​Did you ever wonder where museums came from? Who enabled such vast collections of treasures – artistic, historic, and scientific – to be gathered together and presented to the public? While there are a few examples of ancient museums, up until modern times most collections were private, held by wealthy patrons and institutions. During the late middle ages the Vatican donated some of its collection for a public museum, and a little later opened its permanent collection for public view. The European Museums Network has a great post about the history of public museums.

But in the modern era of museums, following the Enlightenment, and blossoming in the 19th century, public museums were established through the bequest of wealthy patrons, or groups of patrons. These museum trusts were often accompanied with endowments to ensure their upkeep, operation, and continued operation. Up to this very day, a large part of a museum’s support comes from groups of wealthy donors who make annual gifts and contribute to the endowment.

​As of Friday, May 25th, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulations are in effect—and, if you’ve opened your email inbox within the last month, you know that many companies are updating their privacy policies to be compliant.

GDPR is a new set of regulations that require organizations to protect the personal data of EU citizens if that data is provided during an interaction within an EU member state. The regulation is the same across all 28 states.

GDPR replaces an older data protection law from 1995, and the biggest change to the law is the concept of extraterritoriality: it applies to all organizations that process personal data of European residents, whether or not they are physically located in Europe. The other changes are kept purposefully loose—while they require a “reasonable” set of protections for personal data, the definition of reasonableness isn’t provided, and may be left to European regulatory agencies.

I was talking with an executive the other day about the problems she was having with her board, when she declared, “I’ve been here a long time and I’ve seen all this behavior before. I’m just so tired of it!” At that moment, I remembered an article by Miriam Wood, titled, “Is Governing Board Behavior Cyclical?”

While digging out the article to reread it, I thought about all the changes that have occurred since the article was first published in 1992. Since then, the nonprofit sector has seen exponential growth, increased professionalism, and an explosion in academic research, with a concomitant number of undergraduate and graduate degrees awarded in the field. Nonprofit governance research and practice have grown to the point that there is now a biannual conference that brings together scholars and practitioners to explore and advance the body of knowledge in the field. I found myself wondering whether the board behavior framework advanced by Wood was still as applicable today as it was in 1992. To address this question, I have drawn upon information from NPQ’s 2011 reader survey, and my own experience serving on nonprofits for more than 30 years as well as working for nonprofit boards as a consultant.

f you saw “Degas: At the Track, on the Stage” at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2015 or early 2016, you were part of an experiment.

The show, a microcosm of the impressionist artist's work, used a sophisticated attendance model to test the effect of smaller exhibits on attendance. Measuring Wi-Fi usage throughout the museum revealed that visitors spent more time in the room containing the Degas exhibit than they would have had that room not contained a special exhibit.

"Flesh," a small exhibit of Chicago painter Ivan Albright's work, opened May 4.
Thanks to that experiment, the Art Institute has stepped up smaller exhibits, opening a new show, on average, every two weeks. Museum officials expect the mix of smaller, more frequent exhibits to boost attendance, now hovering around 1.6 million a year, with members visiting once every nine to 12 months and local ticketed visitors once every 18 to 24 months. They hope these exhibits will bump up the 60 percent annual renewal rate for its 100,000 members. The new plan will also give the museum a break from the time and expense of blockbusters along the lines of 2016's “Van Gogh's Bedrooms.”

​As we navigate a world marked by extreme income inequality, a declining middle class, and constant cries of “fake news,” it is high time to revisit the relationship between nonprofits and government, as well as the role of museums as educational institutions in a democratic society. In the past, the conversation about public education has largely focused on K-12 schools, while overlooking other critical public and nonprofit institutions such as museums and libraries. However, like our government, these institutions are pillars of our democratic society. Alas, museum operations often reflect the same values as our government in an increasingly disadvantageous way. And, part of the reason for this parallel is the common lack of diversity among political donors and nonprofit board members. More and more, the same people who foster undemocratic practices in government are also acting similarly on nonprofit boards.

As a nation, we have always recognized the importance of public education as a pillar of our democracy. Horace Mann, credited as the father of public education, famously said, “Education…is the great equalizer of the conditions of men, the balance-wheel of the social machinery.” The logic follows that with an equal academic foundation, all people will be equipped to sufficiently form and defend their values, the very basis of a democracy. Additionally, an equal education provides everyone with the same opportunities to succeed economically—in theory.

The German Association of Museums and culture minister Monika Grütters presented a code of conduct for museums on how to handle artefacts acquired in a colonial context, including guidelines for provenance research and responding to restitution claims.
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Grütters has made addressing the colonial past a priority of her new term in office. She has pledged funding to museums for provenance research of colonial-era acquisitions and has assigned the German Lost Art Foundation to distribute government funding. Though such artefacts are primarily housed in the country’s ethnological museums, the German Association of Museums is urging all museums and universities to examine their collections.

A number of art museums over the past decade have run into financial trouble, for reasons ranging from declining donations to adverse local situations (Detroit, for example), as well as increasing storage costs for housing ever-increasing acquisitions. Often, as is the case of the Berkshire Museum, factors are out of museum management’s control. The region around the museum’s seat of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, fell victim to industrial decline. Unfortunately, museums of all sizes may face future financial headwinds, thanks to an increase in private museums; changes in the tax treatment of gifts since last year’s tax bill was signed into law; and the high probability of a recession within the next two or three years, which could dampen charitable giving.

​There is a solution within reach. Museums could deaccession, or sell, works from their collections, in order to shore up their finances, mount more shows, and reduce admission costs. The only hitch? The country’s major accrediting group, the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), won’t let them. Just last week, the AAM in conjunction with the Association of Art Museum Directors, announced sanctions on the Berkshire Museum for doing so, as well as the art museum at Philadelphia’s La Salle University.