Category Archives: C

What it means

Core values are a focused set of guiding principles that define your highest organizational aspirations. The organization is stronger when all members honor the core values and apply them in all decisions, large and small. They operate internally and externally; this includes team behavior, colleague interactions, and how the organization interacts with the public.

How it’s used

Core values should be used in critical decisions such as board selection, hiring, training, onboarding, and program selection. They should also be used in day-to-day discussions, planning, and strategic planning as an active tool for all decision-making. Core values can serve as a type of rubric to assess the compatibility of a partnership.

Core values serve as guardrails for everyone, including the board, executive leadership, team members, and volunteers, and they should extend to expected visitor behavior. All members of the organization should take responsibility to uphold and defend the core values. This work should be regarded as part of one’s role and responsibility as a member of the organization.

Core values should address an organization’s highest aspirations rather than reiterate standard nonprofit management practices. Safety and integrity, for example, should not clutter the core values, as these should be regarded as basic prerequisites for continued operation.

Core values must be well defined, easy to understand, and ready to use by everyone involved in the museum; this puts a severe limit on how many core values any museum can reasonably have.

Why it matters

In a world where museums face an increasingly uncertain future, core values serve as critical guardrails and inspiration, protecting the organization from going off the path as it moves toward the achievement of its most aspirational vision.

Core values are a powerful tool in the development, evolution, or maintenance of organizational culture, which is, in turn, a key constraint on organizational strategy. If the culture, and thus the behavior of those inside the organization, is out of alignment with the strategy, the museum’s capacity to execute that strategy will be severely limited.

Notes

See also Purpose Statement (Purpose, Mission, Vision, Values)

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What it means

The word community means different things in different contexts. For our purpose, because museums exist to serve the public, we define community as members of the public who share an identity, affinity, and geography, be it physical, digital, or psychological.

How it’s used

Museums typically invest in engaging with community for the purpose of developing authentic, trusted, long-lasting, and mutually beneficial partnerships. This engagement often happens through co-creation of content such as programs or digital products, as well as the leveraging of user-generated content (UGC). Community represents a shift in marketing, away from a mindset of transaction and broadcasting of messages, toward investing in collaboration and relying on micro-engagements with people who are taking time out of their busy days to talk about the museum, be it through word-of-mouth, likes, comments, or shares. Community members with a wide reach are referred to as influencers.

The museum must be clear about which communities it wants to engage and support. (See also Audience Segmentation.) Before the museum engages with or attempts to define community, it is best practice to talk to community members to understand how they want to be engaged and how they define themselves. A conversation with a museum employee, who is also a member of the identified external community, does not completely fulfill this need. While tapping into employee experiences and perspectives is useful, there is a need for ongoing dialogue with external community members in order to gather and learn from various perspectives and voices.

Why it matters

Fostering community is a strategy for audience growth and engagement. In an increasingly hybrid world, communities form a strong foundation, especially for the digital relationships a museum must foster. If a museum is relevant to a community, word-of-mouth will spread, through their members and thought leaders (i.e., influencers). We have defined community as an audience group but it can also refer to the community that is centered around a museum itself, such as staff, volunteers, and fans.

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What it means

Communications is a word that can mean different things in different contexts. Communications may refer to an organizational team or discipline, or it might be used in reference to outreach tactics—proactive as well as reactive. In all instances, the term communications encapsulates the focus on crafting and sharing messages in service of the museum and its institutional goals as well as helping build awareness and trust with the public and all institutional stakeholders, both internal and external. (See also Brand Equity.)

How it’s used

While communicating is something everyone does as part of their work, communications as a discipline—which is often, but not always, tied to marketing—strategically crafts and disseminates information and stories that support the museum’s value, mission, and contributions to the communities it serves. Communication also refers to, and is equally important for, both internal and external audiences.

Communications activities and tactics may include distributing information to the media via press releases, media alerts, and individual pitches; conducting media training and interview management for leadership and other staff, as well as sometimes serving as a spokesperson for the museum; developing key messages and talking points for museum leadership and other staff; developing language for the museum’s website and other external-facing materials (e.g., Annual Reports); and managing external public relations firms, crisis communications, and social media platforms.

Why it matters

Strategic communications outreach requires holistic knowledge of the organization, the museum field, and the political and social environment at large. It is important to have a centralized communications plan that supports the museum’s mission and values because the brand’s integrity and reputation are dependent on public perception.

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What it means

A marketing communications campaign is a strategic mix of paid, owned, and earned media efforts combined with partnerships, promotions, or grassroots initiatives calibrated to meet objectives such as expanding audiences, building awareness, growing earned and contributed revenue, or supporting raising capital.

How it’s used

Aligned with goals and budget, the marketing communications campaign can range from a full multimedia suite of owned (e.g., email, social, and website with built-in audiences), paid (e.g., advertising to reach current and new audiences), and earned (e.g., publicity) media channels coupled with promotions, which are especially effective for launching new exhibitions or brand awareness initiatives.

A micro-campaign consisting of only digital marketing communication efforts is typically used for driving audiences to museum programs or motivating redemptions for special promotions.

Integrating partnerships and grassroots efforts to the campaign mix is especially important for goals that include engaging non-traditional museum audiences and communities. These relationships are built on trust—something that paid, owned, and earned media efforts alone cannot cultivate without listening to and partnering with the community.

It’s essential to measure a campaign’s success during implementation, to gauge performance and deploy responsive measures as needed, as well as post-implementation to determine if KPIs (key performance indicators) of goals have been met.

Why it matters

Campaigns break through the clutter of too much information and a fragmented media landscape by providing consistent messaging and imagery that touches the audience in multiple contexts to strengthen retention and recall.

Campaigns offer a strategic, actionable, and measurable approach for any marketing communications operation to balance the implementation of year-round media initiatives and partnerships in support of various department and institutional goals at the museum.

For this reason, cross-functional support from visitor services, the shop, design, programming, curatorial, and other departments all contribute to the success of a campaign.

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