Call for Session Proposals: Engage! Moving from Inspiration to Action (NEMA 2023)

Engage! Moving from Inspiration to Action
2023 Annual Conference
November 8-10, 2023
Portland, Maine

NEMA invites you to submit a proposal for a lively, thoughtful and interactive session. We welcome new voices from a variety of institutions, as well as from people outside the field. Presenters from all stages of their careers and from all disciplines are encouraged to submit a proposal–all you need is a good idea!

The NEMA Conference has always been a place of idea exchange, like the wider museum field. The best, most useful conversations we have as museum professionals can directly impact our daily work, and these are the kinds of discussions we want to focus on for this year’s conference. Ideas, theories, and explorations are important, but these sometimes stultify into statements and plans which mean nothing if not carried out.

This year, the NEMA Conference asks you to consider: whose voices are you including in your planning processes? How are your plans, at the programmatic, departmental, or strategic levels being implemented, and by whom? What are the concrete methods, lessons learned, and implementation tips you can offer your fellow museum professionals? Where are you taking those key steps from talk to action?

Looking for inspiration? Here are some questions to consider as you write your session proposal:

Leadership: Strategic plans; what’s new/next? Where does your organization want to be in 20, 50, or 100 years? How do you and your staff plan on achieving your goals? Are your plans primarily construction and renovation, or people-centric (wage equity, staff diversification, professional development)? 

Resiliency and Sustainability: How is your site adapting to the present climate challenges and anticipating new ones and in the future?

Fundraising & Finance: What is the 21st century nonprofit business model? How are you adapting to current trends in giving, new priorities from funding organizations, and ongoing discussions of ethical fundraising? 

DEAI: Implementing equity plans: what steps is your organization taking, in policies, operations, hiring, programming? What makes your organization adaptable, equitable, and relevant heading into the second quarter of this century? 

Decolonizing and Re-Indigenization: Whose voices are present in your leadership, collection, exhibits, and community? Whose stories are you centering?

Communications: How has your marketing and communications planning changed post-Covid? What tools are helping you do your job more effectively? Where’s your audience in the decline of Facebook and Twitter’s imminent demise? What next?

Advocacy: Do you have an issue response plan? Who in your organization is involved in communications with public officials? How do you engage your board and other stakeholders in the places where your mission intersects with civic issues?

Education: Engagement has always been a key goal for educators – what techniques are you using to train staff & volunteers, teach critical thinking and empathy skills, etc.? How are you planning for the evolving needs of your students, teachers, families, and adult learners? 

Collections & Exhibitions: Moving storage? Working towards digital or physical accessibility in collections? Reexamining cataloging practices or what ‘care’ for your collections and collections & exhibitions staff truly involves? Tell us about how your organization is engaging with your collections, from behind the scenes to the exhibit floor. 

Full details and an online form can be found here: https://nemanet.org/conference-events/conference/conference-2023/call-proposals/

Requirements