This is an issue that I believe most museums struggle with.  This model
of volunteer museum educators was established at a time when there was a
readily available supply of available volunteers, generally women of a
certain economic level, that is simply no longer the case in 2011.

It still seems as though the industry continues to attempt to make (or
requires that we make) this essentially unsustainable model work as it's
considered an economical way to provide services to the public. The
staff time that is required to recruit, train, supervise, manage and
retain these volunteers is a major cost that is rarely taken into
account. As a professional museum educator, I feel it is vital that we
provide consistent, high quality, reliable services to our visitors.
There are certainly amazing and wonderful volunteers who have the time,
do not need to be compensated, are eager to learn and interact with
others and to uphold professional museum standards.  However, there are
far more people out there who can do all of the above, but need some
sort of financial reward for their time out of economic necessity. 

We have started a modest internship/facilitator program that has yielded
wonderful results, but is entirely reliant on outside funding and not a
part of our table of organization nor our regular operating budget.  Due
to different requirements (we are a county owned operation) we currently
do not have the ability to structure this any differently. However, a
major eye-opener to staff here was what a big difference a pretty small
amount of money, focused in the right way, could have on our daily
operations and ability to offer those reliable, consistent, high-quality
experiences for our visitors. The reasonable wage has proven to be a big
incentive, and we have gotten many high quality applicants for this
program--far more than we could hire.  It has to be one of the best
returns on investment that a museum can make.

This program works in conjunction with our regular volunteer guides and
has really increased our institutional capacity, not to mention lessened
the amount of time education staff needs to be the emergency tour guide,
which certainly helps in other areas of productivity for education
staff.

I realize that to "fix" this "problem" requires a paradigm shift in the
industry, but the current model and practice is unsustainable.

Thanks,

Ann M. Loshaw
Deputy Director for Learning
Vizcaya Museum and Gardens
3251 South Miami Avenue
Miami, FL 33129
tel: 305-860-8436
fax: 305-285-2004
"Delivering Excellence Every Day"

-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Sara Phalen
Sent: Monday, May 09, 2011 2:02 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MUSEUM-L] Volunteers

Jennifer,

As the only part-time staff member at a small museum, I have been
struggling 
with this problem and we are only open 1-2 times a week, depending on
the 
season.  We too have an aging docent group. During the school year this
is a big 
concern and we are looking to get college students in intern roles for
course 
credit as many of them need internships and we cannot afford to pay them

anything.  During the summer months we have had success recruiting local

teachers who have actually been more than happy to volunteer once a
month.  The 
former director was a school teacher so that helped us with identifying
teachers 
who might be willing, but it might not hurt to send out some requests
for help 
to local teachers.  Teachers that I do classroom visits to are also more
than 
happy that we provide this programming free of charge to them and if
they can't 
volunteer as a docent usually have a suggestion for someone who might.
Since I 
am also only part-time, I don't have a lot of time to work on getting
docents, 
let alone scheduling and training them so having the teachers help
recruit is a 
big help! 


Sara Phalen
Director/Curator
Warrenville Historical Museum & Art Gallery



----- Original Message ----
From: Jennifer Fondren <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Mon, May 9, 2011 12:19:21 PM
Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Volunteers

We are having difficulties getting volunteers to serve as docents.  We
have a 
group of retired volunteers who are aging to the point that they are no
longer 
physically capable,  and we have a group of younger (college age)
volunteers who 
only want to do special events every once in a while.  We are about 10
miles 
away from the local colleges and universities, so the college students
don't 
really seem to want to drive down here very often. I can understand with
gas 
prices hovering around $3.80 in our area. 


The present economy in our area (Mobile, AL) seems to have made the
problem 
worse.  Now, there are fewer retirees who are available.  Some of our
volunteers 
have gone back to work at least part-time and are unavailable when I
need them.  
We serve mostly school groups in the 9 am - 1 pm time slot. 


We are a museum in a medium to large sized building with a small sized
museum 
staff.  It is just me and my part-time volunteer/tour coordinator in
Education.  
We don't have funds for anyone else. 


We had a successful program through which college students were paid to
intern 
at the museum.  They served as specially trained docents and worked in
other 
museum depts. when we didn't have tours.  This program was funded
locally 
through a grant, but the funding is no longer available.  I have thought
about 
other grants and even the Americorps program, but am not sure if we are
able to 
do something on the scale that they seem to look for.  


My questions to the community are, 

Are your museums having trouble finding docents?
How and where are you finding new volunteers to replace the retiree
volunteers 
who are no longer able to volunteer?

Any advice or knowledge of grant opportunities would be appreciated.
Thanks!

Sincerely, 
Jennifer Fondren
Museum of Mobile

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