I work as a curator at the Glenbow Museum, a multi-disciplinary institution
including a museum(art, ethnology, cultural and military history), art
gallery, library and archives.  Our museum has about 100 employees and an
annual budget of about $5.5 million.  I am currently on a sort of a
secondment this year to develop and negotiate a partnership between our
museum and a group of volunteers who wish to start a children's museum in
our city.  Their organization has been around for about eight years with
charitable tax status, and they have done some small hands-on exhibits at
our annual exhibition and some other trade fair type events.  As the
current economic climate makes it difficult to attempt to raise funds for
their own facility, they have approached us (we are the major cultural
institution in the city) to develop a partnership.  For the short-term, we
are co-hosting an interactive exhibit for kids which will be hosted in our
building this summer.  The Alberta Children's Museum will be paying the
costs of the exhibit fee, customs, shipping, a programmer's salary, (They
are currently raising the money through a couple of fundraising events) and
our museum will be providing the space, my time, the advice and manpower of
our production staff for installation, dismantling, etc.  We are still
working out the various terms of the contract.

At the same time, we are in the process of strategic planning, and have
developed a joint vision statement, and are hoping to build a permanent
exhibit for kids within our institution by about the year 2000.

From their perspective, they are interested in joining with us to provide
them with space, mentorship, and other services.  From our perspective, we
are interested in a collaboration rather than having them open their doors
down the street and be competing with us for increasingly diminished public
and private funds.  We are also very interested in becoming more relevant
to a family audience.  We are not currently much of a destination for
families with young children.

What I am interested in finding out from Museum-L subscribers is if any of
you have embarked on partnerships between your museum and other totally
volunteer-run organizations.  Do any of you have examples of contracts you
have developed outlining terms of the partnership?  Does anyone have
particular success stories or failures to share with me?

I can be reached on Museum-L, or at the above e-mail address, or if you
wish to mail me material, my fax number is (403)265-9769, and my work
address is:

Sandra Morton Weizman
Senior Curator of Cultural History
Glenbow Museum
130 - 9th Ave. S.E.
Calgary, Alberta
T2P 0G3   CANADA