Hi Elena, getting to my posts a little late, sorry. We are a small town history museum, with only a small percentage of your donations a month, but likewise, we have the same problems. And as Bob Pickering says, donations of military service items take on an additional emotional weight over non-military items. First, you need a collections mgt. policy that defines and limits the items you take, but also looks, perhaps, for geographic areas you're missing since you're a national museum. We only take uniforms for people who lived in our town when they served or who live in our town now, and occasionally others with a strong connection to the town. But if we already have an example of that uniform from that war, then we politely decline the offer but ask if they have something else we might have (and usually smaller) -- documents or photos in uniform or a dog tag or p38. We hope to get a grant to build a WWII website for our town where we could include photos and stories about all our town's WWII vets, but always we must consider our storage and display limits.

We do not allow dropoffs. How do the curators get anything done with so many donation offers to respond to? Perhaps you could consider a moratorium on donations. I was looking at the website of the American Precision Museum in Vermont and noticed that they are no longer accepting donations. Here's what their website says:

"From time to time, members of the public want to give the museum artifacts, books, photographs or archival materials to add to the collections. While we appreciate and are honored by these generous-spirited offers, we are unable to consider any new artifacts for the collections." [And then you can read their very thorough Collections Mgt. Policy].

At first I was really surprised, but then it seemed kind of freeing. If you stopped accepting donations altogether, think how much time you'd have -- maybe enough time to solicit donations or purchase items to fill gaps in the collection and spend more time on interpretation and engaging younger audiences, or whatever. Just an idea!

For a small town museum like ours, most of our collection items come through individual donations, so this wouldn't be a solution for us, but without being able to say no to items that are outside our policy or duplicate existing items, we wouldn't be able to say yes to items in the future that better tell our story.

Hope this was helpful.

best,
--Kathie




 

Kathie Gow

Curator, Hatfield Historical Museum     hatfieldhistory

​@weebly.com

Oral History Producer     wordspicturesstories

​.com​


On Fri, Jun 30, 2017 at 9:34 AM, Bronwen Sanders <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Elena,
Could you ask volunteers to do the original sort for you?  And then recruit those volunteers from your local VFW or Legion? Veterans would have a better understanding of military gear.  Do you have clear written parameters for what you except and why (above and beyond what is on your website)? We used to have drop offs (and by that I mean bundles left by the back door when no one was here) but that stopped when the museum hired staff and it became known that we wanted to know the story behind the item.

We certainly don't get the volume of donations that you get - but our process is staff member (me) does the original sort, it goes to the collections committee which is made up of board members, local volunteers (one is retired museum person, one is retired auctioneer, a third is local historian) and me (but I have no vote on the committee).  If the committee approves the item it goes to the full board for a vote.  Committee only meets three/four times a year, so the board gets a number of items at once. 

Bronwen Anderson-Sanders  (For once not jealous of bigger institutions!)
Mifflinburg Buggy Museum
598 Green Street, Mifflinburg, PA 17844
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On Tue, Jun 27, 2017 at 1:30 PM, Elena Sanderlin <elena.sanderlin@nationalww2museum.org> wrote:

Hello Listers -

 

I am reaching out to those who work at large cultural institutions and receive an abundant amount of donor inquiries. We are looking for examples of 1) how you handle a large volume of offers/inquiries, 2) what percentage of offers are actually accepted, and 3) what your acquisition process is for determining what is accepted.

 

To explain a little about our situation: we generally receive a couple/few hundred donation offers a month. Our curators are expected to reply to each and every inquiry, regardless of relevance/interest on behalf of the museum (including drop-offs, for which a member of the curatorial staff is expected to meet with the “donor” if at all possible). Needless to say, this isn’t a sustainable situation. We do have guidelines on our website, but that hasn’t been all that effective (see link below).

 

Specific questions (though feel free to add anything you think is helpful)

·         How many donation offers do you receive monthly, on average?

·         What procedures do you have in place to filter through so many inquiries/offers?

·         What kind of process do potential collections go through to be accepted into permanent collection? Assuming you have Collections or Acquisitions Committee in place, who comprises it? A chair from the board? Members of the collections and curatorial staff? Outside experts? Do you use another form besides a TCR or in an addition to a TCR?

 

Donate an artifact: http://www.nationalww2museum.org/give/donate-an-artifact/index.html

 

Thanks you in advance for your responses.

 

Best,

Elena

 

 

Elena Sanderlin | Registrar | Curatorial & Collections Department

The National WWII Museum | 945 Magazine Street, New Orleans, LA 70130

Work #: (504) 528-1944 x 439 | Email: elena.sanderlin@nationalww2museum.org

 

 

 


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Bronwen Anderson-Sanders, Executive Director
Mifflinburg Buggy Museum
598 Green Street, Mifflinburg, PA 17844
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