Friends groups differ widely (and wildly) from museum to museum.  I think
the most important lesson that I have learned though is that any "Friends"
group, no matter what their mission or how they are organized, must be
subject to the same policies as the rest of the museum.  This is especially
important for collections.  You can't have your Friends group accepting
objects in the name of the museum or purchasing objects for the museum that
may have a suspect provenance.  Also, if you have a conflict of interest
statement, I would suggest that your "Friends" that are in positions of
authority for the group as a whole sign your conflict of interest statement.

Good luck.

Dr. Elizabeth A. Moore, Curator of Collections and Archaeology
Virginia Museum of Natural History
1001 Douglas Avenue
Martinsville, VA  24112
[log in to unmask]


-----Original Message-----
From: Carol Ely <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Friday, January 07, 2000 10:35 AM
Subject: Friends groups


>We are investigating starting a "Friends of the Museum" group at the
Portland
>Museum, a small community history museum (with arts programming) in a
>neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky. We're looking for models that have
>worked for other museums. The Portland Museum is 20 years old, and used to
>have membership program, but it was discontinued. The Museum is emerging
from
>a very difficult period financially, and we are working to restart our
>programming and rebuild our audience.
>
>One concept we have is to cast the widest net possible, with the goal of
>drawing people in as supporters, in whatever way they can offer support,
>whether that is as donors, as visitors, as program participants, as
>volunteers, or even as simply as those who wish us well and are aware of
what
>we are doing. We'd send a bimonthly newsletter to all the "Friends". This
>would be one way to re-energize and bring closer our old supporters (and
there
>are many, we just haven't communicated well with them for a while), and
we'd
>build out from there.
>
>Another model might be the "Friends of the Library" kind of program, which
is
>essentially a volunteer and fundraising auxiliary, run by volunteers.
>
>So we're trying to get a fix on what might work, and we ask:
>
>-Should we have a small fee to be a "Friend", to cover the costs of
producing
>and mailing a newsletter? Or would this discourage people from joining?
>-Should we consider our existing donors (and donors to the collections) to
be
>"Friends" already, and add them to the list, or should we ask them
explicitly
>to join a new program?
>-Should the Museum run this in-house, or try to recruit volunteers to set
it
>up as an independent but auxiliary group with its own organization and
>funding?
>-Do we want to offer any benefits to being a "Friend" (other than the
>newsletter)?
>-How much should "Friends" and volunteers overlap - should we expect to be
>able to call on Friends to help out with aspects of operations, like
running a
>festival, or should there be no expectations of specific kinds of help from
"Friends"?
>
>Any experiences or thoughts you can share would be appreciated.
>
>Carol Ely
>Assistant Director
>Portland Museum
>Louisville, KY
>
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