Who are We Protecting?

I remember the exact moment when I snapped. I was at an informal talk by a visitor research professional from a large American art museum. The presenter was a few minutes in, setting context about a recent rebranding effort at her institution. "Our real challenge," she said, "was how to attract new audiences while protecting loyal patrons."

My eyes locked on that phrase on her slide, "protecting loyal patrons." I couldn't let it pass. I asked her: "what are you protecting them from?" A colleague of mine helpfully added: "who are you protecting them from?" The conversation went downhill from there.

I'm grateful to this presenter. She put in black and white what goes unsaid in so many talks and press releases. Cultural institutions are willing to change to attract new audiences. But not at the expense of the pain or discomfort of loyal patrons.

Some people might argue that protectionism is the natural political position of a collecting institution. These institutions exist to protect heritage. To protect artifacts from harm. To protect and preserve that which would otherwise be discarded or destroyed.

But when it comes to people, protectionism is problematic. Loyal patrons don't need protection--even if they may be the people who gave us those artifacts. Loyal patrons get most of our attention, assets, and appreciation. And they already have most of the power. They are, on average, wealthier, whiter, more educated, and older than the general population. They are, on average, people with privilege. They may feel that their privilege is at risk, or fragile. But that doesn't mean they don't have it.

For people with privilege, protection is a waste of resources that demeans their agency. Loyal patrons don't need to be wrapped in archival tissue paper. They need to be engaged in change processes. They need invitations--to participate, to be part of the new, to embrace the unexpected alongside the familiar. Just like new audiences, loyal patrons need to be welcomed into institutions full of different people, experiences, and opportunities.

When the MAH was changing aggressively, we embraced Elaine Heumann Gurian's idea of "the museum of and." We didn't want to reject some people and anoint others. We wanted to build a truly pluralistic institution.

Most of the time, this strategy works. When confronted with a conflict between two groups, or two ways of experiencing the museum, we choose both. We bring them together. We build bridges. We choose "and." But when we have to decide--and sometimes we do--we try to stand on the side of those who have less power in the given conflict.

For the MAH, siding with the less powerful is part of our work and our mission. When an institution protects powerful people, it hobbles its ability to involve new people and grow more diverse. Organizations often protect powerful people at the expense of the very same new audiences they seek to attract. Protecting power means protecting the power structures that put whiter, wealthier, more educated, older people on top.

This incident happened at the same time ICE started separating families at the southern border of the U.S. My colleagues at the MAH were working with local organizers on the Santa Cruz #FamiliesBelongTogether rally (which ended at our museum). My colleagues were working with partners in the Latinx community who were receiving overt threats. These partners--who represent audiences we have recently worked to attract--were afraid for their loved ones. Their rights and safety were at risk.

Who are we protecting?

Are Participant Demographics the Most Useful Single Measure of Community Impact?

Let's say you want your organization to be rooted in your community. To be of value to your community. To reflect and represent your community. To help your community grow stronger.

What indicator would determine the extent to which your organization fulfills these aspirations?

Here's a candidate: participant demographics. If your participants' demographics match that of your community, that means the diverse people in your community derive value from your organization. The people on the outside are the ones coming in.

We use participant demographics as a core measure at the MAH. At the MAH, our goal is for museum participants to reflect the age, income, and ethnic diversity of Santa Cruz County. We compare visitor demographics to those of the county. We use the county census as our measuring stick. We set our strategy based on the extent to which we match, exceed, or fall short of county demographics.

Is this overly reductive? Possibly. There are at least four arguments against it:

Serving "everyone" shouldn't be the goal. I understand this argument, but I think it's suspect when it comes to demographics (especially income and race/ethnicity). Organizations can and should target programs to welcome different kinds of people for different kinds of experiences. But should those differences be rooted in participants' race or income level? Would anyone say with a straight face that it's OK to exclude people based on the color of their skin or the balance in their bank account? I don't think this holds up.

People are more than their demographics. I agree with this argument, but in my experience, it doesn't invalidate demographic measurement. For years, we focused at the MAH on non-demographic definitions of community, seeking to engage "makers" or "moms seeking enrichment for their kids" as opposed to "whites" or "Latinos." I believe that there are many useful ways to define community beyond demographics. BUT, when we actually started measuring demographics at the MAH a few years ago, we saw that we were engaging the county's age and income diversity... but not the county's ethnic diversity. How could we credibly argue that this wasn't a serious issue for us to address? Was it reasonable to imagine that Latina moms didn't want enrichment as much as their white counterparts? When we saw our race/ethnicity mismatch with the county, we started taking action to welcome and include Latinos. We changed hiring practices, programming approach, collaborator recruitment, and signage. Taking those actions led to real results, helping us get closer to our participants matching the demographics of our county.

Participants matching your community's demographics is insufficient. This is an argument I'm still grappling with. It's an argument advocating for equity instead of equality. Many cultural resources are disproportionately available to affluent, white, older adults. So, to advance equity, your organization should strive to exceed community demographics for groups that may be marginalized or excluded from other cultural resources. This argument encourages organization to strive for a demographic blend that over-indexes younger, lower-income, more racially diverse participants. This argument is also often linked to related arguments that changing participant demographics without addressing internal demographics of staff and board is inadequate and potentially exploitative. I'm torn on this too. In my experience, you can't effect community impact without internal organizational change. But the internal changes are a means, not an end. I wouldn't use internal indicators to measure whether we succeeded in reaching community goals. 

Attendance is not the same as impact. I'm torn about this argument too. On the one hand, showing up is not a particularly powerful indicator of impact. You don't really know why the person showed up or what they got out of the experience. On the other hand, on a basic level, attendance is the clearest demonstration that someone values your organization. They're only going to invest their time, money, and attention if they think they'll get something worthwhile out of the experience. Attendance may not be a signifier of deep impact, but it is the clearest way that people tell you whether they care or not about your offerings.


What do you think? Are participant demographics a worthy bottom-line indicator of success? Or is another measure more apt?

How Do You Inspire Visitors to Take Action After They Leave?

This month, we opened a new exhibition at the MAH, Lost Childhoods: Voices of Santa Cruz County Foster Youth and Foster Youth Museum (brief video clip from opening night here).

This exhibition is a big accomplishment for us because it incorporates multiple ways we push boundaries at the MAH:

• we co-designed it with 100+ community partners (C3), including artists, foster youth, and youth advocates, with youth voices driving the project from big idea to install to programming.
• we commissioned original artwork that was co-produced with youth.
• it uses art, history, artifacts, and storytelling to illuminate a big human story and an urgent social issue.
• it encourages visitors to participate both in the exhibition and beyond it by taking action to expand opportunities for foster youth and youth transitioning out of foster care.

There's lots to explore about this project, but today I want to dive into this last element: inspiring visitors to take action. 

When we developed the big ideas for this exhibition, MAH staff and C3 partners agreed: we wanted visitors to "feel empowered to take action and know how to do so."

This big idea excited us all. But at the very next C3 meeting with our partners, we ran into two big questions of content and design:

1. The issues facing foster youth are huge and complex. How could visitors take actions that are both meaningful and achievable?
2. How could we develop a clear, explicit, and appealing way for visitors to take action?

We addressed the first question with guidance from one of the former foster youth who helped develop the exhibition. She pointed out that while big things like becoming a foster parent are super-important, there are also a lot of little things people can do to help foster youth succeed. We decided to hone in on the little things - from baking a birthday cake to donating clean socks to volunteering - in our TAKE ACTION center. 

The TAKE ACTION center has two components - a woven artwork (left)
and a set of business cards visitors can take home with them.

We crowd-sourced "little things" from our C3 partners. Then, we worked with one of the commissioned exhibition artists, Melody Overstreet, to create an artwork that weaves all these little things into one tapestry. Youth handwrote the little things on the woven strips, in English and Spanish. The artwork metaphorically suggests that we need to do all these little things to build a supportive social fabric for foster youth.

Closeup of the woven artwork by Melody Overstreet and C3 partners.

While the artwork is beautiful and inspiring, it's not a clear, explicit call to action. In C3 meetings, we experimented with different activities related to the weaving. We tried making bracelets to remember an action you want to take, or weaving your action into the artwork. But we decided that these were too conceptual. We wanted to live up to that big idea that visitors would feel empowered to take action and how how to do so. 

So we took the actions in the weaving and translated them into business cards. The front of each card shares the action, and the back shares the contact info for the person/organization to make it happen. We discussed creating a single "take action" postcard instead and pushing all the action/contact info to a website, but that felt like it added too many steps for visitors from inspiration to action. We wanted visitors to have all the information they need to do a given action on the card itself. The cards are clear, brief, bilingual, and granular. You can take it and use it right away.

A few of the TAKE ACTION cards.

Front/back closeup of one card.

We opened the exhibition with 40 different action cards. We had debated whether to pare the number down so as not to overwhelm visitors, but ultimately, we felt that more was more. We've even held a few extra slots open to add new cards in the future in case our partners' needs change over the 6-month run of the exhibition.

How will we measure if people take the actions on the cards? We're tracking this in two ways:

1. We are counting how many cards of each type get taken. Already in the first few days of the exhibition, we've had to replenish some cards multiple times. 
2. We are asking C3 partners to report to us on the extent to which people take action. We started a simple google doc to catalogue these reports. We've already heard from partners who have had new volunteers sign up based on the cards.

I'm really curious to see how the TAKE ACTION center evolves over the run of the exhibition. I'm cautiously optimistic that we may have found a system that works for Lost Childhoods - and may work for other projects as well.

What's your take on this approach? How have you inspired visitors to take action in your projects? How have you measured it?

Advocacy Policy, Part Two - And Why Now is an Especially Good Time to Create One

A few months ago, the MAH board and staff started discussing whether and how to create a formal policy for advocacy activities. I blogged about it, and you offered several good pointers on what should be considered in constructing it. Now, we've created one (unanimously approved by the board), and I wanted to share it with you and the process behind it.

Want to go straight to the policy?

Here it is.

Why create an advocacy policy?

In our case, it started when we were asked to sign onto a local petition to save a community garden under threat. We realized that we needed a systematic way to evaluate these kinds of requests--a tool that would help us evaluate when to say yes and why to say no.

Regardless of your institutional mission, nonprofits are all in the advocacy business. We champion causes through the partnerships we build, the programs we offer, and the stories we tell. While most nonprofits regularly advocate for our own institutions and/or sector, I think it's just as important to advocate for the interests of the communities in which we serve.

If you've been considering this for awhile, now is the time to act. Everyone is going to the ballot this year in the United States. Our museum has already had several requests to lend our support to bond measures that will be on the ballot in 2016. While 501c3 nonprofits cannot endorse candidates, it is completely kosher to endorse bond measures, propositions, and other ballot measures. If you want to be engaged in 2016 ballot measures relevant to your institution or community, now is a great time to develop a policy for how and when to do so.

How did we create it?

A small team of trustees and staff members worked together on our advocacy policy. We reviewed a handful of existing policies from other institutions (local and national, museums and not), discussed their attributes, and started drafting/stealing/reworking with a Google doc. We only met once in person. It was especially valuable to have activists, retired government employees, and social service leaders on the team; they brought helpful perspectives on what advocacy means beyond a cultural context.

The policy our board approved is intentionally broad. We wanted enough of a foundation to ground our advocacy without prescribing it. We wanted enough of a process to provide clarity and structure without too many hoops. We wanted it to make "yes" possible but "no" completely reasonable as well.

Any surprises?

One of the biggest "aha" moments I had in the development of the policy is that our museum was already doing advocacy in a variety of ways before we had a policy. We educate the public on local issues. We invite people from community organizations and campaigns to use the museum as a platform to share their message. We partner with thousands of artists and organizations, providing staff support and engagement in their work. We incubate a youth art and social change program. We host community festivals like the recent Artivism event that showcase local changemakers. We've made changes to our museum--bilingual signage, all-gender restrooms--to be better advocates for the diverse visitors who walk through our doors.

Though we started working on the policy specifically to address situations when we are asked by an outside group for formal endorsement, we realized as we dove in that we should also use this opportunity to contextualize endorsements as just one of many advocacy tools at our disposal. Advocacy is not just for executives and boards of trustees. The result is a broad policy that empowers our whole team to think about our roles as advocates for our community in the work we do.


I know our policy is not perfect. We're just starting to use it to evaluate endorsement requests coming our way, and I imagine we'll find some ways we want to clarify or change what we've written. But I wanted to share it with you: in appreciation of your role in its development, in curiosity as to your response, and in hopes it might inspire you to draft your own.

Because no matter the content, I heartily advocate for such policies to exist.


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Does Your Institution Have an Advocacy Policy?

In October of 2015, I got a call from a community partner. The Beach Flats Community Garden was under threat, and this friend of the garden wanted our help. The garden, which had operated for 20 years in a predominately low-income Latino neighborhood near the beach, was losing its lease with a private property owner. The City proposed moving the garden to a nearby plot of City-owned land, but gardeners felt that this disruption would literally uproot an essential community place. Garden supporters and partners were putting together a petition to try to push the City and the property owner to find a long-term solution to allow the garden to remain in place. And so the collaborator on the phone asked: would I sign the petition on behalf of our museum?

The outside partner wasn't the only one asking. Several museum staff members had gotten involved in the political action personally outside of work, and they wanted to know if we could sign on organizationally. This wasn't just a question of what was moral or politically useful in the abstract. It was a question about our commitment to our partners, to local sites of cultural importance, and to the Latino families with whom we have been working intensely to build stronger relationships.

I watched as other partner organizations signed on, uncertain what to do. I didn't know how likely the petition was to have influence, but I knew that signing on was important to the people asking.

Ultimately, I decided we couldn't sign - not because it was the necessarily the wrong thing to do, but because we didn't have any kind of policy beyond directorial discretion to decide when it might be appropriate to take a political stand as an institution.

I took the issue to the board, and we agreed that we need to develop some kind of advocacy policy to be able to answer these phone calls with confidence. Our board/staff advocacy task force is meeting this Friday to get the work started, and so I'm curious: has your organization tackled this question? How have you addressed the challenges and opportunities to raise your institutional voice on local issues?

I'm going into this meeting with a strong feeling that our policy can't be to always say no. Our museum has a growing advocacy component to our work. Our theory of change focuses on an intended impact of building a stronger, more connected community. We already embrace the reality that manifesting that impact requires work beyond our building, beyond traditional museum activities. We are proud of our wide-ranging community partnerships, proud to amplify unsung voices and stories, proud to tackle issues of equity and social justice through our programming.

But that's all work we do on our terms. What good are we as a partner if we can't step up and support our partners on their terms, too? I'd hate to be the kind of organization that embraces partners when we need them but not when they need us.

I don't have an opinion about whether our eventual policy should have enabled us to sign that particular petition. But I do want to see us develop a policy that enables us to address these opportunities thoughtfully, with our mission, theory of change, and community values at heart.

How have you, or would you, go about this? What resources might be helpful as we embark on this work?


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