Speakers Elizabeth Merritt, AAM’s Vice President, Strategic Foresight & Founding Director, Center for the Future of Museums, and Susie Wilkening, Principal, Wilkening Consulting will discuss highlights from the most recent National Snapshot of COVID-19 Impact on United States Museums, Museums as Economic Engines and Museums and Public Opinion reports. Our legislators need to know the importance of museums as essential community infrastructure to our economy, the dire impacts the pandemic has had on the field, how vital museums are to the recovery of our communities and our nation, and about the strong bipartisan support for museums from the public and legislators. Join this session to understand the critical data needed to help make the case to legislators.

About the speakers:

Elizabeth Merritt is AAM’s vice president for strategic foresight, and founding director of the Center for the Future of Museums—a think-tank and research & development lab for the museum field. She is the author of the Alliance’s annual TrendsWatch report, and writes and speaks prolifically on the trends shaping the future of nonprofit organizations. (M.A. Duke University, B.S. Yale University, Museum Management Institute).

Susie Wilkening has over 20 years of experience in museums, including 15 years leading custom projects for museums as well as fielding groundbreaking national research on the role of museums in American society. Susie is a go-to expert on museums for the media, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, NPR, and others. Additionally, she is the author of Audiences and Inclusion: A Primer for Cultivating More Inclusive Attitudes Among the Public and is the primary author of Life Stages of the Museum Visitor. Susie earned a BS in History, Technology, and Society from Georgia Tech and an MA from the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture at the University of Delaware.

Note: This webinar workshop is one in a series of four weekly, live webinars in February available to registrants of Museums Advocacy Day 2022. If you have registered, a link will be sent directly to you prior to the event.  

The statements and opinions expressed by panelists, hosts, attendees, or other participants of this event are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of, nor are endorsed by, the American Alliance of Museums.