The below post was written by Margaret Greutert, Chief Curator, Kodiak History Museum:
I had two key learning moments while attending the Museums Alaska 2024 conference surrounding the theme, Building Community. These learning moments help me think about how our museum approaches building authentic partnerships within our community and with funders. Additionally, I was excited to make connections with the broader Alaska museum community, as opportunities for face-to-face collaboration are rare living on a relatively remote island.
Lisa Sasaki’s keynote presentation, From the Ground Up: Building a Strong Foundation for Community Collaboration, articulated a fresh perspective that was a learning moment for me. We always talk as museums about “serving” our communities, but the verb “serving” inherently separates the institution from the people being served. It can reinforce the historic and colonial view that museums are the “experts”. Sasaki urged us to reframe this dynamic to focus on connecting and sharing with communities and operating off of shared values. Individuals have agency when connecting with the museum. This made consider ways our museum can improve our interpretive plan and create a more thoughtful and comfortable experience for our visiting researchers and community partners.
Shared values seemed to be an unofficial theme of the conference. In the Capital Campaigns Session, speaker Patrick Druckenmiller, talked about his experience working with funders for the new planetarium at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He shared that there is a perception that funding a huge project takes a lot of convincing or pleading with funders for support. However, both he and Rasmuson Program Officer, Monica Garcia-Itchoak, offered a new perspective that it is all about finding shared values with your funder. When you have that shared foundation, it makes partnering to accomplish a project genuine and fulfilling for both parties. With an upcoming capital campaign project on the horizon, this made me think about how we can start engaging and incorporating our existing audience and supporters into the plans.
I am grateful for all the people I had the privilege to connect with and the fresh perspectives gained from this conference.
