I am curious to know how many museums have adopted and published a master plan. How often are these documents updated. How often are the referenced in grant writing. Finally how many are produced in-house and how many are produced with the aid of a consulting firm.

Michigan Transit Museum
sutterd@hotmail.com

We wrote our original plan about 1982, Revised it completely it in 1992, with an executive summery published in 1994.

We operate in a City owned, County operated park. When working with Goverment agencies, the plan is invaluable. It is how they do business, and therefore, gives them confidence in our process.

The original plan was more of a concept. The 1994 revision was much more of a area by area analysis and review of our operation, for internal use. The 1994 executive summery was the public version of the 1992 plan (the 1992 plan was a very detailed document, describing all of our strengths and weaknesses, and has been a useful tool for management, but contains a frank description of organizational problems, which donÂ’t need to be made public.

These plans were created in house, though a series of meetings by both a committee charge with creating the plan, and by the total membership. The executive summery was the product of a small group of members, with review and adoption by the board of directors.

Randy Hees
SPCRR


http://spcrr.org
hees@ix.netcom.com

At National Capital Trolley Museum we have a General Plan for Determining Collections and Facilities, a Collections Policy, a Master Plan for the site, and a Strategic plan. The General Plan and Collections Policy were developed in house starting in 1988, and have been revised, most recently in 2002. The Master Plan is an archtitectural design paid for with state and county funds, and the Strategic Plan was developed professionaly and paid for by a grant from the county Arts and Humanities Council.

All documents are helpful with grants. In many cases it is possible to pull entire paragraphs or sections of narrative for use in responding to various grant questions. And some grant funders require one or more of the documents in the application process.

The Strategic Plan was the most tedious process for us. It was a "brain-dump" of all the things we already knew, but that were not written down anywhere. The end result was not much of a surprise. But the document is handy as a planning tool.

The documents are not available on line.

Wesley Paulson


National Capital Trolley Museum

We just finished a brand new one, and have it set for five year reviews and ten year updates. By the way Dave, there are some elements you may particularly enjoy.....

TJ

> I am curious to know how many museums have
> adopted and published a master plan. How
> often are these documents updated. How often
> are the referenced in grant writing. Finally
> how many are produced in-house and how many
> are produced with the aid of a consulting
> firm.


Port Huron Museum

tjgaffney@phmuseum.org