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?

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. 

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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.

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