Museum Of Minneapolis

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Acknowledge Our Past | Engage Presently | Create a Sustainable Future

Recentering on Community is an initiative to engage, understand, and address barriers to participation that keep small museums and historical societies from meaningful progress on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion practices (DEI). This program takes small museums in Minnesota through three equity-centered growth phases designed to nurture an environment of diversity, equity, and inclusion at a scale and timetable that is approachable for the small museum. The outcome is a reimagined exhibit shared equally between the museum and new community partner and the beginning of a long-term collaboration.

Help us reach $1,000 this Give to the Max Day! Your gift will enable us to hire a designer to produce digital and print brochures to recruit participants and share with potential partners. Give to the max today and help Museum of Minneapolis implement the Recentering on Community program.

Utilizing existing DEI tools available to larger arts and culture organizations, MoM has scaled them down using an equity centered design approach that can accommodate the needs of the small museum. We considered the challenges a small museum faces such as being strapped for time, money, and staffing and incorporated that into our approach.

The goal of this program is to create the community infrastructure to sustain ongoing relationships that lead to meaningful DEI outcomes. For example, rather than look to “diversify the board,” the program takes the museum through steps to identify and work with prospective partners in their community who represent perspectives historically left out of the museum. This is in order that a relationship is created that leads to these outcomes naturally. Together we work towards a museum that is empowered by the community. 

ABOUT

Mission: The mission of Museum of Minneapolis is to engage, represent, and collaborate with diverse communities through collection initiatives, education, exhibits and public programs. 

Vision: Museum of Minneapolis works to celebrate the intersections of arts and culture in order to communicate our shared yet diverse community history. 

• Facilitate equitable representation in the historical narrative of Minneapolis.

• Invite project proposals from diverse communities throughout Minneapolis and provide tools that enable people to tell their own stories from their own perspectives.

• Create partnerships and programs that lead to continued opportunities for representation and collaboration.

Museum of Minneapolis facilitates conduits for access by creating a space for individuals and community groups to talk about what representation means to them and to provide the tools and resources to express themselves. The collection of materials that come from these partnerships will allow the Museum to record the histories more comprehensively for researchers and to present exhibits grounded in history.

Museum of Minneapolis is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit.