Community partnerships should be mutually beneficial, with value being added from both the community organisation and the museum. Consider the following example.
“We love the community! We reach out and invite them in to see what we are doing here. We give them a voice, encourage them, enable them to get involved in what we are doing here inside the museum.
It so important for us to educate them. Sometimes they are hard to engage, even though we target hard-to-reach. They have so many issues and needs in these deprived communities. They get help from us. We have even done projects with the community and given them the opportunity to get involved in curation. They find it so valuable and it’s so lovely to see how proud they are of their achievements. They play a role here in our museum.
We would like to make more partnerships with community groups. It’s so noble what they do. Of course, museums are facing financial barriers, and its hard now. Because we don’t have enough outreach staff, we have had to let go of extras like community partnerships and outreach. But we are hoping to link with more small community groups as it’s good for our funding applications.”
- If you were a community organisation – how would this ‘advert’ make you feel?
- What would you change?
- If this is the ‘view’ of your museum or museums you are familiar with what can you do to influence?
This exercise should take about 30 minutes.
Please record any learning in your reflection notes.