Purpose

Know, articulate and embrace your purpose

Setting up a new museum will be a lot of work. It will probably need the active support of many people, organisations and funders. In order to attract and retain the interest of those people, and the people you want to visit the museum when it opens, you need to have a clear and compelling vision of what you are trying to achieve. The vision should paint a picture of what you want your museum to be like and who your visitors will be. It should be people-focused, because a museum is about bringing together people and collections and so it should set out how you will do that in a way unique to you.

Whilst a group can be motivated for a long time by the desire to ‘have a museum’, it is very important to go further than this and be able to describe the type of museum you want to have. What sorts of experiences will you offer to visitors, what will it feel like to visit, how long will a visit last? The clearer you can be about all these things, the more compelling your plans will be and the easier it will be to attract the support, and in due course, the visitors that you need.

Create a Statement of Purpose for your museum. This is a simple statement that should back up your vision for the museum and explains what your museum is there for and what it is trying to achieve. Creating a statement of purpose is a useful exercise so you and your colleagues can be clear what you are aiming to do, that you are all working towards the same goals and you can tell potential interested parties what you are trying to do too.

Many members of AIM started with passion, a collection, and a group of hardworking and committed people who were determined to share their enthusiasm for a subject or historic site with a wider audience. Contact similar museums in your area, or museums elsewhere with similar collections, and see what you can learn from their experiences. Click here for a map of AIM members>>

Self-assessment questions to help you focus on your purpose:

• How compelling is our purpose?
• How relevant is it to a wide range of people?
• How effectively is it shared by everyone in our organisation?
• How well do we use it to test decisions and steer our organisation?

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