Get Fully Funded

AUGUST 24, 2021

Email is a powerful marketing tool, but to get results you need to learn how to write fundraising emails that connect emotionally and inspire people to give. Not the content (which most people skim in about 13 seconds or less). Start by being very clear what you want people to do after they read your email.

Results 122

Results email Fundraising Story 122

Museum 2.0

JULY 20, 2010

Last week, I gave a talk about participatory museum practice for a group of university students at UCSC. During the ensuing discussion, one woman asked, "Which audiences are least interested in social participation in museums?" Many teens love to perform for each other. First, teens often have incredibly tight social spheres.

Teen 49

Teen Social Museum Participatory 49

Museum 2.0

JUNE 15, 2016

Here's one of my favorite stories about the London Science Museum and their work to make their science shows relevant to families with deaf or hearing-impaired family members. There are doors through which people enter your room. Think of the Subjects to Change teen program, or the free lunches at the Cleveland Public Library.

Museum 20

Museum Arts Language Chapter 20

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 25, 2009

Answers will differ depending on who's asking, but they are also influenced by the designed environment in which questions are asked. People answer questions differently in harshly lit interrogation rooms than they do in welcoming therapists' offices or in the privacy of their own computer terminals.

Design 31

Design Goal Difference Platform 31

Museum 2.0

MARCH 22, 2010

These are some thoughts on a very small museum called the Brazos Valley African American Museum. I was fortunate enough to visit it during the Texas Association of Museums conference, and it brought up some reactions and emotions that I wanted to share with you.

Museum 23

Museum Experiment Community Texas 23

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 19, 2015

One of my favorite comments on the first post in this series came from Lyndall Linaker, an Australian museum worker, who asked: " Who decides what is relevant? When you say you want to be relevant, that usually means "we want to matter to more people." Or different people. My answer: neither. Can you describe them?

Teen 20

Teen Museum Voice Collaboration 20

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JULY 1, 2009

Submitted by Nina Simon, publisher of Museum 2.0. I’ve had it with museums’ obsession with open-ended self-expression. Forrester created the “social technographics” profile tool to help businesses understand the way different audiences engage with social media (and you can read more of my thoughts on it here ). Consider a mural.

Participatory 50

Participatory Experiment Museum Teen 50

Museum 2.0

APRIL 7, 2009

Which of these descriptions exemplifies participatory museum practice? Museum invites community members to participate in the development and creation of an exhibit. Museum staff create an exhibit by a traditional internal design process, but the exhibit, once open, invites visitors to contribute their own stories and participation.

Participatory 27

Participatory Design Difference Museum 27

Museum 2.0

MARCH 21, 2017

This is the second installation in a series of posts on the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH)'s development of Abbott Square , a new creative community plaza in downtown Santa Cruz. How will it feel welcoming and inclusive for different communities? What amenities does it need? What amenities does it need?

Community 34

Community Build Arts History 34

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

Last Friday night, my museum hosted a fabulous (in my biased opinion) event called Race Through Time. It was a local history urban scavenger hunt that sent teams of 2-5 people out into the city to track down as many historic checkpoints as they could over the course of an evening. Performances just for teens.

Audience 52

Audience Develop Museum History 52

Museum 2.0

MARCH 16, 2009

I’ve had it with museums’ obsession with open-ended self-expression. Forrester created the “social technographics” profile tool to help businesses understand the way different audiences engage with social media (and you can read more of my thoughts on it here ). And yet many museums are fixated on creators. Consider a mural.

Participatory 44

Participatory Experiment Museum Teen 44

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 24, 2011

This post features an interview with Sarah Schultz, a museum staffer at one of the institutions Light profiled in the book (the Walker Art Center). It's easier to secure grants for community-based programming or exhibitions, but it's not easy to get funding for some of the core work that museums do. It's inherent in what we do.

Arts 46

Arts Interview Teen Artist 46

Museum 2.0

MARCH 27, 2009

This week, the Denver Art Museum (DAM) opened a new temporary exhibition called The Psychedelic Experience , featuring rock posters from San Francisco in the heyday of Bill Graham and electric kool-aid. It is an incredible museum experience. The visitor is given a copy of her poster and the museum keeps a copy as well.

Denver 21

Denver Museum Arts Remix 21

Museum 2.0

JULY 6, 2016

FoodWhat's staff and teens have taught me a lot about what it really means to be relevant to people who are often overlooked or ignored. I firmly believe that all people have something meaningful to contribute to our communities, cultural work, and society at large--including youth. Kids with no food in the fridge.

Teen 25

Teen Arts Classroom Student 25

Museum 2.0

MARCH 3, 2007

But I’d been scribbling notes for an art museum label post for awhile, and then yesterday, the NY Times had a review of a new show at MOMA, Comic Abstraction. MOMA has standard art museum labels. When I asked an art museum educator about this (“How should I look at art?”) Most people aren’t educated in how to look at art.

Arts 30

Arts Museum Artist Audio 30

Museum 2.0

JULY 24, 2007

This week, thoughts on Chapter 12 of Elaine Gurian’s book Civilizing the Museum , "Threshold Fear: Architecture program planning." In this essay, Elaine discusses the various barriers to entry for non-traditional visitors to museums, that is, the threshold fear that keeps such potential visitors from walking in our doors.

People 20

People Museum San Jose Chapter 20

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 7, 2010

Last week marked four years for the Museum 2.0 People--especially young folks looking to break into the museum business--often ask me how I got here. Ed Rodley recently wrote a blog post about museum jobs entitled "Getting Hired: It's Who You Know and Who Knows You." This seems like an appropriate time to share the story.

Museum 52

Museum Boston Participatory Job 52

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

In the spirit of a popular post written earlier this year , I want to share the behind the scenes on our current almost-museumwide exhibition at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, Santa Cruz Collects. Santa Cruz Collects is based on collections and stories from people throughout our county.

Participatory 44

Participatory Museum History International 44

Museum 2.0

MARCH 18, 2015

A small room, packed with gadgets, packed with fossils, packed with tools, packed with PEOPLE everywhere making and exploring and building and learning. The people were of all ages--moms with babies strapped to their fronts, six year-olds using skillsaws, pre-teens building robots, teenagers doing homework. That taught us a lot.

Green 20

Green Interview Share Community 20

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Unsurprisingly, some of my favorite museums are small, funky places run by iconoclasts—but that’s not useful to most professionals who work for organizations in which they have little control over size or leadership matters. I worked on one project in which the client institution thought they wanted unfettered teen expression.

Project 22

Project Museum Teen North Carolina 22

Museum 2.0

JUNE 15, 2010

You can join the conversation in the blog comments, or on the Museum 2.0 Conversation flowed, laughter floated up to my window, people strolled and ate or drank (or both), and when I went down to the square myself people included me in all of this without hesitation. Facebook discussion board here.

Place 23

Place Discussion Columbus Italy 23

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 18, 2010

We were in a busy downtown area of Santa Cruz with lots of people strolling and hanging out outside on a gorgeous day--prime "talk to strangers" material. I like it when people--even weird people--talk to me, but I never ever will be the one to approach a stranger." And in this way, they're no different from many adults.

Life 21

Life Teen Culture Attitude 21

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 26, 2008

First, I want to extend a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has contributed to the nascent Museum 2.0 We're still looking for your Museum 2.0-related There's a new Pew Research report on teens and gaming showing that 97% of American teens play some kind of video games (console, online, mobile, etc). Living Archive.

Fund 20

Fund Teen Museum Game 20

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 7, 2008

It means seeking out people in their "natural habitat" of the social Web and paying attention to what they are blogging, writing, and saying about your institution. Defining the Museum Brand Charlene and Josh argue that your brand is defined by your customers' perceptions and expressions, not by your marketing.

Museum 20

Museum Teen Second Life Discussion 20

Museum 2.0

MARCH 28, 2008

Museums (and libraries) are trusted sources of information. In February 2001, AAM commissioned a study about the trustworthiness of museums and found that "Almost 9 out of 10 Americans (87%) find museums to be one of the most trustworthy or a trustworthy source of information among a wide range of choices.

Participatory 20

Participatory Museum Teen Voice 20

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 3, 2009

Last month, the Christian Science Monitor published an article entitled, "Museums' new mantra: Connect with community." It took me a couple weeks (and various museum blog responses ) to realize what bugs me about this article--it treats "connecting with community" as a marketing ploy, a "mantra" rather than a mission.

Community 22

Community Museum San Diego San Francisco 22

Museum 2.0

APRIL 22, 2015

Communities are made of people, not rhetoric. You can define a community by the shared attributes of the people in it, and/or by the strength of the connections among them. I've been exploring three different lens for defining community: geography , identity , and affinity. People who go to midnight movies.

Community 20

Community Minnesota Teen Movie 20

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 4, 2013

This August/September, I am "rerunning" popular Museum 2.0 Besides having the longest name on the planet, the Taylor Center is one of my greatest inspirations when it comes to an institution authentically and whole-heartedly making a difference in the lives of underserved community members. blog posts from the past.

St. Louis 45

St. Louis Museum Audience Teen 45

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JUNE 3, 2005

Some of the entries of what you can read on the Walker Blog, may appear at first glance to be mundane details of cube life , but then you remember that it is a museum blog and it makes the institution seem more human. We started blogging to give a online to a lot of different. I'm sure people feel generally uncomfortable writing.

Artist 50

Artist Arts Process Remix 50

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 13, 2007

The essays in this section, on “Expressing and Co-Creating,” present projects in which visitors create exhibition content, contribute to its creation, or get a heavy done of meaning-making in their experience of museum content. Who controls the content in the museum? Who controls the museum experience? First, museum content.

Voice 20

Voice Create Museum Arts 20

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 20, 2019

I tell the story of the one-man band because I think many museum professionals feel like him. We are spinning and performing, and most people have no idea of the preplanning it takes to make it look so easy. But, most importantly, few museum professionals have a free hand or moment. Museums are for people, after all.

Museum 29

Museum Accessibility Articulate Teen 29

Museum 2.0

JULY 4, 2007

On Tuesday, I reviewed Elaine Gurian’s essay, Choosing Among the Options , on museum archetypes and self-definition. Today, discussion with Elaine about ways museums choose their direction, how change is possible, and new museum types to be added to the list. What if you don’t want to be identified as one type of museum?

Museum 20

Museum Puerto Rico Change Boston 20

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

OCTOBER 19, 2006

This morning I attended the MacArthur Foundation Digital Learning briefing that was taking place at the Natural History Museum in NYC. and I have to put this into context for people who were not at this event and may have only heard of the MacArthur Foundation on NPR." It was the ultimate digital media multi-tasking experience.

Digital 50

Digital Learning Media Avatar 50

Museum 2.0

MAY 16, 2007

The recent flurry of restrictions that has sent teens fleeing? Social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, even ExhibitFiles are tools that allows people--strangers and friends--to connect with one another. into the museum is the potential to encourage more positive in-museum interactions among strangers.

Museum 20

Museum Myspace Facilitation Social Network 20

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 30, 2007

This week, we're looking at the first section, Talking Back and Talking Together , which features comment boards, talk-back walls, and discussion forums at a variety of museums. Lesson 1: People want to talk, but not necessarily about the topics you suggest. People had opinions to offer and corrections to make.

Voice 20

Voice Museum Lesson Pledge 20

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 7, 2007

Five stakeholders in different cities want to see the work that's been done so far. It has the most photos from the most people and places. Where else can you find Pakistani bathroom signage or Mexican biker teens while researching a project? Even better, people have created specialized sets (i.e. Where do you go?

Flickr 20

Flickr Work Photo Teen 20

Museum 2.0

JULY 28, 2010

Besides having the longest name on the planet, the Taylor Center is one of my greatest inspirations when it comes to an institution authentically and whole-heartedly making a difference in the lives of underserved community members. Most large American museums are reflections of white culture. YES students defy expectations.

St. Louis 53

St. Louis Audience Teen Museum 53