The Ohio Museums Association just completed its 13th annual Speak Up For Ohio Museums Day, a virtual event encouraging people in the community and those working in the sector to speak about the importance of museums across the state. It’s such a great idea — several states hold statewide advocacy days in person at state capitols and district offices, but Speak Up for Ohio Museums Day seems to be the only virtual event of its kind on this scale.
We reached out to Johnna McEntee, executive director of the Ohio Museums Association, to find out more about the impact, challenges, and success stories behind this event, with the aim to inspire our readership in their community engagement and advocacy efforts.
Right away, Johnna emphasized that museum advocacy is a long game, and though it may seem intimidating at first, advocacy is a vital part of making sure funding and policies are in place to help our cultural institutions.
In fact, she says museum professionals have a responsibility to inform officials of the ways in which our institutions enrich student education, provide important programs, preserve cultural heritage, and more. In her words:
They won’t know about all of the good work museums do if we don’t tell them! We know the idea of advocacy can seem scary and daunting. Some museums and museum professionals are afraid that if they take any advocacy action, they put their organization in danger of losing their 501(c)3 status — but that’s not the case. Museums and museum professionals not only CAN advocate for their organization, but it’s also imperative to ensure that we are “at the table and not on the menu” when it comes to decisions about our funding sources, operations, and other issues that impact museums.
Related: YES, You Can Advocate! What Nonprofits Can and Can’t Do, AAM
Johnna is SO knowledgeable about this topic and had a lot to say (in the best way). Click on the questions below to read her insightful and enlightening responses.
> What are the primary goals of Speak Up For Ohio Museums Day? Give us some context.
We hold the event on the first Monday of October each year, to help kick off Arts and Humanities Month.
Our October date also helps to put museum advocacy issues top-of-mind during the busy election season. Museums can use Speak Up For Ohio Museums Day to help highlight ballot initiatives that are impacting their museums on a local level, and OMA can also bring attention to statewide issues and initiatives that our partners at other statewide arts, culture, and humanities organizations have identified and are working on.
It’s also great timing to encourage museum professionals to prepare for national advocacy days and the Ohio Statehood Day event that typically happen February-March each year.
Another big goal of #SupportOhioMuseums is to help remove some of the mystery and stigma around advocacy, and to help folks feel more comfortable taking advocacy actions as part of their day-to-day operations. We want to remove the barriers for participating in advocacy activities by sharing quick tips, easy actions, and lots of ideas for ways to advocate not only to your elected officials, but to your organization’s stakeholders, guests, communities, and leadership.
The more comfortable folks get with doing advocacy actions, the more they will realize it’s not scary or intimidating – it can be fun and exciting! The more interactions folks have regularly with their elected officials and stakeholders, the better relationships they will build, and the better results they will have when it comes time for an “ask.”
Advocacy is a long game, and just like any relationship, it takes time to build recognition and trust. It’s about sharing the great things you do as well as the areas where you need help. If folks are able to use even just one or two of the hundreds of tips we share as part of Speak Up For Ohio Museums Day, we consider that a success!
> What are some of the pressing issues Ohio museums currently face, and how does the broader community help address those?
Just like museums across the country, Ohio museums are always looking towards financial sustainability. Having diverse and robust funding sources, including support from granting organizations at the local, state, and federal level, help contribute to the success of organizations in our state and across the country.
On a state level, we have amazing organizations like the Ohio Arts Council and Ohio Humanities which offer grant support to museums other arts, culture, and humanities organizations across our state. Supporting robust and increased funding for organizations like these state councils has a broad impact on museums all across Ohio.
On a national level, organizations like the Institute of Museum and Library Services (specifically, the Office of Museum Services within IMLS), the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities serve organizations across the country. And, in supporting NEA and NEH, you are supporting your state councils as well, as some of those national funds also help support the state offices.
The most important thing that any of us can do as folks that love museums is to VOTE! In Ohio, our friends at Creative Ohio have been amazing in their ArtsVote Ohio initiative — a nonpartisan, statewide effort to get Ohio’s creative sector to the polls. According to Creative Ohio, Ohio’s artists and creative sector (including those who work in museums) are more than 157,000 strong. That’s a lot of voting power!
Also from Creative Ohio, “At national, state, and local levels, those we vote into office impact the policies and funding that support our careers and our culture. Elected officials who prioritize arts and humanities can ensure that resources are allocated to support Ohio’s local artists, cultural institutions, and creative projects.”
ALL of our votes count, and voting is one of the most important advocacy actions we can take! So, if you don’t have one already – make a plan to vote, and make sure you submit your ballot on or before election day!
> What sort of challenges do you run into? Any tips for this type of virtual community engagement?
As with any program, you have to be flexible and adaptable. There are things you should plan for as a possible “this might happen” scenario, and have plans to address or mitigate those possibilities.
For example, on Speak Up For Ohio Museums Day, we post hundreds of pieces of social media content in a single day. Typically, we only post one, maybe two posts on each of our channels per day. This kind of action always gets the attention of bots, so we have a plan in place to deal with what happens if we start to see bot activity.
There is also a high likelihood of getting posts from trolls, or folks that misuse the hashtag (whether that means they are posting about something completely unrelated, or using it in a negative connotation). Having a plan in place is key in making sure the event isn’t disrupted by a few bad actors.
Of course, folks are entitled to their own opinions, and because we are putting information out on social media for people to see and engage with, not all engagement will be positive — and that’s ok. We do not remove negative comments or reactions. There might (and probably will) be some negative comments and engagement if you participate in a large-scale social media campaign, but in our experience that is few and far between. Our job is to keep communicating our positive and important message!
Something else we learned (and this bleeds into your next question), is that because we are talking about advocacy and connecting with elected officials, sometimes there are folks who want to turn the conversation partisan. That might seem like a funny thing to call out when we are talking about engaging with our elected officials, but what makes advocating for museums such a great topic is that advocacy for museums is non-partisan. In the past 13 years we’ve been holding the event, this has only happened a handful of times, but again, knowing it might happen is helpful in preparation. Keeping our content on the issues is key to the success of the initiative.
Logistically, something to keep in mind if you are looking to start an event like this for your organization is the time and preparation it takes to gather all of the tips, statistics, testimonials, posts, images, links, documents, etc. And in OMA’s case, I’m a staff of one, so it isn’t physically possible for me to post every post in real time on Speak Up For Ohio Museums Day. I have found it incredibly helpful to have a few hours of posts scheduled ahead of time (the whole event typically runs for about 15 hours, give or take), so that I have the opportunity to engage with other posters and react and respond to the grassroots conversations as it happens, across all of our social media channels.
> Are there any new features or initiatives that have changed over the years? In other words, how have you tweaked things as you’ve learned by doing?
We’ve had a couple of iterations of our hashtag before we settled on #SupportOhioMuseums. We found this hashtag really encapsulates our message and has a clear meaning (so it is less likely to get misused or misinterpreted). It’s also a hashtag that works for year-round advocacy — because like we always say, advocacy doesn’t stop after Speak Up For Ohio Museums Day! Advocacy is a year-round activity!
We’re always updating our tips and resources, and adding important information from our other statewide arts, culture, and humanities partners. In the years where there are museum-specific ballot initiatives, local levies, etc., we also make sure we share that information as well.
One of the most fun aspects of Speak Up For Ohio Museums Day is our annual Photo Story, which we started in 2016.
Social media has moved to be much more image-based than when we started Speak Up day. We wanted to reflect that change, and give museums and the individuals who love museums a chance to highlight their institutions and the impact and importance of the work they do. Folks can submit an image of happenings at their museum, and a brief description of how they believe their museum impacts the community.
We share these images and stories as individual spotlights on Instagram, Facebook and X, tagging the institution that’s being highlighted. These photo story images are some of our most engaged with content, and are incredibly popular with our museums.
The stories that are shared as part of the photo descriptions are also really powerful messages that we as OMA can take to our elected officials when we meet to talk about the issues impacting museums. Having anecdotes and examples from museums in every district across the state is really powerful in sharing our message.
We have seen participation in the photo story grow from 24 images our first year to almost 80 the past few years. (If you haven’t seen our Photo Story images in the wild, you can check out our 2023 and 2024 Photo Stories at those links.)
> Can you share some success stories from past events?
I think one of the greatest indicators of the successful impact of Speak Up For Ohio Museums Day is the amount of participation we have seen in advocacy activities since we started the event in 2016. We’ve seen numbers steadily increase for Ohio’s participation in national events like AAM’s Museums Advocacy Day: When I first started attending MAD in 2012, Ohio had 2–3 representatives (including myself). Now, we consistently have 15–20 delegates taking to Capitol Hill each February!
During COVID, because we had built this state-wide network of folks who were familiar and comfortable with advocacy actions, we were able to quickly organize and communicate with each other and our elected officials, including our Governor and members of Congress, to share information, collaborate on re-open protocols, and work to get much needed support and aid to our organizations.
And, just to highlight the long-game that is advocacy work, and the importance of building up relationships, I’ll round out my answer with two anecdotes:
OMA makes advocacy discussions part of each of our board meetings. To this end, one of our board members who had never participated in advocacy projects before joined me on some legislative visits. He was a natural! His lived experience as a museum professional was an invaluable tool during his conversations, and his passion for museums was evident. He was hooked, and joined me again at those congressional offices, year after year. Around year three, the relationship that he had built (and his follow-up messages between those in-person visits) manifested in the first pro-museum vote from this particular legislator. It took persistence, but he made himself a trusted resource for that congressional office, and it paid off.
The second story is about the value of consistent and steady outreach: There was a legislative office who always respectfully took the meetings of one of our museums, the staffers were always gracious and polite, but the museum never felt like they made that deeper connection — they didn’t feel like they could break through with their message. Again, they continued their meetings, they continued their outreach to the office, they were consistent in touching base when they held events or received grants. Then, there was an addition to the legislator’s staff. This person had a real passion for museums (and this museum in particular, as it held a special place in his heart from childhood). After that, the museum said the communication between the office and the museum was more consistent, the legislator came for a site visit, and when it came time for the “asks,” the museum felt more comfortable not only making the approach, but more confident that their message would break through. Finding that connection with the staffer and the office was an important part of their success at that time, and has set them up for continued positive interactions going forward.
> What else should museum pros in the U.S. know about community engagement and advocacy?
This language is directly from the OMA and American Alliance of Museums, but it really sums up why we started Speak Up For Ohio Museums Day: When we can make advocacy part of our normal operations, we are creating a win-win situation for both your museum and museums at-large, because issues that affect you as an institution affect institutions across the museum field.
Advocating for your museum and museums in general is not just an important act during election time, it is an essential mission all year to communicate with your elected officials and the public the importance of our institutions in our communities. Engaging in regular advocacy means you will be in a better position to have a favorable impact on local, state, or federal policies that affect your museum.
Nearly every legislator in Congress represents at least one museum within their congressional district. Museums are available to citizens and visitors across the country, serving as sources of education, and places of reflection, contemplation, and connection with others. Every elected official should be informed about the public services of the museums they represent. And they need to hear it from you, their constituents — so don’t be shy about sharing your stories!
Final words of wisdom from Johnna:
I would be happy to talk to folks who want to learn more or have additional questions.
One of the many great things about advocating for museums is that museums are feel-good. Almost everyone has a museum memory they can share! Advocating for museums is our chance to show that museums are for all — they are for everyone and impact everyone. If we politicize our message, or get caught up in the whirlwind that is the political climate, we’ve lost our chance to be a bipartisan issue. And our message is so important. It’s TOO important to get lost. So let’s make that our rallying cry as we prepare for all of our future advocacy work!
Related reading:
Advocacy Resources, OMA
Advocacy for Museums Matters, AAM
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