January/February 2025 Preview
TrendsWatch: Mapping Complexity
This year’s TrendsWatch report, available first to AAM members in Museum, looks at the trends museums must navigate in a complex, layered future: the DEI backlash, changes in volunteerism, and digital vulnerabilities. Learn how these issues are intertwined, and why they are as salient as ever in museum work today.
Preview select articles from this issue of Museum below. Individual and Museum Tier 2, Tier 3, Ally, and Industry Members can access the full digital edition.
In this issue:
Introduction
Welcome to TrendsWatch
In foresight, calling something “complex” means it has many different facets, but it also means those facets are inextricably intertwined. In a complex world, tweaking one variable of these trends causes a cascade of change.
» Get an overview of the trends examined in this year’s edition of TrendsWatch, our annual forecasting report, in this welcome from Founding Director of the Center for the Future of Museums Elizabeth Merritt.
From the President
Preparing for Tomorrow
“Strategic foresight prompts us to take heed of emerging social, technological, economic, environmental, and political changes so we can devote our resources to building systems that will work for tomorrow … I hope my fellow museum people will [make] use of TrendsWatch’s frameworks and suggestions to build the plans that will pay off in 2025—not just 2025.”
» Read the full column, an introduction to the issue from AAM’s President and CEO, Marilyn Jackson.
Stop, Look, Think: How to Manage Digital Vulnerabilities
Feature | Free to Read
Along with power, scale, reach, and almost magical abilities, the digital era brings new challenges. What risks are posed by our current reliance on digital storage, platforms, and tools? How can museums recognize and mitigate these vulnerabilities?
The Next Era of Volunteerism
Feature | 🔒 Member Login
By giving their time, volunteers help knit together communities and plug the gaps in government and for-profit systems of support. How can museums create equitable, accessible, and effective volunteer programs?
Facing the DEI Backlash
Feature | 🔒 Member Login
How can museums serve their communities while avoiding culture war skirmishes? DEI is the latest battleground in the current round of culture wars. What can organizations do, individually and collectively, to continue to serve their communities in ways they feel are just, equitable, and appropriate?
Pulled in All Directions
Short Take | 🔒 Member Login
In the past few years, the US has been wracked by conflicts over myriad values, actions, and causes. Even when a large majority agrees on general principles, comity quickly fractures over how to apply them. In the face of these challenges, museums can strive to reflect a civil, civic society.
Managed Retreat and Targeted Universalism
For Your Radar | 🔒 Member Login
A brief guide to the terms that may be showing up in your newsfeeds: “managed retreat” in the face of climate change, and “targeted universalism” as an approach to DEI.
An Artifact from the Future – the 990 of 2035
Trend Alert | 🔒 Member Login
Numbers can tell stories just as effectively as (and sometimes more honestly than) words. The majority of museums are nonprofit organizations filing a 990 with the IRS. Here is an annotated Form 990 from 2035, highlighting how income and expenditures may change in the coming decade.
January/February 2025 issue
By the Numbers:
Taking the Pulse of the Post-Pandemic World
The COVID-19 pandemic was the defining global disruption of the 21st century to date: the lockdown affected every aspect of our lives. Learn how museums can consider these shifting trends:
- Office Vacancy Rates
- Hybrid and Remote Work
- Employment
- Museum Finances: The Bottom Line
- K-12 Education
- Museum Attendance
20.1%
of offices remained vacant in 2024, with impacts to city tax revenues, restaurant and retail income, and, in some cities, residential migration. (Source: Moodys)
53%
of workers are in a hybrid working scenario in 2024, while 27% are remote. This is up from 32% hybrid and 8% remote in 2019. (Source: Statista)
19%
of museums reported for their 2023 finances that their net operating performance had decreased compared to 2019. (Source: AAM, 2024 Annual National Snapshot of US Museums)
» Members can access the full By the Numbers from the January/February 2025 issue of Museum.
About the Author
Elizabeth Merritt is the Vice President for Strategic Foresight and Founding Director of the Center for the Future of Museums at AAM. She studied ecology and evolution as an undergraduate at Yale and received her master’s degree in cell and molecular biology from Duke University. Her museum career has included working in a children’s museum as well as natural history and history museums.
She is a graduate of the Getty Leadership Institute’s Museum Management Program and the Foresight Certificate program at the University of Houston. Prior to starting CFM, Elizabeth literally wrote the book on museum standards and best practices as Director of the Alliance’s Accreditation and excellence programs. She feels this perfectly prepared her for her current role as agent provocateur—challenging museums to question assumptions about traditional practice and experiment with new ways of doing business.
TrendsWatch Acknowledgements
TrendsWatch is made possible by the collective wisdom of many people inside and outside the museum field who contribute their time and creativity to CFM’s work.
For their help with this edition, we would particularly like to thank: Aaron Straup Cope, Head of Internet Typing, SFO Museum; Chris Morehead, President, American Association for Museum Volunteerism; Heather Shelton, Digital Curator and Registrar, The Peale, Baltimore’s Community Museum; Grace Stewart, Associate Vice President of Museum Practice Management & Coalition Building, AAM; Kajette Solomon, Social Equity & Inclusion Specialist, RISD Museum; Barry Szczesny, Director, Government Relations and Public Policy, AAM; Jenny Woods, Past President, American Association for Museum Volunteerism; and Susan Zwerling, Assistant Director, Learning Communities, AAM.
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Coming Up:
March/April 2025 – Accessibility
May/June 2025 – Museums & Trust (our 2025 Annual Meeting theme)
July/August 2025 – Artificial Intelligence, with pitches due February 24, 2025
September/October 2025 – Collections Stewardship, with pitches due April 28, 2025
November/December 2025 – Visitation, with pitches due July 1, 2025
» Explore the Editorial Calendar for potential topics under each theme.