Managing Museums - Mission

Amazingly, only 13 years ago, the British Museum adopted a Mission Statement for the first time.  Before that, if anyone asked, “Why do you exist?” the standard answer apparently was, “Because we have for over 200 years.”  This is not that the British Museum didn’t have a sense of mission, but just that it was never written down.

Many organizations are or have been run like this.  Without a reason for existence there can be no coordinated thought as to how to properly manage the resources of the museum.  In a place as large as the British Museum this can lead to many difficulties.

A mission statement should be based upon the categories of the acronym PESTLE.  The first factor to consider is the Political element.  This is especially true in a country like England where there are no private museums but all museums belong to the National Heritage Trust.  This is also true of the museum I used to work at, the Siegfried H. Horn Archaeological Museum, which was tied to Andrews University.  Since much of what happens in any organization goes on behind the scenes, a proper understanding of why those who have ultimate control over the existence of the museum value it is important.

The Economic factor to a museum’s mission is almost self-explanatory.  Money is tight and a manager needs to understand what the museum is there for so that the funds available can be used in the best possible way.  (We will look more at fund raising in an upcoming blog.)  There are two types of funding that a manager must consider: Revenue and Capital.  Revenue funding includes all that is necessary to keep a museum running.  Capital funding is what is necessary for projects.  Both need to be planned for and both need to be transparent so that those working for you understand what is available and what is not.  It also helps you to factor in the hours that the museum is open to the public each week, which will also play a part in the economic considerations of the mission statement.

A museum also has a reason to exist for Social reasons.  Visitor, employee, and visiting researcher all interact in some way or other.  The needs of each have to be understood when the mission of the museum is considered.

Technology plays an ever-growing part in the role museums play in making information about the past available to the world.  Does the museum plan on making its research, artifacts, etc available to the public and if so (which it almost certainly must) how?  Are people only able to get at this information in a physical way or is an electronic method more suitable?  (More on this in a future blog.)

Depending on the country, the Legal factor will change.  An archaeological museum will have to factor in not only the legal challenges in their own country but also those in the countries from which the objects that they hold and from which they excavate come.

And finally, there is the Environment to consider.  This may not seem as important, but actually, there are a number of advantages (many of which come from factors already mentioned) that a museum has to “going green”.

Certainly there is much more to be said about each of these, but in order for a museum to be well managed, it must know why it exists and this is expressed in a mission statement.  In upcoming blogs we might make it back to some of these issues and look a little closer at them.