Museum Mission Statements: Building a Distinct Identity

by Gail Anderson (Editor)

A well-crafted mission statement represents the unique aspects of a museum and its community and prepares the museum to undertake known and as yet unknown challenges without compromise. Twenty top museum professionals share their memorable experiences and bring to life the principles and techniques for attaining a mission statement that inspires and energizes. This book provides step-by-step guidance in writing or evaluating a museum mission statement and how to use it effectively. Generously supplemented with 79 outstanding mission statements from a wide variety of museums, the report is useful to any size or type museum.

137 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1998

Reviews

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish I could find a copy of this book to own, or better yet, an updated version of something similar for the museum world post-2020. There's a lot of helpful nitty-gritty stuff, characteristics of a good mission statement, and ideas on how to develop a mission statement. I suppose I could find many of these in a general book for nonprofits, but it helps to have the museum framework built in. It was a slow read, even though it was short . . . because either there was too much detail to take it very quickly, or it was a bit of a slog through endless bureaucracy in the case studies. But I'm very glad to have read it. (The only reason it's not 5 starts is that I found it quite dated in places . . . which is only fair, as it's nearly 30 years old.)