Establishing Clear Partnership Responsibilities, Part 2 - keeping on track
How do we evaluate success and cultivate lasting client relationships?
We’ll outline ways to track project progress and impact with easy and useful templates to include mid-point assessments and more.
Facilitated by Beth Housewert (Inspired Impact) and Erin Richardson (Frank and Glory)
IMPs Connect: Self-Care for Museum Consultants
In the demanding world of museum consulting, we often push ourselves to the brink. Long hours, complex projects, changing contexts, and constant pressure can erode our passion and well-being. But what if there's another way?
Join fellow IMPs Jose Antonio Gordillo Martorell, Krista Kusuma, and Claudia Ocello for a transformative virtual fireside conversation, and leave with new tools for supporting your professional wellness.
Drinking About Museums In-person IMP Meetup
Wednesday, February 19, 2025
5:00 - 6:30 pm Central Time (NOT Eastern Time!)
BlackStack Brewing, 755 Prior Ave N, St Paul, 55104
Let's get together and chat about the Museum World. This is informal and, as always, alcohol is optional.
Cost: Free but buy your own drinks at the taproom bar.
Small Museums Association Conference In-person IMP Meetup
Calling all IMPs heading to the Small Museums Association Conference in Gaithersburg, Maryland. 📢
Samantha Dorsey and Angie Barry are hosting an IMP In-person Meetup on Tuesday, February 18th at Noon.
Look for the "reserved" IMP table at the conference luncheon, Gaithersburg Marriott Washingtonian Center.
Colorado Evaluation Network In-person IMP Meetup
Calling all IMPs in the Denver area 📢
The Independent Museum Professionals are hosting a crossover event with the Colorado Evaluation Network to celebrate our love for all things museums and evaluation!
Wednesday, February 12th, drop-in anytime from 4:00 to 7:00 PM MT.
Avanti in Lo-Hi, 3200 N. Pecos St, Denver 80211
Look for an IMP or COEN table sign to find your peeps.
Establishing Clear Partnership Responsibilities, Part 1 - getting started
What are the essential elements of a clear understanding between an IMP and the client, and what are tools to establish this?
We’ll review case studies of communication successes and challenges as well as how these could be avoided through initial discussions, detailed proposals, letters of agreement and thorough contracts. We’ll workshop elements that IMPs could include in their future agreement and provide resources that can support collaborative partnerships.
Facilitated by Beth Housewert (Inspired Impact), Erin Richardson (Frank and Glory), Jennifer Whitburn (Jennifer Whitburn Exhibits). Hosted by Cashmere Morley (Fig 2 Design).
IMPs Connect: New Year’s Talk & Toast
Join your fellow Independent Museum Professionals (IMPs) for an inspiring virtual experience that's part celebration, part networking — and 100% designed to leave you inspired. This isn't just another meeting; it's a powerful opportunity to reflect on your achievements, connect with colleagues, and create intentionality for your most successful year yet. Bring bubbles if you like, as well as some blank paper and colorful mark-making tools for getting creative.
Getting Published
With all your hard work and experience, do you have something to share with your colleagues? Writing for professional magazines, journals and books not only strengthens our field’s resources but it also builds your skills as a professional. And raises your profile – something every Independent Museum Professional needs! Join two editors (one of whom is also a published author) and a second author for a wide-ranging discussion of how to get started and how to keep going through a writing project.
Mistakes Were Made: Small Business Edition
As independent museum professionals, we love exhibitions, design, and interpretation. Many of us likely didn’t set out to be small business owners. We’re learning as we go, and that comes with mistakes, sometimes really big mistakes! Join us as fellow IMPs share some of the mistakes they’ve made along the way and the lessons they’ve learned. We’ll laugh, wince, and reflect on how sharing our mistakes can help us learn, grow, and evolve our business practices.
We drew inspiration for this program from the popular AAM annual meeting session Mistakes Were Made, developed by Sean Kelley, of Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site and now of Alcatraz.
Inter-independent Museum Professionals: How to Build Networks of Support
In this panel presentation, three IMPs will share their experiences and strategies on how they manage to build their networks of support with other colleagues, overcome solitude, and receive feedback to improve their practice.
Come and listen to tips and ideas from Sari Boren, Paul Orselli, and Amparo Leyman Pino. Amparo will present the four C’s and how she came up with the idea of creating an Advisory Board. Paul will highlight specific strategies for sharing and showing your work online to foster creative partnerships. Sari will talk about the different ways she supports her work through networks.
After the panelists’ presentations, participants will be able to ask questions and dive deeper into these strategies.
Effective Community Engagement by Museums
As IMPs, we are sometimes asked to step into, or even lead, museums’ community engagement process. What can we do to ensure that community engagement is equitable, just, and fruitful? Jason R.L. Wallace of Blue Goose Solutions will help us think through these questions, avoid pitfalls, and learn to better navigate these complex and important relationships.
Jason leads Blue Goose Solutions, a firm specializing in community engagement for museums, blending expertise in public and digital engagement to foster sustainable, equitable relationships between museums and their communities. In addition to working with museums, his work includes high-profile positions with three White House administrations, traveling with Presidents Bush, Obama, Biden, First Lady Michelle Obama, and Vice President Harris. He also served as a cabinet member for DC Mayor Bowser leading community engagement initiatives.
Universal/Inclusive Design
As independent museum professionals, it’s essential for us to know how we can help our clients meet—and exceed—accessibility requirements, creating better, richer experiences for all. Part presentation and part discussion, this webinar will help you learn how to make your projects accessible to the widest range of people. Our speakers bring deep expertise and experience.
Valerie Fletcher is Executive Director of the Institute for Human Centered Design. She’ll talk about Inclusive Design’s role in creating a physical and digital world that is more equitable, that anticipates risk, minimizes limitations, and honors our interdependence across the spectrum of ability, age, and culture.
Cheryl Fogle-Hatch, PhD, is founder of Museum Senses. She’ll discuss her work researching and developing multisensory experiences for museums and other cultural organizations. By creating exhibit content with tactile and audio components, she believes, we can more fully engage visitors who are blind or have low vision—and that by exposing people who are sighted to tactile and audio content, we can create better, and more integrated, experiences for everyone.
Ellen Snyder-Grenier is an award-winning writer, exhibition developer, and NAI Certified Interpretive Planner. As principal of REW & Co., which she founded in 2012, Ellen works with talented designers to help organizations tell their stories—and help their visitors see the world in new ways.
So You Want to Start a Blog?
So You Want to Start a Blog?
Writing a blog can be a way to establish yourself as a thought leader in museums, build your network, establish your brand, or advocate for change. Three museum professionals, Betsy Loring, Mike Murawski, and Isabel Singer, have different motivations for blogging, and are each at different points in their blogging journey. Join us to hear them discuss what led to their launch, how they maintain and promote their blog, lessons learned, and some practical blogging nuts and bolts. This conversational presentation will be followed by Q&A.
IMPs Talk: So You Want to Be a Museum Consultant?
Ever considered making the jump from payroll to your own consulting practice? Maybe you want to start consulting right out of school? What are the first steps? What are the common pitfalls? Are there secrets to success? Join four museum consultants who have made the transition away from institutional jobs, some recently and some years ago. This wide-ranging, honest and informal conversation could inspire you to-or talk you out of-hanging out a shingle of your own. Includes resources and checklists for people new to consulting! The speaker panel features: Melody Caban, Founder, Melody Caban Consulting; Richard Josey, Founder, Collective Journeys, LLC; Sarah Pharaon, Principal, Dialogic Consulting; Sean Kelley, Principal, Museums Can Do More.
The Business of Being an IMP
What do IMPs need to know to put your business on the road toward solid legal footing? Two experts with experience in the law and the museum sector will discuss common issues and share tips for structuring and naming your business, taxes and insurance, consultant contracts, and intellectual property. Whether you’re thinking of striking out on your own or you’re an established professional with questions, join attorney Ginny Cascio Bonifacino, Esq. and educator and author Heather Hope Kuruvilla, M.A., J.D. for an informative presentation followed by Q&A.
Pricing Your Projects
Are you perplexed about what to charge for your work? Do you wonder if there is a hidden formula you’ve yet to uncover? Your search for answers ends here! Join us for an illuminating IMPs Talk about pricing and structuring contracts with Laura Roberts, a seasoned indie museum professional.