packed with information and activities, but we take a good break in the middle of the day for lunch and we get to meet lots of other people who are working hard to make their historic site better. Plus it’s great fun!

Hagia Sophia: An Experiment with Virtual Tours

An experiment with a virtual tour of the famous Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.

Warning: this is an experiment in historic site interpretation. Things went wrong but we’re also learning a lot together.

I’ve been working on improving and enhancing the interpretation of historic sites and house museums for decades, plus I’ve also been interested in ways to improve access to these incredible places. If you’ve ever met me at a historic site, you know I take LOTS of photos and share them in my workshops, classes, and in this blog.

Last year, a friend introduced me to the Insta360 One X2, a small camera with two lenses that captures 360-degree photos and video. It’s popular with skiers, mountain bikers, skateboarders, and other active sport players because it captures everything, which can later be edited to the best views and moments. But how can it be used in the interpretation of historic sites? Is this a low-cost solution to create immersive videos?

I’ve just returned from a vacation in Greece and Turkey, where I visited several museums and historic sites that have long been on my list. As usual, I took lots of photos, including video using an Insta360. Fixed at the end of a yard-long selfie stick, it allowed me to capture drone-like views above the heads of the people around me without interfering with their experiences.

This first video experiment simply stitches four videos together of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul during a daily prayer service. There’s no voice-over or narration as in a traditional tour, just a simple walkthrough with ambient sounds. Remember that it was originally a 360-degree video that was edited to frame the view and add camera movements. I discovered that the video is smudged or blurred at times. I’m not sure if that due to a dirty lens or the low light conditions, but I hid the worst parts with photos from my iPhone (yes, I was juggling two cameras at the same time!).

Take a look at the video and tell me what you think. How might this format enhance the interpretation of historic sites? What are possible next steps?