Deborah Elizabeth Finn

NOVEMBER 25, 2019

Deciding Together Shifting Power and Resources Through Participatory Grantmaking. Empowering Communities: Participatory Grantmakers Say We Must Go beyond Feedback. Employee Pressure Will Help Redefine CSR in 2019. You can’t give from an empty cup: Funders can enable movements to flourish by helping grantees reduce burnout.

Philanthropy 98

Philanthropy Open Participatory Evaluation 98

Connection Cafe

APRIL 21, 2014

According to the blog justgiving.com there are 5 key motivators for giving: to support a particular organization, because we are inspired by other’s stories, to support a cause, to feel good, and. Working with arts organizations there are often concern that your constituent stories aren’t as impactful. Make it easy. Make it fun!

Arts 37

Arts Story Org Personal 37

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 13, 2011

I'm finding myself really enjoying fundraising because it is fundamentally about inspiring people to participate--and to do so in a way that is significant both for the organization and for themselves. As a designer, I'm always trying to ensure that participatory activities, however casual, impact both the participant and the organization.

Participatory 39

Participatory Practice Fundraising Relationship 39

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JANUARY 19, 2017

Yesterday, I spent a day facilitating leadership workshops for arts leaders attending the Art House Convergence Conference near Park City, Utah. Having a large enough space so people can move around and self-organize into small groups also promotes learning. Have you ever had to do a room hack?

Lecture 91

Lecture Classroom Experiment Learning 91

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 25, 2016

They wanted to help museums and galleries across the UK make significant, sustained changes in the ways they engage community partners and visitors as participants in their work. In its first five years, Our Museum yielded real change at twelve diverse UK organizations. didn't mince words. I strongly recommend you read the report.

Museum 20

Museum Participatory Resource Place 20

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

MAY 26, 2015

Designing A Participatory Hook for a Virtual Meeting. This helped us do a better job of sense-making. This helped make the meeting more interactive and also helped participants think about what techniques they wanted to try after the session. How have you changed your organization’s meeting culture to be better?

Facilitation 50

Facilitation Virtual Arts Participatory 50

Museum 2.0

MARCH 3, 2010

As many of you know, I've been working for the past year+ on a book about visitor participation in museums, libraries, science centers, and art galleries. The Participatory Museum is a practical guide to visitor participation. The Participatory Museum is an attempt at providing such a resource.

Participatory 30

Participatory Museum Vietnam Netherlands 30

Museum 2.0

APRIL 14, 2011

As of May 2, I will be the executive director of the Museum of Art & History at McPherson Center in Santa Cruz, CA (here's the press release ). Because of the increased workload I expect in the months to come, as well as the likely possibility that we will start a Museum of Art & History blog, I'm lowering my Museum 2.0

History 55

History Museum Arts Consultant 55

Museum 2.0

JUNE 1, 2016

I've spent the past year on a quest for relevance, diving deep into how organizations can matter more to more (and more diverse) people. The result is a new book, The Art of Relevance , coming out in a few weeks. This post is an invitation for those of you who want to help it come alive in your own community.

Arts 20

Arts Advocacy Team Dallas 20

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 28, 2013

Earlier in 2013, I was amazed to visit one of the new “Studio” spaces at the Denver Art Museum. The Denver Art Museum is no stranger to community collaborations, but we’ve been dipping in our toe a little more deeply when it comes to developing permanent participatory installations.

Denver 35

Denver Museum Arts Collaboration 35

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 1, 2012

Last week, Douglas McLellan of artsJournal ran a multi-vocal forum on the relationship between arts organizations and audiences, asking: In this age of self expression and information overload, do our artists and arts organizations need to lead more or learn to follow their communities more? and a few more thoughts.

Arts 45

Arts Museum Artist Tucson 45

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 25, 2018

For the past five years, each summer, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History has hosted MuseumCamp. You will learn the theory and practice of how to open your organization to robust community participation. Come to this two-day bootcamp to: Articulate your goals for community participation at your organization.

Community 31

Community Participatory Museum Registration 31

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

Visitors bond and bridge through participatory experiences at MAH. There were times when coordinating a fire art festival while researching social capital theory made me want to burn my computer. I learn a ton from her every day and wanted to share her thinking--and her graduate thesis--with you.

Museum 49

Museum Program Participatory Community 49

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

MAY 7, 2010

Nina has written a fantastic book engagement called The Participatory Museum. A third argues that the project won’t be truly participatory unless users get to define what content is sought in the first place. How can you describe user participation in a shared language that helps your team make the right decision for your project?

Model 98

Model Activities Active Activism 98

Museum 2.0

APRIL 20, 2009

I’d never attended before and was impressed by many very smart, international people doing radical projects to make museum collections and experiences accessible and participatory online. Are participatory activities happening on the web because that is the best place for them? Instead, I found a standard art museum.

Participatory 35

Participatory Museum Web Indianapolis 35

NTEN

NOVEMBER 4, 2014

Last year, NTEN Community Champions helped to raise over $36,000 to help support the NTEN Community Challenge , which helped to enhance NTEN''s program accessibility, including sending over 50 people to the 2014 Nonprofit Technology Conference (14NTC) and the 2014 Leading Change Summit (14LCS) with scholarships.

Donation 64

Donation Impact Share NTEN 64

Museum 2.0

APRIL 26, 2018

One that has found remarkable success is California’s Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. She says that the museum made changes in hiring and board recruitment practices, and invited the community in to help reshape the facility into a place that reflected and represented its people and their interests. The impact was dramatic.

Audience 49

Audience Washington Museum Intergenerational 49

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

SEPTEMBER 10, 2019

Co-Act is a unique organization, a hub for accelerating collaborative action in Southeast Michigan’s nonprofit community. My style of teaching is participatory; I don’t lecture with PPT endlessly and involve the audience. They let me know they were comfortable doing this and might require some help from a buddy to navigate.

Detroit 77

Detroit Instruction Instructional PPT 77

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

APRIL 1, 2010

I am putting the finishing touches on another social media lab designed for arts organizations. So, have been updating arts 2.0 Last week, the Museum released a mobile version of their website, joining other museums like the Powerhouse Museum and the Walker Art Center.

Museum 97

Museum Mashup Badge Participatory 97

Museum 2.0

APRIL 15, 2015

"The arts are future-making." I wrote this down when Deborah Cullinan said it at a meeting of arts leaders about a year ago. We were discussing the potential for cultural organizations to have significant impact across communities: on planning, health, education, and quality of life. A fitness trail for urban life.

San Francisco 20

San Francisco Arts Design Marketing 20

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

NOVEMBER 3, 2015

I’ve just returned from an inspiring week in Kiev, Ukraine where I got to facilitate a training for women’s organizations organized by Wake , an amazing start up founded by two respected colleagues Trish Tierney and Heather Ramsey. With non-English speaking participants, there is an extra layer of back and forth.

Facilitation 50

Facilitation Training Train International 50

Museum 2.0

JULY 1, 2011

I've now been the Director of The Museum of Art & History in Santa Cruz for two months. It really reflects what we're trying to do here to transform our institution into as relevant, dynamic, and successful an organization as possible. Lots more on this in the months to come, but I thought you might like to read the article.

Museum 31

Museum History Arts Work 31

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

MARCH 1, 2016

My colleague Cindy Leonard has used her photoshop magic to help each of the speakers transform into a character. I thought I’d take this opportunity to organize some of those posts into a resource list. The Art of Good Closers. Participatory Facilitation Techniques. Instructional Design. Getting Past Resistance.

Training 50

Training Train San Jose Instructional Design 50

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 18, 2013

Originally posted in April of 2011, just before I hung up my consulting hat for my current job at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. In 2008 and 2009, there were many conference sessions and and documents presenting participatory case studies, most notably Wendy Pollock and Kathy McLean''s book Visitor Voices in Museum Exhibitions.

Museum 45

Museum Question Participatory Evaluation 45

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 11, 2012

I can't say that any one experience--working on a collage with other visitors, swinging on a hammock, discovering a participatory display for pocket artifacts in the bathroom--directly contributed to increased attendance and giving. They all have in concert, and they build on each other.

Audience 47

Audience Museum Participatory History 47

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JANUARY 18, 2011

The goal is to train over 150-250 NGOs in Jordan, Lebanon, Yemen, Morocco, and other countries and help them put social media skills into practice. Provide digital infrastructure to the 150 – 250 organizations through a public-private partnership with Microsoft. Reciprocity: Non-technical and Nerds – can help learn.

Network 95

Network Build Yemen Morocco 95

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 15, 2012

We've gotten a little more organized at The Museum of Art & History , and we've now released opportunities for summer internships. These are unpaid part-time and full-time opportunities to help design public programs, develop new uses for the museum, perform visitor research, and pursue unusual projects. Sounds good?

Museum 34

Museum Participatory Arts Attitude 34

Museum 2.0

APRIL 25, 2011

I've seen this line of questioning almost completely disappear in the past two years due to many research studies and reports on the value and rise of participation, but in 2006-7, social media and participatory culture was still seen as nascent (and possibly a passing fad). In 2008, the conversation started shifting to "how" and "what."

Question 49

Question Participatory Museum Evaluation 49

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 15, 2014

New laws and policies will help, but any movement toward greater cultural and racial understanding and communication must be supported by our country’s cultural and educational infrastructure. Schools and other arts organizations are rising to the challenge. Things must change. What should be our role(s)? Do you have volunteers?

Museum 52

Museum Blogger Cleveland Missouri 52

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

AUGUST 29, 2006

I met Janet Salmons many years ago while I working on various arts and technology projects in New York State for the New York Foundation for the Arts. I started in the Cornell University Center for Theatre Arts , where I founded and directed two programs: Cornell Theatre Outreach and the Community-Based Arts Project.

Arts 50

Arts Community Online Intergenerational 50

Museum 2.0

JUNE 29, 2011

Visitor contributions help participants feel connected to institutions. It helps institutions leverage the skills and creativity of their communities. And yes, they've served our organization in all kinds of tangible ways--introducing us to new interns, volunteers, and program ideas. It's funny. But maybe it should be.

Museum 47

Museum Participatory Comment Sound 47

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

Do you consider yourself an "activist" for your organization, avocation, or art form? Sure, I admire cultural organizations that have a strong mission to change education or diversify access or transform the role of art in everyday life, but I'm an insider. A national election is the ultimate participatory project.

Product 51

Product Build Museum Arts 51

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 1, 2014

It made me dig up this 2011 interview with Tina Olsen (then at the Portland Art Museum) about their extraordinary Object Stories project. They designed a participatory project that delivers a compelling end product for onsite and online visitors… and they learned some unexpected lessons along the way. How did you get the gallery?

Museum 43

Museum Story Project Design 43

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 27, 2017

The supervisors toured the exhibition with some of the 100+ local partners who helped create it. Then, for an hour, former foster youth who helped design the exhibition shared their stories with supervisors. They helped conceive it, plan it, and build it. This argument became one of the foundations of The Participatory Museum.

Platform 31

Platform Impact Childhood Museum 31

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

APRIL 21, 2015

.” Her definition of an engaged leader is someone who uses digital, mobile, and social tools strategically to achieve established goals as they relate to leading people and managing organizations. As she points out, these three steps work together to help executives use engagement to reach their goals. What is off limits?

Digital 50

Digital Strategy Chapter Advice 50

Museum 2.0

MAY 2, 2012

Today is my one-year anniversary as the executive director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. We went through a dramatic financial turnaround and redefined our relationship with our community through a series of experimental participatory projects and new programmatic approaches. 85% of our visitors attend through events.

Museum 55

Museum Director Participatory Culture 55

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

SEPTEMBER 8, 2016

Last week I was honored to be a counselor at Museum Camp , an annual professional development event hosted by the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH). Nina Simon, the executive director of the museum, is an expert in participatory design and fantastic facilitator. This One Was A Joke, But Still.

Causes 50

Causes Change Museum Social 50