Amy:
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If you work in a museum right now, you already know
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this is not a normal year.
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Today, I'm sharing what I'm seeing,
why this summer feels different,
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and what I'm gonna do about it.
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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'm also a brand strategist and
communications expert for museums,
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and I am the creator of the Love
My Museum method, where we turn
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first-time visitors into lifelong fans.
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Today on the podcast, I want to have
a real conversation about what's
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happening in the museum world right now,
because what I'm seeing is something
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I think a lot of you are feeling too.
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This is a really heavy moment for
museums, and I wanna say that out
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loud because sometimes it just helps
to have someone acknowledge it.
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The American Alliance of Museums
put out their annual snapshot
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report earlier this year for 2025,
and the numbers are sobering.
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One-third of museums have had
government grants canceled, and
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here's the part that really got me.
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Two-thirds of the museums that
lost their federal funding have
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not been able to replace it through
donors or grants or foundations.
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Two-thirds.
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That money is just gone.
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On top of that, more than half
of museums are still seeing lower
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attendance than before the pandemic.
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When directors were asked what they see
as their biggest disruptions heading
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into 2026, shifts in philanthropy
came in at the top, followed by
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inflation, financial instability,
changes to travel and tourism.
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The American 250 celebrations should
be a huge opportunity for a lot of
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museums right now, and for many it is.
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But it's also adding programming
pressure on top of teams that are
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already stretched incredibly thin.
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Here's also what surprised
me most in the AAM report.
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Only 4% of museums have automated
any processes or tasks that
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were formerly done by staff.
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4%.
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Almost no one is using systems or tools
to lighten the load on their people.
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And for the museums that are trying
to hire, communications and marketing
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roles are among the positions they're
struggling to fill, which means the
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person who is doing communications
at your museum is very likely doing
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the job of more than one person.
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I see this all the time.
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The museums that are navigating this
moment well do have something in common.
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It is not that they have
bigger budgets or larger teams.
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It is that they have better systems.
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Their communications don't depend on
one person holding everything together.
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Their messaging stays clear and consistent
even when things get chaotic around them.
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And the museums that
are really struggling,
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of course, it's not because they don't
care or aren't working hard enough.
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It's the opposite.
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They're working incredibly hard,
but the effort isn't adding up
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to momentum because there's no
infrastructure underneath of it.
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When I read this report and saw all of
these things, I started thinking about how
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I can help museums this summer, because
what the data is describing, I have
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been living every day with my clients.
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The exhaustion is real.
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The stretched teams are real.
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Museum professionals do not give
themselves permission to rest.
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They keep pushing.
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They keep adding to their plates,
and eventually, that catches up
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with them and with their museum.
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When the person holding everything
together runs out of steam, the whole
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operation can feel it, and that is
something I really want to help change.
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I thought it might be a good
topic for my summer series.
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. Five years ago, this
started as an email series.
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Just a few weeks of focused
content every summer to give museum
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professionals something useful during
what can be their busiest season.
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Two years ago, when I launched this
podcast, I started adding episodes to
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it as well, and every year I try to make
it more useful than the last, and this
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year, to me, feels especially important.
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I'm not going to give
everything away today.
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That is something I'll
do in the next episode.
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But I will say this, the series will
run every week in July and August.
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It's practical.
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It's designed specifically for the
moment museums are in right now.
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If you have been feeling like you are
running on empty and you're not sure how
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to change that, I think this series is
for you I will also be including an AI
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tip in each week of the email series.
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I know a lot of museums are nervous
about AI, whether it's appropriate,
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whether it's safe, whether it even
applies to them, and I totally get it.
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But if you aren't using AI in your systems
or your processes yet, I hope this might
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be a good, gentle, practical introduction.
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It'll just be one small thing each week,
something that you can actually try.
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So the series lives in two places.
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Let's talk for a minute about
how to get the most out of it.
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So right here on the podcast every
other week is one place, and in my
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weekly Tuesday email every week.
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So the emails go out every single week.
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On podcast week, the email links to
the episode, and on the in-between
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weeks, you'll get something
extra just for email subscribers.
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The AI tips will only be in the
emails, so if you want those, you will
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want to make sure you are signed up.
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The link to sign up, uh, to my email
community is in the show notes.
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It takes just a few seconds.
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I would love to have you there.
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And that's all for today.
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I'll be back next time with more about
exactly what we're going to be doing this
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summer and what we're going to talk about.
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Until then, You can find the link to sign
up for my email community and also the
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link to the AAM report if you haven't
had a chance to check that out, both
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of those will be in the show notes.
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Thank you so much for being here.
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Keep loving your museum.
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I'll see you next time.
