Year One as a Museum Director... Survived!

To contact us Click HERE
Today is my one-year anniversary as the executive directorof the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. A year ago, I put my consultanthat on the shelf and decided to jump into museum management (a sentence I NEVERwould have imagined writing five years ago).

It’s been a wild and wonderful year—without question, my most challenging and stimulating yet. We went through a dramatic financialturnaround and redefined our relationship with our community through a series of experimentalparticipatory projects and new programmatic approaches. We have come out theother end with dramatic increases in attendance (62%), membership (30%), andfinancial stability (priceless). We have new support from foundations andindividuals who care about innovation in audience engagement—and even moreimportantly, participants who are excited to experiment with us. People areshowing up, getting involved, and sharing their enthusiasm in droves. Personally,I’ve learned to work in whole new worlds, from fundraising to management to communitydevelopment. It is incredibly rewarding work. I feel lucky.
I'm open to any questions you want to raise in the comments. In the meantime, here are some of the...
THINGS I’M MOST PROUD OF:

• Redefining our role in the community. I’ve always been interested in the social mission of museums, and I feel strongly that the MAH will be successful if we are not a great cultural or learning organization but a great community organization—one with compelling relevance to the issues that matter most in Santa Cruz. I’m proud of our partnerships with the Homeless Service Center, Second Harvest Food Bank, UCSC, the Chamber of Commerce, and other organizations that are at the heart of the Santa Cruz identity. I look forward to more strategic partnerships that support community development broadly in our county.
• Just doing it. We didn’t go through an extensive planningprocess followed by deliberative, careful steps forward. We had a vision, ashort list of goals for the first year, and an energetic (if underfunded)attack. Over the past year, we’ve developed several planning methodologies andapproaches to our work—such as our exhibition philosophy and community program development process—and we did it iteratively through a series of experiments. We tried andtested and played and worked our way forward, and we’re still doing it. It is,as Kathleen McLean puts it, “museum as prototype,” and it is exhilarating,thoughtful work for all of us.

MISTAKES I MADE:

• Using the F word. When I arrived, the MAH was incrediblyclose to the brink financially—we had less than one week of cash in the bank.In the early days, I would say to donors and to the media that the museumwas failing and that we needed their investment and commitment to turn itaround and thrive. This narrative worked well in the press—especially when wehad early impressive results—but it was demoralizing and offensive to some ofthe staff and volunteers who had worked hard to deliver the best museumexperiences possible in the years prior. Staff members led us in reframing ourlanguage to talk about the museum as transforming from a “traditional model toa 21^st century model” instead of failing and then succeeding.
• Conflating financial trends with financial position. When Icame, I saw an institution that had a multi-year pattern of operating in thered. We had to reverse the trend, and I made drastic, immediate cuts andchanges to cut expenses. Everyone made sacrifices. I thought it was the only option. We had layoffs andall remaining staff took 20% salary cuts across the board (which were restoredover the following six months as we raised an operating reserve). Then, the turnaround happened faster than I expected, and I now see the situation a littledifferently. Maybe instead of thinking about needing to turn around the monthlycash flow, I should have thought about the net cash required toput us on more stable ground. If I werein this situation again, I might make the same choice, but I think I’d put moreoptions on the table in the decision-making.
• Not acknowledging enough the stress that comes withdisruptive change. While I think I did a decent job communicating my vision forthe turnaround and changes with staff, I did a poor job responding to thespoken—and mostly unspoken—stress that came with it. While effective as a tool for rapid change,“embrace the chaos” is not a comfortable management strategy. I credit everyoneon our team for adapting and leading with extraordinary enthusiasm andoptimism.

THINGS THAT SURPRISE ME:

• The central role of event-driven experiences. From day 1, Ibelieved that we needed to focus in our first year on creating newparticipatory events to engage the community. My theory was that visitors wouldbe introduced to the museum through events and then return for daytime visitsto the galleries. Instead, we find that they do return—for more events. 85% of our visitors attend through events. Eventsgenerate media, focus public attention, and catalyze social energy. The jury isstill out on how we will negotiate the relationship between events and casualvisits when it comes to hours, pricing, and resource allocation—but this issomething we will definitely keep exploring.
• The cumulative effect of participation. I often talk about audience participation as a deployable tool—one among many—to enhanceengagement. While I still think of it that way, at the MAH, we’re seeing someof the surprising effects of lots of participatory techniques all under oneroof. Our message to the community about getting involved, coupled withpolicies that encourage flexible collaboration and stationsthroughout the building that invite participation is generating striking levelsand types of co-creative activity in all arenas. It's comparable to the difference between a place with a few interactives and an interactive science center--it changes the way peopleengage and who comes. I’m not suggesting that every institution can or shouldmove in this direction, but it’s the first time I’ve seen it in action and I’mstruck by the distinction.
• The speed and extent of the community response. We stillhave a long way to go to make the MAH the “thriving central gathering place” ofour vision statement. But it’s kind of amazing how quickly our role in the eyesof community members changed. Visitors, members, donors, volunteers, and themedia have been effusive about what they describe as the “new energy” at themuseum. I didn’t imagine that would happen in such a short time frame, and Ithink it’s going to help all of us—staff, board and community members—continuethe conversation about how to keep the energy going.
• The possible determinism of cultural geography. I used tosay that participation can work in all cultures and institution types—it’s justa matter of finding the right type of participation for that community. While Istill believe this, I am frequently struck by how “Santa Cruz” a lot of our storyis. Free hugs for new members, collaborative sculpture projects, fire festivals…these things could work in lots of places, but I’m not sure they would evokethe same interest, passion, and almost universal enthusiasm that we enjoy. Italked about this with international museum friends at AAM and they had mixedresponses—some bought the Santa Cruz niche concept, others didn’t. Again, thejury is out.

Here’s to the coming year, which will hopefully be as fullof learning, engaging, and experimenting as this past year. And more sleep.That would be good too.