Overview

Mission Matters sheds a fresh light on how to envision relevant and impactful museums. Anderson takes the understanding of mission relevance to a new level. The premise of the book makes direct links to external contemporary realities and the need for museums to better position themselves as leaders and change agents in the greater landscape and diversity of people of our times. Anderson illustrates her points with numerous examples from here in the United States and from around the world. Features include thought essays by David Fleming from the UK who tackles the importance of mission and social issues, and Charmaine Jefferson who frames the complexities of cultural competence in the 21st century. Twenty museum leaders each share their institution's story of transformative change tied to reframing their mission. Anderson's central tool for the book, the Mission Alignment Framework, helps reference the thinking about missions and the subsequent changes within museums as they redirect their work. Eighty US and international mission statements reveal the range of museums from urban and rural to different types of museums, styles of mission all illustrating relevance in a way unique to their location, institutional capacity, resources, and purpose. Complementing these examples are: guidelines about how to rethink mission; a questioning strategy based on the Mission Alignment Framework; and, a range of useful tools from museums and leading thinkers in the field. Mission Matters is useful to a wide range of readers and users from trustees to directors to staff from a wide range of museums regardless of size and stage of development and maturity. The book is an easily accessible reference for strategic planning, conversations about relevance and missions, and museums considering the reinvention of their museum for greater impact.

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9781538103487

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Reviews

This book is right on the money. The world is making ever-increasing demands of museums leading to all sorts of tensions and controversies. Strong missions are increasingly important in order to help museums cope with these pressures. I cannot recommend this book highly enough to all who are involved in museum management. Gail Anderson is an expert in this field, and we are fortunate that she has produced a contemporary view of such importance. -- David Fleming, Ph.D., Professor of Public History at Hope University in Liverpool, England, and former Director of the National Museums Liverpool Anderson offers a surprisingly engaging how-to and why-to book that demonstrates the power of the process of developing a museum mission statement. The generous real world examples reflect the breadth and diversity of museums and communities in the 21st century, and Anderson's deft analyses point to new perspectives for what defines local success as well as a collective commitment. -- Sonnet Takahisa, Director, Strategic Education Initiatives, Newark Museum

Author Information

Gail Anderson has dedicated much of her time over her 40+ year career researching, amassing and sharing resources and new ideas to advance the museum field. With all the pressures that museum leaders face on a daily basis, her goal has been to make resources easily available with practical and accessible approaches ad tools. Anderson, president of Gail Anderson & Associates (GA&A) works with museum leaders facilitating institutional transformation, building institutional and leadership capacity, and expanding community and global relevance. GA&A works with museums on strategic planning, organizational restructuring, institutional assessment and development, board development, as well as individual coaching. She has worked with more than 65+ clients and completed over 105+ projects, the majority of which are repeat clientele speaking to long-term relationships.

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