Annette Gavigan, museum registrar on the American Alliance of Museum’s LGBTQ Alliance’s steering committee, is co-chairing a task force to develop LGBTQ welcoming standards for museums. She is looking for relevant resources for practices organized across functions/areas of professional practice (e.g., for membership managers, marketing teams, educators, front-line staff, curators, etc.). The resources would be from a) related fields such as formal education and b) related diversity initiatives within the museum field. The end product would be one part guideline/reference and one part self-assessment tool.
The document will help to address these questions:
- What does it mean for a museum to be welcoming and inclusive to LGBTQ communities across all its activities (e.g. hiring, exhibitions and collections, education, community relations, visitor services, etc.)?
- What resources can a museum or staff person use to help an institution be more welcoming and inclusive in one or more of these activity areas?
- How can a museum measure progress towards being a welcoming and inclusive institution in these activity areas?
The final product can be not only an authoritative document to point to in changing practices and policies but also a working document that offers specific actions and strategies.