The 2025 Love my Museum Planning Calendar is here! In this episode, Amy talks about why she created the calendar and walks you through how to use it.

Download the calendar here: https://bit.ly/2025museumcal



Also mentioned:

Episode 5: Planning the Planning

Join the Love my Museum Facebook Group

In today's episode, I'm excited to share the 2025

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planning calendar for museums.

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I'll cover some top planning

tips and discuss how to attract

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visitors who will come back to

your museum and bring a friend.

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Let's get started.

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Hello, and welcome to the

love my museum podcast.

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I'm your host Amy Kehs,

and I love museums.

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I am also a brand strategist and

communications expert for museums.

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And today is the launch of my most

popular free resource the love

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of my museum planning calendar.

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This is the third year I've

created a planning calendar

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for museums, and I really hope.

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It will help you as much as it's

helped my clients and the rest

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of the love, my museum community.

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If you're new here at the love,

my museum, suite of services.

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Are free or affordable resources

of for museum professionals.

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This podcast, my weekly email newsletter.

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Are part of those free offerings.

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And the love my museum planning calendar.

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Is my most popular of

those free resources.

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And the 2025 version is launching today.

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And this episode, I'm going to

give you a behind the scenes.

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Look at what inspired me to create it.

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And then I'll walk you through

it a bit so that you can get.

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The most out of using it.

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Now in episode five of the podcast,

I talked about why you should

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be planning for your museum.

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I imagine most of you are doing some

sort of planning already, but problems

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that I've seen around planning that

then lead to bigger problems for the

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museums I've worked with, or that

my clients have a hard time carrying

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out the plan for the whole year.

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They don't decide on priorities and

communicate that to their staff.

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And.

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Then their staff gets burnout because

the big picture is missed and resources.

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Are exhausted.

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And so I hope this calendar and this

podcast episode inspires you to plan.

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And include your staff as much as possible

at each stage of the planning process.

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The love my museum planning calendar

is that first stage of planning.

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It's the 30,000 foot view.

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It serves as your roadmap

when you're doing.

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Not just your annual planning, but

also quarterly planning, monthly

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planning, and then creating a

task list for each employee.

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Those museum priorities.

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When out over all of the other tasks.

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Let's talk about priorities for a minute.

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I have a client who was

working on a big project.

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There was a lot of time and money.

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A lot of thought had gone into

this project for more than a year.

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We had come up with some events

to take place throughout the year.

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Like I said, this was a

major thing for this museum.

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And when the team leading the project

asked for help from another department,

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they were told no that they couldn't help

because they were working on other things.

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Deciding the museum's priorities,

not the department's priorities or

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an individual person's priorities.

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And then communicating that

to staff means that everyone

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knows aware there needs to be.

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All hands on deck for something.

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It's important to support

your colleagues and it's.

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Vital to support the museum's priorities,

especially when you are a small museum.

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So using this planning calendar

is important to establish what

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the priorities are for the year.

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It is also important to give an overview

of when your resources will be used.

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There are seasons in a museum year

that are always busier than others.

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And during those seasons, I've had

colleagues sleep in their offices.

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I myself have gotten a hotel room

for a time when I would be at.

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The museum until, well, after midnight

for event only to turn around and the next

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morning have to be back for a 4:00 AM.

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TV crew arrival.

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Sometimes those seasons aren't avoidable,

but you can try not to overbook your

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staff uh, tired, exhaustive staff is

an unhappy staff, an unhappy staff.

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Aren't going to be able to give

the best visitor experience.

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And staff that is unhappy for too long.

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Are going to leave.

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So you have.

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Visitors who aren't coming

back and staff who are leaving.

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You're short-staffed and no one is

coming through your visitor doors.

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This might seem a little

grim and dramatic.

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Picture to paint, but.

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I have seen it time and time again.

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Before we dive into

looking at the calendar.

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Let's talk just a little bit about

my inspiration for the calendar.

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When 2020 happened in all of my museum,

the clients had to shut their doors.

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All of my contracts were canceled.

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My daughter was applying to colleges and

I needed to keep my business running.

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I did a pivot and I started

helping online business owners.

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I also, at that time started

working on my own business.

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I noticed with my business owners that

they did a really good job of planning

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and then breaking that plan down

into quarters and months, and weeks.

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One of the business programs

that I completed for my self, for

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my own business, focused on the

importance of 90 day planning.

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It made huge difference in my business.

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I started teaching some of these

techniques to my museum clients.

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When museums started

opening back up again.

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That addition of planning

really started to help them.

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But it was one instance in particular

that inspired me to create this calendar.

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One of my favorite clients is

actually really good at planning.

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They have just one exhibit space and

they try to plan several years out.

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And then around that one exhibit space,

they will create a theme for the year,

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which I think is a brilliant idea.

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It gives them great focus for

programming and also really

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helps with their brand messaging.

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And it alleviates some decision fatigue.

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They know.

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What their priorities are.

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But as they were coming out of

the pandemic, For a couple of

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years in a row, they would forget

to plan for this one event.

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This one particular holiday it's

an event that they are known for

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and journalists would actually call

them and ask what they had planned.

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And then they would be descramble

to put something together.

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It had quite literally just

fallen off of their radar screen.

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That was when I realized that it isn't

just the exhibits that you are planning

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for, but it is how you support your

community, how you create those annual

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traditions that you become known for.

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And making sure that those events

are in your plan too, so that

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you can manage your resources.

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Be proactive, be prepared.

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No one likes those kinds of surprises.

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So the planning calendar.

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Helps you set those

goalposts for the year.

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Those non-negotiables.

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And the planning calendar is going to

help you brainstorm it and identify those.

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It isn't meant that you need to do

something for everything in here.

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Your exhibits programs,

everything that your museum does.

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Needs to be authentic to

your mission and vision.

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The other important thing.

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I talked about this a lot in episode five.

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Is that you need to include

everyone in this plan, depending

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on the size of your staff.

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This might mean doing it together.

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Or maybe the leadership team

takes back to the other staff.

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But everyone needs to be on the same page.

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No, what those priorities are.

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Those goalposts.

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And where the resources are going.

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Okay, so let's dive into

the planning calendar.

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First let's download the calendar.

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Click the link in the show

notes for the calendar.

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It's going to take you to a web page where

you add your first name and your email

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address, and then I'll email you a copy.

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And when you do this, you'll

also be added to my email list.

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I love creating content for

the people on my email list.

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It's my favorite.

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It's.

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Where I can be.

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Little more personal and

share more personal stories.

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The people on my email

list are also the first.

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Bell, besides my clients, they are

the first to find out all the things.

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For example, My email list.

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Got this calendar last week.

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If you're just now signing up for my

email list, you'll get a few extra

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emails this week, and then you'll

just get a new email every Tuesday.

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If you're already on my list, don't worry.

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As long as you're using the same email

address, you won't be added twice.

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And one more quick note on my email

list, because I realized we haven't

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really talked about this before.

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But first.

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And foremost, my goal is always

to make sure that the emails I

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send are worthy of your time.

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I know that a lot lands

in your inbox every day.

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And I want you to be excited

when you get an email from me.

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I also want it to be a quick read, because

I know that as museum people, we are busy.

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And so I don't want to

take too much of your time.

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If you end up not liking my Tuesday

emails and you don't want them anymore.

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It is okay to unsubscribe.

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I will not take it personally.

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It's totally.

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Okay.

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I promise.

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Okay, so you've signed up.

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And you'll get the calendar in your inbox.

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It's a PDF.

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Feel free to print it off.

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If you'd like, if that would be helpful.

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Then open up the calendar.

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I really hope again, that it will

serve as a jumping off point or even

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like a brainstorming trigger list for

your planning session with your staff.

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Use it for this annual planning, but

then pull it out at the beginning of each

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quarter for a quarterly planning session.

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And also when you're

planning for the month.

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The main part of the planner

has a page for every month.

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The first thing I want you

to do is go through it.

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And in the notes section at the bottom,

go ahead and add in any exhibit openings.

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Or signature programs or annual events

that you know right now will be happening.

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On the corresponding month page for 2025.

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So for example, One of my clients

does an amazing October event,

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ghost tours for their community.

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It sells out every year.

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So they would turn to that

October page and put the dates

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in for next year's tours.

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And then depending on how long

it takes to prep for those.

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Signature events or upcoming new exhibits.

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You might want to also jot a note in the

previous months to remind yourself that

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you'll be planning for that main priority.

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That's really just to

manage your staff workload.

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Another example will be that

first museum that I talked about.

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With the annual exhibit.

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A lot of times they will have some

marketing ad buys that they do.

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And they need to coordinate

it with that exhibit opening.

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So they may jot.

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Jot down when those ads would be due.

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You won't have enough room in here to

get too far down in the weeds with these

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two dues, but think of the things that

maybe require multiple departments or.

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Are just some of those bigger milestones.

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After you're done filling out

those big events, go through

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each page of the calendar.

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Now I remembered this is a 30,000

foot view and we'll kind of

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zoom in each quarter and then

by month, and then by week.

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And that's how you will see

success, but this is your overview.

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You're setting up those priorities,

those goalposts for your upcoming year.

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At the top of each month's page.

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The first thing that we

look at is a monthly theme.

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So for example, January is

getting organized month.

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February of course is black history month

march is national women's history month.

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And so on and so forth.

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So for each month, look at those.

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And see, do you have any events

that might coordinate with it?

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Do you have any artifacts or

things in your collection that

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relate to the theme of the month?

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After the month themes, there

are notable dates for that month.

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Now this is by no means an exhausted list.

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There are literally

days for everything now.

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It really is just to get you thinking,

do you have an exhibit that would go

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with that holiday or an artifact in

your collection that you can highlight?

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You could also do this in reverse.

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Maybe there's a collection item.

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That is new or you feel like it

doesn't get a lot of attention.

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You can see if there's

a holiday that it might.

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Go with and mark it on your calendar.

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It'll go through and do that

for every month of the year.

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Also in the calendar, you'll see a

page talking about your media list.

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Having these ideas give you

things to pitch to the media.

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They are looking for story ideas,

especially on slow news days.

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If you're providing them newsworthy and

timely ideas, they will be very thankful.

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I hope that this calendar inspires

you to be proactive and to get

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everyone on the same page for 2025.

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Once you've downloaded the free calendar.

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If you have any questions, please hit

reply on that email and let me know.

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I'm really the one on the other end.

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Also a reminder that I have a

new Facebook group, the love,

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my museum, Facebook group.

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Where museum professionals share tips

and strategies and success stories.

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And I would love to see you there.

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Thanks so much for listening.

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I'll see you next time.