August 2014

Program Perspective: Top Ten Reasons Poster Sessions are Great

By Lorie Millward

The Western Museums Association (WMA) 2014 Annual Meeting Poster Session is the second edition of, in what we hope, will be an ongoing program opportunity for years to come. I love me some poster session, and here’s why:

10. Posters are a great way to introduce a project or case study that may not be ready for a for a full-fledged conference session.

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Eight Questions to Consider Before Launching Your Museum’s Crowdfunding Campaign

By Maren Dougherty

Earlier this year, our team at the Autry National Center of the American West in Los Angeles launched an online crowdfunding campaign for our exhibition about Route 66. In 60 days, we raised more than $60,000 for the exhibition, including more than $40,000 through the Indiegogo platform and $20,000 in offline donations.

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What’s Happening California? An Ongoing Museum-University Co-Curation Project

By Suzanne Fischer

What does cosplay have to do with training the next generation of museum professionals? In the Oakland Museum of California’s (OMCA) What’s Happening California series college students become the heroes of the exhibit development process.

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Program Perspective: Diversifying Your Donor Base—Beyond Trustees and Members!

By: Suzanne Hilser-Wiles

So many museums suffer what some might consider a “happy problem”—generous support from board members and a robust membership program, but very little philanthropic activity between the two. While board support and a broad-based membership effort are important for the current financial stability of your organization, success in these areas might, in fact, be masking a serious future problem: lack of a true pipeline.

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