STUDY GROUPS

MMF: Study Groups build off the findings and recommendations presented in MMF’s bi-annual Data Study & Report, operationalizing the data into actionable steps for change inside museum workplaces. Composed of workers and subject matter experts from within art museums and adjacent sectors, MMF: Study Groups are uniquely positioned to tackle systemic challenges and offer nuanced insights into how to overcome these challenges in very practical ways. The work produced by each Study Group informs and helps to advance MMF’s mission to create a more just museum sector by 2030.

To engage with the work of MMF: Study Groups, please check back here for announcements about future opportunities. You may email liz@museumsmovingforward.com with any questions.

In October 2024, MMF launched the pilot round of MMF: Study Groups, which comprised three groups led by a member of MMF’s network of advisors. Across the three groups, there were 24 participants, including current and former museum directors, curators, front-of-house staff, development officers, researchers, union stewards, archivists, HR officers, interns, educators, and other cultural workers from 15 museums and 8 other arts organizations. Many of the participants were already connected to MMF’s work in some way—as advisors, convening attendees, or Partner Museums—but others found out about this program through social media or word of mouth and joined due to their interest in the topic without much background on MMF as an organization. This yielded an incredibly diverse range of participants in our first three Study Groups and a great deal of learning for us at MMF.

As with all of MMF’s programs, Study Groups are an ongoing experiment with new models for collaboration. We envisioned these groups operating using sociocratic principles, where members shared leadership responsibilities, co-determined meeting structure and project direction, and self-identified the needs and resources of the group. While MMF was the convener of these study groups and offered occasional feedback, we were not involved in the day-to-day conversations and decisions of the groups. Upon the conclusion of the pilot round, we reflected on the successes and challenges surfaced during this pilot round and how we can continue to develop this program to best activate the findings of our bi-annual Data Study and support our colleagues in the field. Below, we share some initial findings and recommendations from each of the three Study Groups in our ongoing effort to make our learning processes available to the field. 

We are grateful to the 24 colleagues who spent several months thoughtfully engaging with the data, listening to one another, working through differences, and co-creating an offering for the field. Below, we provide some background on each group, findings of their research, and how their work is informing our programs moving forward. This page will also house materials and outcomes from their work as it is ready to share. 

Emotionally Intelligent Leaders

In response to the MMF 2023 Report's conclusion that emotionally intelligent leaders are one of five ways to move museum workplaces forward, the Emotionally Intelligent Leaders Study Group considered the data and findings from the report related to emotional intelligence and explored ways to improve this essential trait in leaders. 

This group studied the literature on emotional intelligence to adapt that research to the specific context of the museum sector. This resulted in a toolkit that makes the case for the importance of emotional intelligence in art museum leadership and supports leaders in identifying critical areas for growth in this arena. A few key takeaways from their initial research include:

• Emotional intelligence is not a “nice to have,” but an essential tool for the sustainability of the field. The Group writes: “Understanding, measuring, and assessing emotional intelligence in museum senior leaders—as part of performance and with accountability—will be key to the art industry’s growth, evolution, and future success.”

• Building off the data surfaced in MMF’s 2023 Report, the Group highlights the costs—both financial and emotional—of high turnover rates within museums. If museums are to address their high turnover rates, they must acknowledge the role that leadership plays in retention. As the Study Group notes, “Kindness and compassion in leadership are known to pay off tenfold in employee retention and productivity.” 

• In addition to the value for staff and broader institutional health, the Study Group’s research demonstrates that “people with greater emotional intelligence have more job satisfaction, less stress, and better career trajectories.” Considering the findings shared in MMF’s 2023 Report, which indicated that workers rated their career satisfaction lower than US workers overall, this group presents emotional intelligence as a key opportunity for both self and organizational transformation. 

• They frame their work with the candid acknowledgement that “even if you don’t think understanding your own emotional intelligence applies to you, it does. We encourage you to give this kind of introspective thinking a try.” 

How to engage with their work

• Their research informs recommendations in MMF’s 2025 Report, which can be found here.

• Read the Study Group's toolkit below. If you are interested in supporting the advancement of their research, please email liz@museumsmovingforward.com. 

Museum Union Contracts & Equity

The Museum Union Contracts & Equity Study Group came together to collectively address a commonly held question among museum workers: to what extent do labor unions help promote equity within and beyond the museum, and how might we broaden the horizons of possibility? 

The Group developed a zine that outlines material examples of historical contract wins by labor unions in the private nonprofit art museum sector, accompanied by research and analysis on how these material gains can advance institutional equity goals. A few key takeaways from their research include:

• The Group asserts that “museum unions enact workplace justice” through six key avenues: pay equity, benefits, career advancement, DEAI, workplace protections, and transparency. The goal of the zine is to “demonstrate how material improvements achieved through union contracts—like wages, seniority, benefits, and protections—constitute concrete steps towards the DEAI goals of these institutions.”

• The Group designed the zine for multiple uses, including: “For workers who are skeptical of how a union campaign might help them, this zine can demonstrate what colleagues have achieved across the country. For workers who are facing arguments that unionization will hurt institutional DEAI initiatives—particularly amidst a climate of financial and political pressure—this zine offers evidence to the contrary. For workers entering negotiations, this zine provides examples of how to expand the horizon of what is possible to achieve through a contract.”

• In 2024, MMF published the Art Museum Unions Index, a research tool designed to better understand and track efforts to improve and reform museum workplaces through union organizing. Facilitated by the Unions Index co-researcher, the Group used MMF’s research as a jumping-off point to translate “difficult-to-decipher contracts into structured data in plain language for ease of use by workers.”

• The ultimate vision for the zine, as articulated by the Group, is to illustrate how museum unions can help advance democratic principles within art museums. This includes “getting workers access to meetings, or at least increased information about board meetings, could be an important first step in addressing power imbalances in museums.” Ultimately, they seek to demonstrate that worker unionization “is an expression of love and commitment to the work of museums.” This echoes the results of Museum Workers Speak research, as shared in MMF: Publications: “Museum workers care deeply and want institutions to return that care to them and the visitors they serve.”

How to engage with their work

• Their research provides critical context for understanding union-related findings in MMF’s 2025 Report, which can be found here.

• Read their zine, Museum Unions Enact Workplace Justice, below.

Reimagining Career Advancement

From February to May 2024, MMF gathered in-person with art museum workers in the Bay Area, Houston, Boston, and NYC to discuss the topic of promotions and career advancement in the art museum field. We concluded our Spring 2024 convenings cycle with a collective takeaways document that included ten barriers and ten opportunities to transform career advancement in US Art Museums. Using the collective takeaways document as a jumping-off point, the Reimagining Career Advancement Study Group identified two key pathways for advancing the conversation around promotions in art museums: 

1) A set of career advancement guidelines for leadership with tools for how to build institutional buy-in and recommendations for managers at all levels.

• To build institutional buy-in, the Study Group highlighted the value proposition of investing in staff development, including the ability for an organization to attract and retain talent, improved employee resiliency, increased efficiency and productivity, and the creation of a culture of learning. 

• To support managers who want to invest in their employees’ career development, the Group recommends allocating resources and time for their professional development while also prioritizing a culture of rest. They encourage a “future-oriented manager mindset” to recognize that “[y]ou have the opportunity to invest in the field by investing in your employee.”

• The Group advocates for clearer structures towards growth and promotion, which might include: Providing the known parameters for promotion “at the onset of the supervisee’s employment, within the job description, or during the interview process;” Personal Development Plans (developed with your supervisee); changing job descriptions to match promotions “so that certain tasks from their previous position are offloaded to other employees;” and the importance of pay equity by instituting salary caps (e.g. the top paid employee should not earn more than 6x the lowest paid employee).

2) A care manual for staff to identify personal career goals and support one another through conversation and community-building. 

• The care manual begins with a self-assessment, which encourages workers to start by reflecting on their own career goals. The Group writes: “Rather than getting on an advancement ‘escalator,’ always in pursuit of ever-higher status or salary alone, we wanted to consider other factors that bolster quality of life, knowing that it is important to grow and sustain these as well.”

• The Group seeks to help workers reconsider “career” from an individual lens (“how can I advance over others”) to a collective lens (“how can we help each other get what we need”). In that spirit, they offer suggestions for how to discuss career advancement with peers, managers, HR, and even others outside of your organization.

• The Group pays particular attention to how conversations can form the bedrock of relationships that push against a “culture of competition [which] siloes workers. When museums fail to share salary information or promotion plans, it forces workers to decide whether it is in their best interest to share their own information with others. Initiating a conversation with a peer is a chance to practice transparency. There’s no requirement for what you do or do not share, but keep in mind that information is a two-way street. Being open about your own situation might encourage them to share with you, and help you build a relationship that is empathetic rather than extractive.”

How to engage with their work

• Read the combined takeaways from the Spring 2024 Convenings, a reflection of the in-person discussion with members of this group and other attendees, which informed the work of the Study Group.

• Their research informs recommendations in MMF’s 2025 Report, which can be found here. In particular, this group has helped move the conversation forward around the importance of thinking more creatively about growth for workers. Stay tuned for how we envision this work continuing in our next cycle of programs, including future Study Groups and Publications.