What do Canadians see as the value of museums for them, their communities, and for Canada?

As a sector, we understand the significance of museums and museum work, but we do not always have the right words to express why museums matter. To support our members to speak with conviction about the public value of museums, YHMA has partnered with our counterparts across the country on a national project, Reconsidering Museums.

Reconsidering Museums sets out to better understand what museums mean to Canadians and to support our sector with the tools and language necessary to advocate for the value of museums. Since 2020, we have engaged with Canadians to understand the perceptions the public holds of our sector. Read the findings of our engagement campaign, Museums for Me, and research in two reports, What We Heard and Trust and Value: The Role of Museums in Canada in the Twenty-First-Century. We hope that these resources will be valuable to you in your work!

Over the next year, we will be working with a consortium of provincial and territorial museums associations and the Canadian Museums Association to develop an advocacy and communications toolkit that builds on the findings of our research and engagement campaign to rearticulate the value of museums.

The resources developed through Reconsidering Museums will provide a brand narrative and messaging that museums can use to engage the public, empowering museums with a shared language to express and substantiate the value of museums with data-driven insights, and helping to shape public dialogue on the vital role of museums in our society. 

Learn more about this project here. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to Caroline Loewen, Project Lead with the Alberta Museums Association, at cloewen@museums.ab.ca.