12+ Museum Strategic Plan Template & Sample – PDF, DOC
Museums hold a priceless purpose in the society. Their hallowed walls house the origins, history, tradition, and culture of the world or at least a specific country. The exhibits and artifacts found inside a museum are usually donated by generous donors who believe in that same purpose. Without them, the museum becomes outdated and will soon lose appeal. You may also see Plan Templates.
Museum Planning Template
American Museum Strategic Plan Sample
Yes, some museums do collect door fees before anybody can enter but these fees are usually for the upkeep and maintenance of the museum’s facilities and as such museums, especially as smaller ones do not earn any revenue for their personal use. This allows a museum to be part of the nonprofit an not-for-profit sector and be classified as a nonprofit organization. You may also see HR strategic plans.
Art Center Strategic Plan Sample
The International Council of Museums (ICOM), the only global organization of museums and museum professionals, defines museums as:
”a non-profit making, permanent institution in the service of society. It is open to the public and it acquires, conserves, researches communicates, and exhibits, for the purpose of the study, education, and enjoyment, the material evidence of people and their environment.” You may also see IT strategy plan templates.
The success of a museum has a great impact and the success of a community’s cultural sector. It is integral that museums are run well and run properly to ensure this success. In a world of today that is insistent on looking towards the future, a value should still be given to looking at the past. Due in part to shifting audience interest, this has become an arduous task. If museums are to remain relevant in the future, it must create strategic templates that will appeal to the audience of today. Museums must build strategies to promote looking back to the past can still have a bearing on the future. You may also see strategic plans.
Strategic Planning for Museums
Museums have been facing challenges from the very beginning of their inception. Back in those days, museums were elitist institutions. Those days are now over and the museum today faces more problems now more than ever. The increase of difficulty in acquiring resources, competition from audience choice of leisure activities, high audience expectations and increased demand for accountability from supporters both private and government have placed the future of museums in uncertainty. You may also see personal strategic plans.
More than ever before, museum staff needs to act and think strategically if their institution is to prosper and survive. More than ever before should they have the ability to anticipate problems and recognize opportunities that will benefit their institutions? More than ever before the museum must utilize a strategic plan.
Art Museum Strategic Plan Example
Art Museum Strategic Plan Template
Benefits Strategic Planning Bring to Museums
1. Provides a sound basis for decision making
In times of doubt, the strategic plan can guide the organization’s staff on what they should do and which direction should they head. The mission and vision statements, which are key elements in the strategic planning process, specify the overall identity of the museum where decisions should be based.
2. Increased efficiency
One might still arrive at a destination without knowing where they are going, however, they will get there with more resources wasted. With a map, they could have reached the same destination faster and with fewer resources needed. In an organizational sense, the sample strategic plan is this map. The resources needed for running a museum can be allocated properly and be managed more efficiently. You may also see school strategic plan templates.
3. Increased effectivity
A museum has a target audience. It needs to sell itself to these people to maintain relevance and to continue doing its purpose. A strategic plan sample can help refine its focus to its target audience for a more effective campaign.
4. Improved communication with stakeholders
The museum’s stakeholders include its audience, partners, board, volunteers, supporters, community decision makers. Any changes that occur in the museum will affect these people and as such any action these people take can affect the museum. To put it simply, museums need these people and it is essential that museums foster a healthy relationship with them. One cannot build a healthy relationship without a communication and a strategic plan sample can be a platform for this communication. You may also see strategic sales plans.
5. Motivated and focused workers
That goes without saying. If the museum has its mission, goals, objectives and milestones, it will affect the employees’ and volunteers’ motivation. Furthermore, the above mention can help the museum find workers with aligned purpose. With that great alignment comes great motivation. You may also see school strategic plan templates.
Through strategic planning brings with it numerous benefits including the above mentioned, they are not miraculous cure-it-alls that will remove all of an organization’s, museums included, problems. Strategic planning and strategies for that matter are just tools to help run an organization. The success of a strategic plan still lies behind the people who formulate the plan, the decisions they make and the goals they accomplish. Remember: a tool is only as good as its user. You may also see free strategic plan templates.
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Example Strategic Plan for Museum Institution
History Museum Strategic Plan Sample
Strategic Planning Process
Just like in planning other strategic plans, the strategic planning process of a museum may require time. In this case, two days of intensive planning or shorter planning sessions are done over a period of time can be enough. The process should involve a lot of people, usually from within the institution, but a value can be found with inviting people from outside the organization like an independent consultant or some organization that is connected to the museum. Nevertheless, strategic planning will follow a few steps. You may also see strategic plan templates in PDF.
1. Analysis of the Situation
The aim of this step is to take a stock of where the museum currently is and what the situation is like. The first step of any planning process is to find the bearings of the organization and proceed from there. This is usually the data gathering step of the process and as such, there will be no right and wrong answers as long as the data is correct.
A museum can use different tools to facilitate these step including a stakeholder analysis, trend analysis and an analysis of the strength, weakness, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). A stakeholders analysis aims to identify the internal and external stakeholders of the organization and their impact and influence on it. The SWOT analysis meanwhile is the internal and external properties of the museum. Analysing the situation usually answers the question: “Where are we now?”
2. Goal Analysis
This step aims to imagine where the museum is going to head. This step is the meat of a strategic plan. It is in this step that planners decide the faith and direction of the museum. This is where the mission, vision, and current goals and objectives of the museum gets discussed and decided. The vision statement of the museum describes what the organization wants to be like. This will usually be the guide the future actions and decision making of the enterprise. A good vision can be communicated to someone in five minutes or less and get reactions within that time. You may also see strategic life plan templates.
A mission meanwhile identifies the area of operation of the museum and the scope of its activities. Most organizations usually combine their vision and mission statements and together they can promote a single focus for the company. The goals will be the specific set of activities that will guide the organization in achieving its mission statement and vision statement examples. The essence of this step is to answer the question of where the museum wants to be. you may also see Strategic Plan Templates.
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3. Strategy Analysis
If the second step specifies the destination of the organization, the third steps specify which road it takes. This step aims to break down the goals specified in the above step into strategies and task. As goals formulated can both be for long term and short term, so too are the strategies and task in doing them. You may also see training strategic plans.
Strategies can be formulated through different ways including brainstorming, observing and copying others, building on strengths or challenging the usual. How the museum handles its resource allocation and management is usually included here. In the end, this step answers the how the museum will get to where it wants to be. You may also see hospital strategic plans.
4. Evaluation
Strategic planning is a full circle process. Just as there is a need to take a stock at the beginning of the process, there is also a need to evaluate the situation at the end. It is in this step that the museum can measure the success and failures of its actions. Evaluation allows the organization to assess itself if it is on the right track. It is through evaluation that a museum can see if the plan is not working and to course correct immediately. You may also see non-profit strategic plan templates.
This step can be the most difficult to partake as the link between strategies and the results of those actions can sometimes be obscure. At the end of it all, this step aims to answer the question if the museum has arrived on its intended destination and if not, is it moving in the right direction. You may also see restaurant strategic plan samples.