The Leadership Partnership

The Leadership Partnership is volume two in the Museum Trustee Association’s Templates for Trustees series. The book and customizable web-based templates feature tools that help boards to consider their options, identify their priorities, and plan their actions at this critical moment in a museum’s life cycle. In addition to the manual and on-line website, purchasers have access to the ongoing assistance of MTA staff.

As nonprofit management becomes more challenging, thinking about the relationship between the board and the director is evolving. The bright line between the board’s responsibility for policy and the staff’s responsibility for management is blurring. The Leadership Partnership explores and supports this critical partnership between the executive director and the board and helps leadership develop strategies and approaches appropriate for the individual institution. A series of online surveys allows board members to look at their own performance, that of the board as a whole and that of the executive director across ten critical areas of museum management: mission, vision and strategy; professional development, board operations, individual relationships, oversight, finances and fundraising, collections, facilities, and public engagement. The final template guides users into turning the findings from the surveys into a leadership plan, to be presented and discussed with the board.

TheMuseum Trustee Association was formed as a committee of the American Association of Museums (now known as the American Alliance of Museums) in 1971. The Museum Trustee Association broke away from AAM in 1986 and received its federal IRS 501(c)(3) status in 1991. Since then, MTA has been governed by an elected Board of Directors representing diverse regions of the United States, Caribbean, Canada, and Mexico, a variety of museum disciplines and sizes, and wide-ranging areas of expertise in trusteeship. All are current or former museum trustees, and several are founders of MTA.

Daryl Fischer founded Musynergy Consulting in 1993 to provide strategic and interpretive planning, audience evaluation, and board development services to museums and other cultural nonprofits. Her service on numerous nonprofit boards including the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts (Grand Rapids, MI), the Visitor Studies Association, and the Progressive Women’s Alliance of the Lakeshore has given her a profound appreciation for passion, energy, and expertise board members bring to the organizations they serve.

Laura B. Roberts is principal of Roberts Consulting, working with cultural nonprofit organizations on strategic planning, assessment, and organizational development. She is the chair of the Central Square Theater in Cambridge MA and former chaired the boards of Tufts University Art Gallery, MassHumanities and First Night Boston. She teaches museum and nonprofit management at Harvard University Extension, Bank Street College of Education, and Northeastern University.