Donna,

I do not think you are making a mountain out of mole hill.  An institution where I previously worked did this very thing in the early 1980s.  They solicited the community for donations and then sold them at an auction/yard sale.  Thirty plus years later they are still dealing with community members who very publicly insist that museum collections items were sold off at this event (none were) and the Historical Society should not given any more donations.  The event did raise some money - it was by no means a huge success - but the bad PR I think has far outweighed any monetary gain.   

Your suggestion of having a separate group hold the sale and then donate the proceeds to your institution seems like a safer arrangement but I think your board would have to be fairly hands off in the organization of the event to avoid any negative repercussions.

The way you are describing the approach your institution is taking seems like an enormous amount of work as well.  To first consider each item for your collection and then to spend the time trying to find another possible museum to accept the item before considering it for the garage sale, is going to take a lot of man hours.  

Good luck! 

Julie 

On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 12:02 AM, Donna Nortman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hello List -

Here is a question for you, that may be nit-picking but I am concerned.   Board members at our historical society are considering having a garage sale to raise funds.  They would like to ask the public to donate items for us to sell, all proceeds going to our museum.  Our collections policy states that donations be considered for the collection first, and if an item doesn't fit, then we first try to find another institution to take it before selling it.

My concern - how do we separate these donations from our collections policy?  I question if items are donated that should really be added to our collection vs being sold.  I had thought that if this was held separate from the society, i.e. a group holding a fund-raiser for us at another location vs. having people drop items off at our museum, then we could avoid the policy.   I have also been asked to send an e-mail to our membership asking them for donations for this sale, leaving donations at the historical society. 

I would like to hear from institutions that have dealt with this type of thing before; how did you handle donations, can you do this type of things with a collections policy in place,  should I be concerned?  Or am I making a mountain out of a molehill?

Thanks -

Donna


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