The Minnesota Historical Society’s Local History Services helps Minnesotans preserve and share their history. This blog is a resource of best practices on the wide variety of museum, preservation, conservation, funding, and non-profit management topics. We’re here to help.
Affinity Groups
Does your organization have an affinity group? Recent reports from experts in the history field have shown that relying on heritage tourism will not by itself improve use of museums and historic sites. It is one component of usage, which happens to have people who stay longer and spend more. However, for the history museum and historic site that want to improve the number of users and to grow users into significant donors, developing affinity groups appears to be a promising method. Some of Minnesota's local historical organizations offer book clubs and art shows in communities that are too small to support them otherwise. There may be others, such as veteran's and living history groups; card, dance, food, model railroad clubs; hiking, canoeing, bicycling, snowmobiling, and other outdoors affinity groups. Two questions:
If you have such an affinity group, in what ways does that group partner with and enhance your organization?
If you have no affinity groups, can you speculate on what kinds of affinity groups might be needed in your community?
Boy Scout Centennial Traveling Exhibit
- easy-to-install
- general content that establishes a context for your own local collections.
- includes program ideas, educational materials, publicity materials,
- helps identify and make sense of your local Boy Scout collections, and more.
As with most of the exhibits available from SITES:
- a small rental fee will be charged, and
- the borrower will arrange for delivery, and
- pay incoming shipping costs.Â
Space requirements are to be determined. The exhibit would be available for 6 or 8-week bookings. Since many details (content, size, time, cost, etc.) have not yet been decided, this is your opportunity to help us determine in what ways a traveling Boy Scout history exhibit would be the most useful to you and your community.Â
If you are potentially interested in booking such an exhibit, please either e-mail Claudia Nicholson, Executive Director of the museum, or write to her at North Star Museum of Boy Scouting and Girl Scouting, 2640 E. Seventh Avenue, North St. Paul, MNÂ 55109.
Learning from nonprofits
Using the Blog at a Glance
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Remembering Our Own
Archives Training on PastPerfect
Thanks,
Bobbie Scott
Programs Manager
Sherburne History Center
Online Registrations
Thanks -
Shana Crosson and Megan Schaack, for MAM
Threat to Tax Deductions
Where's the Line?
He writes: "When asked how they would feel about operating in a more businesslike fashion, as well as incorporating branding strategies into their daily activities, many nonprofit leaders still tell me that "it would make us look too much like the for-profit sector." And my response is always the same - Get over it!" Yet Checco does not advocate "nonprofits compromise their passion for their missions or co-opt their values or program strategies to appease business-oriented donors."
Keeping Steven Miller's comments in mind from the Under a Microscope discussion, are Checco's remarks in line with Miller? Above all, where's the line between charity and business?
Working with Scout Groups
Share some successful and not-so-successful ideas.