CALLING ALL WASHINGTON MUSEUMS: WMA SURVEY NEEDS YOUR PARTICIPATION!

These are challenging economic times for all non-profit organizations. The competition for financial support has gotten even more competitive as the need for social service assistance has risen. We all know we compete with other non-profits for funding. One of our shared struggles is demonstrating our community value with tangible evidence. We know Museums Matter but we need to be able to communicate that collective value to all of our supporters. WMA is asking you to be pro-active and help band our state’s museums together to demonstrate our economic value by participating in a short survey. By participating in this survey your organization will contribute to statistics that will provide very useful data that we can share at the state level as well as within our own communities and with funding sources. This survey is not a full blown economic impact survey; we hope to do that at a later date. Your responses should reflect the 2009 calendar year. We realize that some of your responses will include year to date numbers rather than final figures. That is ok. Again this is a quick survey that will provide some good baseline data that we can all use. We would like to thank you in advance for your participation. We look forward to hearing from your organization! To respond to the survey go to:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WMA_Member_Survey

WHO SHOULD PARTICIPATE IN THE SURVEY? All Washington museums that are open to the public and operated during the 2009 calendar year are asked to participate. The survey’s categorization of museum types is consistent with the American Association of Museum’s membership categories which include the following: arboretum/botanical garden; art; aquarium; children’s/youth; cultural specific; historic house/site; history; multi-disciplinary; natural history; science/technology or other. The survey will take only a few minutes to complete and is posted on-line on Survey Monkey. We are asking for only one representative from each museum to serve as the organization’s representative. Multiple entries will be deleted. Please reply to all questions in the survey. For recording purposes the survey does ask the respondent to declare his/her name, title and contact information so if there are any questions we have someone to contact. This will also give us a main contact person to forward the survey results to once the data is analyzed. Museums of all budgets and sizes are asked to participate.

PURPOSE OF THE SURVEY: The purpose of the survey is to collect basic information about the economic impact museums make in the State of Washington.

HOW WILL THE DATA BE SHARED? The compiled survey results will be released in aggregate form only. Responses for individual organizations will not be reported or singled out. Your museum will be grouped and reported by type only, not actual location so please be honest and as accurate as possible when making your responses. Once the responses are analyzed we will report the findings by posting them on the WMA website and forwarding the final report to survey participants. We will also present a report at the annual WMA conference at the Gig Harbor History Museum June 16-18, 2010. Again, your responses will not be singled out.

WHEN SHOULD WE RESPOND TO THE SURVEY? This survey is open for responses from February 1 - April 30, 2010. Thank you in advance for your assistance.

WHO IS DOING THE SURVEY? The survey project is being administered by two people: Susan Tissot, WMA Board Member and Executive Director at the Clark County Historical Museum (CCHM) in Vancouver, WA and retired Educator and CCHM volunteer Mike Heim. Susan can be reached at tissots@pacifier.com or (360) 993-5679.

WHERE DO I FIND THE SURVEY QUESTIONAIRE? The survey is posted on-line at Survey Monkey. All responses should be entered at the following link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WMA_Member_Survey Download a preview of the survey here.

As currently set, the survey will close on April 30 at 6:00 p.m. (PST).