Weekly Blog Roundup

Here's the next installment of my roundup of interesting museum blog posts of the past week.

Death, Taxes, and Fundraising at The Nonprofit University

Laura Otten often blogs candidly about tricky personnel and management questions in the nonprofit world, and this particular post really struck a chord with me. She calls attention to the problem of boards who don't want to fundraise, and to a particular trend in which boards form "Friends of" groups to handle fundraising responsibilities. I know I've seen several boards in which members were more comfortable with governing and advising - and in some cases, garnering prestige - rather than donating and soliciting.

Digital Learning in Museums Snapshot at Moosha Moosha Mooshme

Barry Joseph was curious to see how many science and children's museums are actually using emerging digital technologies with the public - both in planning/constructing and in using. I was curious about this because I had the hunch that despite all the talk about apps, games, 3D printing, and other nifty digital technologies, not too many museums were implementing them throughout their education programs, and his survey results seem to bear that out. One way I'd love to see this broken down further is by budget size and attendance.

Tesla's Wardenclyffe laboratory purchased for museum at The History Blog

Many in the museum development sector sat up and took notice when a crowdfunded campaign raised over $1 million for the purchase and restoration of Tesla's laboratory, currently an overgrown abandoned building in Shoreham, NY. The campaign caught the imagination of popular webcomic Matthew Inman, whose appeal was, to say the least, non-traditional: Let's Build a Goddamned Tesla Museum. The museum organization has now purchased the property, but faces an uphill battle to raise funds to clean and restore the site and install planned science and history exhibits as well as laboratories for inventors.