I’m not sure if this is helpful, but an institution I worked at previously held a garage sale just a few years ago. Mostly it was cleaning house and trying to get rid of old stuff the museum no longer wanted (things like old printers, office furniture, etc., NOT collection items or anything that could potentially be mistaken for collection items). Some things were donated from the public to be sold, as well. The development department handled everything; as the only collections/curatorial professional there at the time, I insisted I stay out of it. Thankfully I don’t think we were offered anything that would have even been remotely considered for the collection, so it worked out ok. Though the garage sale was a complete failure. I think they made less than $100 on the whole thing and then were stuck with a bunch of junk they had to get rid of, which I think they ended up donating to St. Vinny’s or Goodwill just to get rid of it.

A related situation: where I work currently we are preparing for our big gala fundraiser and people are donating items for the silent auction. The head of our development department contacted me right away when they received a donation of items that were seemingly historic and possibly something we would want for the collection. One of those items may actually end up in our collection, though the others were not related to our mission. But our great folks in development knew that the curatorial department should be given the “right of first refusal” to add such items to the collection, and it’s worked out fine.

I guess the moral of my stories is to keep up a strong working relationship with your development staff (or whoever is involved in planning these activities at your institution) and hopefully there can be a mutual respect to help navigate these situations. Also, rely on and defer to your collections policy. Hopefully it has some wording that you can apply to this situation. Finally, another important consideration is donor intent. If a donor specifically stipulates they are donating something for the purpose of it being sold to raise funds, then careful consideration has to be given to that factor. Regardless, transparency and openness with donors is extremely important and goes a long way when it comes to the PR issues.

Cristin J. Waterbury

Curator

National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium

A Property of the Dubuque County Historical Society

350 East 3rd Street

Dubuque, Iowa 52001

Ph: 563-557-9545, ext 204

Fax: 563-583-1241

Email: [log in to unmask]

www.rivermuseum.com

From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Julie Leone
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2012 7:35 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MUSEUM-L] Garage Sale Donations vs. Collections Policy

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

To unsubscribe from the MUSEUM-L list, click the following link:
http://home.ease.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-HOME.exe?SUBED1=MUSEUM-L&A=1