Davies: MDOs need clearer strategic purpose
Geraldine Kendall, 18.05.2011
Call for museum development agenda to focus more explicitly on impact and accreditation
Participants in a debate about museum development have highlighted concerns that the agenda lacks an overall strategic purpose.
Organised by the Renaissance London hub, the informal meeting brought together representatives from a range of national museum organisations to talk through museum development and the role of museum development officers (MDOs).
Museums Association (MA) head of policy Maurice Davies, who attended the meeting, said: “There was a really clear conclusion that, although MDOs are well respected and trusted, no one has spelt out in a strategic way what they are trying to achieve.”
MDOs account for approximately £10m of Renaissance funding. Their roles vary greatly from region to region, the group found, covering everything from helping museums to achieve basic standards and providing free consultancy to matters of national strategic importance, such as increasing service delivery and impact.
Davies said the meeting concluded that “it’s fine to have varied ways of providing [museum development], but it should be done to common aims”.
Davies said the MA, in particular, advocated connecting the role of MDOs more explicitly to audience impact.
“The best approach looks like focusing attention on increasing impact and public benefit, and placing more emphasis on the outward-facing elements of MDOs’ work,” he said, adding that because of the lack of clarity about the role of MDOs, they sometimes had a tendency to focus their work more inwardly.
The group also agreed that MDOs should be linked more strategically to accreditation.
According to Davies, attendees went on to discuss how new, self-generated networks were appearing at a local level, with museums supporting each other to improve audience delivery from the bottom up.
Davies said: “There is a sense that a new approach to museum development needs to recognise the benefits of self-help and encourage museums to get to a position where they can do it themselves.”
The discussion included representatives from the MA, the Association of Independent Museums, Arts Council England, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and the Collections Trust.
Organised by the Renaissance London hub, the informal meeting brought together representatives from a range of national museum organisations to talk through museum development and the role of museum development officers (MDOs).
Museums Association (MA) head of policy Maurice Davies, who attended the meeting, said: “There was a really clear conclusion that, although MDOs are well respected and trusted, no one has spelt out in a strategic way what they are trying to achieve.”
MDOs account for approximately £10m of Renaissance funding. Their roles vary greatly from region to region, the group found, covering everything from helping museums to achieve basic standards and providing free consultancy to matters of national strategic importance, such as increasing service delivery and impact.
Davies said the meeting concluded that “it’s fine to have varied ways of providing [museum development], but it should be done to common aims”.
Davies said the MA, in particular, advocated connecting the role of MDOs more explicitly to audience impact.
“The best approach looks like focusing attention on increasing impact and public benefit, and placing more emphasis on the outward-facing elements of MDOs’ work,” he said, adding that because of the lack of clarity about the role of MDOs, they sometimes had a tendency to focus their work more inwardly.
The group also agreed that MDOs should be linked more strategically to accreditation.
According to Davies, attendees went on to discuss how new, self-generated networks were appearing at a local level, with museums supporting each other to improve audience delivery from the bottom up.
Davies said: “There is a sense that a new approach to museum development needs to recognise the benefits of self-help and encourage museums to get to a position where they can do it themselves.”
The discussion included representatives from the MA, the Association of Independent Museums, Arts Council England, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and the Collections Trust.
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There really has never been appropriate PIs for MDO work - so we have constantly battled for understanding. Our GSO results show impact pretty well, there are other measures - cf AIM economic assessment toolkit, to name only one of many.
Renaissance was instrumental in MDO evolution, but you might say they never really fitted the government's management 'style'. So maybe rather than ringing our hands with 'shoulds' and 'oughts' we 'could' re-frame the argument to understand that MDO work is measured best in terms of promoting happiness, well being and sustainable communities - we could be seen as leading the way , not being constantly challenged to justify our existence. Talking is good.
The comments below demonstrate the wide variety of work undertaken by MDOs and would seem to confirm the need for some clear thinking about the overall aim of museum development. At a time when money is short priorities have to be set. At the meeting the obvious priorities seem to be helping museums inprove their impact and where necessary supporting the acheivement of accreditation.
Clear overall priorities set nationally (for what is after all largely national funding) should help hard-working and trusted MDOs be clear about the best use of their valuable - but inevitably limited - time and would prevent the increasing local and regional inequality referred to in the comments.
It sounds obvious, but the prime focus of museum development - like all funding for museums - has to be on improving the public benefit and impact of museums, rather than on supporting museums for the sake of it. We shouldn't think of a museum's (internal) needs, but only of the needs of its audiences and potential audiences.
The forthcoming issue of the SW Federation of Museums & Art Galleries newsletter is featuring the work of the extremely creative and hard working MDOs in our region. If you would like a copy, contact swfed.org.uk@googlemail.com.
Just to clarify for all, neither I nor any of the MDO team that I manage down here in London were invited or involved in this meeting
It's true that we should make sure the MDOs are "singing from the same hymn sheet", and that things like accreditation are incorporated in their work (is there a region where this isn't the case?). But beyond that the strategy needs to be developed within the region.
I'd suggest that ACE, the MA, the MLA, and the Collections Trust should all send senior figures to the MDO conference as Glynis suggests. That way, they can get on-the-ground feedback from those actually doing the development work in the regions.
The Accreditation scheme is one of our best tools for museum development, it's the reason many MDO posts were created in the first place and we advise on every area of the standard, and more! To say we need to be tied in more directly with Accreditation seems to suggest we're not already!
Perhaps Glynis is right, we need to spend less time doing the job and more time talking about it!
Am always confused by the assumptions made about MDO work: local level networks, developing audience focussed museums and growing sustainable management is already core work for the MDOs I know. We do tend to spend out time making development happen rather than reporting on it...maybe thats our mistake?!