On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 1:00 PM, Claudia Nicholson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I have a board member who has told me that "we are a private organization, and we can do whatever we want".  This is in the context of the discussion of our first-ever collections management policy.

I think the difference is that a "public" museum is ultimately
responsible to the taxpayers and to the community in which it is
located. A private museum is ultimately responsible to its board and
donors. For example, a major city museum can't just one day decide to
interpret pre-Celtic Chinese art unless there is a good reason, such
as one of the city's founding fathers was of pre-Celtic Chinese decent
or bequeathed his collection of pre-Celtic Chinese art to the city.
Some government museums are even pressured by their local governments
to do things that are technically outside their mission in order to
keep funding or stay within the good graces of their districts. Or
conversely, they are restricted from doing something because of the
culture of their area.

A private museum should stick to its over-arching mission and vision
statement but has more freedom to work within that statement or even
change it if there is a major decision by the board. Again, this
decision should not be made lightly nor done very often.

So I think what your board member is trying to say is that you have
the freedom to create your own collections management policy and are
not constrained by state or local government. You still should keep
referring back to your organizational mission statement and make sure
that your policies are aligned with it.

Deb Fuller

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