Preparation

1. Make sure your museum has taken the Pledge of Excellence. This step is a required prerequisite.
2. Use the resources available to ensure that your core documents meet the required elements, and revise them if needed:
   • Mission Statement
   • Institutional Code of Ethics
   • Strategic Institutional Plan 
   • Disaster Preparedness/Emergency Response Plan
   • Collections Management Policy
3. Before submitting documents, each must be finalized and approved, meet all the required elements, and reflect professional practices of museums.

Application

1. Have your completed/approved core documents ready to upload and your credit card information at hand.
2. Log in. If you do not already have a user account, you will be required to create one.
3. Open and complete the Application.
   • Step 1: Provide basic contact and profile information for your institution. Any information previously provided to the Alliance will appear here. Please update as needed.
   • Step 2: Upload your Core Documents, provide their respective approval dates, and answer the question about the development of each. Note: you must submit the mission statement and at least one other Core Document in order to complete the application.
   • If your museum owns or manages collections you must answer question 10, regardless of whether or not you are submitting its collections management policy at the time of application.
4. Read and agree to the terms and conditions for program participation.
5. Provide credit card information and submit the application. You will be provided with an Order Confirmation that serves as your receipt.

Technical notes:

• The application will time out in 20 minutes. It must be completed in one sitting; you are not able save your work and return to it later.

• If you find you are not ready to submit the application, you can cancel and exit the application at any time. However, you cannot save your work.

• When in the application, you can return to the previous step or jump ahead to the next one using the buttons on the bottom of each page.

• Do not use your browser’s back/forward buttons or refresh feature. You will lose the data you have entered.

• You may upload more than one file per Core Document if applicable. Acceptable document formats include Word (.doc/docx), Excel (.xls/xlsx), PowerPoint (.ppt/pptx), Rich Text Format (.rtf), and PDF (.pdf).

• We suggest converting PowerPoints into PDFs to reduce the file size.

• If you get a security notice that only secure content is being displayed, do NOT click “show all content.” If you do, you will be forced to refresh your browser and will lose data already entered. Either ignore the notice or click the X to close the security warning dialogue window or notice bar.

• Notify Alliance staff if you need to make any change to your application or documents after submission by emailing core@aam-us.org.

Alliance Review

The Alliance staff will review your museum’s application and documents about 4-6 weeks after the application is received. Staff will email you the results of the review, notifying you if the documents have been verified or if any need to be revised and resubmitted. You will be given a due date to email revised documents.

You will email any revised documents to Alliance staff directly after your initial submission. Do not attempt to re-upload online.

Verification

The museum will pass Core Documents Verification when it has submitted all five Core Documents and Alliance staff has confirmed the documents meet the required elements. Staff will send the museum a certificate and suggestions for promoting its achievement.

All five documents need to pass Core Documents Verification within three years of your application. If this requirement is not met, the museum must reapply and resubmit payment to complete the program.

Renewal

Museums that complete Core Documents Verification often go on to the Accreditation Program. If the museum has not applied to the Accreditation Program within five years of being verified, Alliance staff will contact the museum about Core Documents renewal. A reduced fee is assessed at the five year renewal.