American Association of Museums Has a Plan

The Artnewspaper is reporting the American Association of Museums has a new strategic plan.  Well, not exactly new, more of a first strategic plan in the 104 year life of the association (can that really be correct?). The AAM has a membership of 15,000 individual, 3,000 institutions and 300 corporate members.  That is a rather large association with a strong membership base not to have been operating under a strategic plan.  In any event, they have developed a rather simple plan, which is a full two pages in length, based around four words, which are:

• Excellence
• Sustainability
• Advocacy
• Allignment

Is this really the best an organization of this size, not to consider the connections to some high profile business leaders, can devise during this difficult economic times.  With that type of leadership and and lack of vision, it becomes a little clearer why so many museums and cultural institutions are having difficulties. The article states the museum world has long been against proper business planning, and I have seen that attitude in other reports, where the groups believe they are only institutions of cultural heritage, etc, and not businesses. Perhaps as endowments have shrunk, and giving has declined, they are starting to understand the business and commerce a little better.  We can only hope.

The Artnewspaper states

Each of the four single-word goals is followed by some bullet points with self-directed injunctions as to how they might be attained: for example: “Foster excellence through professional training,” and “Develop, deepen and diversify business opportunities.” The document is silent as to the financial and organisational implications of these goals for the AAM or its members.

Its creation was preceded by a professionally facilitated process of consultation, beginning with the board and membership of the AAM and extending to public bodies and other actual and potential stakeholders. It will be followed by an implementation plan in a few months. Notwithstanding the stated goal of openness, it is not the AAM’s intention to publish this. The Spark is, of course, not a plan at all—it is a set of broad aspirations, the realisation of which will in turn depend on a plan that is as yet unarticulated. It’s like taking the title page and chapter headings and calling it a book.

The habit of baldly asserting aspirations—often ones sufficiently vague not to invoke dissent—and calling it a plan, strategic or otherwise, is uncomfortably common in cultural planning. In the case of AAM, this is unfortunate, as there has probably never been a more important time for museums individually and collectively actually to plan, with intelligence, application and seriousness of purpose. Planning means working out a set of goals that further—or simply protect—the existential purposes of the institution, and then refining those goals and the paths to them until there is a robust institutional consensus as to how they can be achieved and by when. If there are no goals, there is no way of choosing a direction; but if there is no credible path mapped out as to how to reach the goals, however glorious, then it’s not a plan—it’s an untested assertion.

To read the full Artnewspaper article, click HERE.