Over the course of 2019, as part of Facing Change: Advancing Museum Board Diversity & Inclusion—AAM’s unprecedented national initiative to diversify museum boards and build inclusive museum cultures—a task force charged with developing recommendations to embed DEAI more deeply into the Alliance’s standards and excellence programs, including accreditation, met several times to explore and make recommendations on:
- The characteristics of inclusive museums and strategies for how to best assess and measure excellence in DEAI in museums
- A DEAI pledge that asks museum leaders to commit to inclusive museum practices
- Core policies museums should have in place to support inclusion throughout their structure and programming
- AAM standards and excellence programs through an inclusion lens and recommending updates as needed
- Topics for ongoing education and training of museum staff, board, volunteers, and other key constituents
Findings and recommendations from the task force are currently being considered and a report for the field is being prepared.
The full task force membership represents a diverse segment of national museum leadership.
Co-Chair: Lonnie Bunch
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
Washington, DC