Mission Statement And Goals
The Edgewood Museum brings local history and culture to life for the Edgewood area.
Vision: The impact we strive to have
- The Edgewood Museum will be a hub of community learning and enjoyment.
- The Museum endeavors to ignite creativity, inspire critical thinking, and spark conversation.
Action: What we do
- Deliver learning experiences to the community at large.
- Present compelling exhibitions and programs that present local culture and history.
- Generate and share new experiences through exhibitions and web-based media.
- Collect, preserve, and interpret significant historical artifacts with a focus on local history and culture.
- Think big, start small, create.
Values: Core beliefs that guide us
- We believe that the Edgewood community deserves the best; we aim to excel at everything we do.
- We exemplify Iowa hospitality; we are welcoming and friendly to all. We put people first.
- Partners are essential; we work to build relationships with businesses, organizations, and individuals.
- We never stop learning or thinking; we continually push boundaries and explore new territory.
- The Edgewood Museum will serve in perpetuity. To ensure this, we build and care for our collections, make smart use of our financial resources, and continually invest in our future.
- We exist to benefit the community; we demonstrate our success by aligning our words and our actions
Goals and Objectives
Goal 1: Develop engagement in the community
- Develop an audience for the Museum to include Edgewood area residents and visitors.
- Encourage participation from all community members. Establish partnerships with like-minded organizations.
- Strengthen relationships with community leaders.
- Empower the public to feel ownership of the Museum.
- Engage the community as an accessible and welcoming center of learning.
- Enhance history appreciation among our patrons.
- Commit to audience development by knowing our patrons, and by presenting exhibitions and programs that respond to their needs and interests.
- Provide access to the Museum with convenient opening hours and pricing policies, and developing new ways to speak with new audiences.
- Work creatively in partnership with other organizations to enhance our work and enable us to extend our reach.
- Determine how to present, interpret, and share our collections as a means for engaging our audience.
Goal 2: Establish the Museum as a partner in education
- Develop offerings that promote creativity and build community.
- Connect with teachers and serve as a partner.
- Ensure that every school-age child visits the Museum.
- Develop and promote the collection as a resource for learning.
- Provide a robust digital learning experience.
- Grow financial support for education efforts so that they can be provided free of charge or at the lowest cost possible.
- Develop a docent program to provide a strong volunteer pool to support education initiatives.
Goal 3: Provide a fun and enjoyable Museum experience
- Adopt a culture of hospitality, and develop a visitor centric ethos.
- Provide family-friendly visitor amenities to promote comfort and engagement.
- Develop a changing exhibition program to connect with community interests and motivate attendance.
- Be a highly visible organization with a lot of “buzz” about town.
- Build a high quality collection and enhance public access to it.
- Actively partner with other cultural, educational and social service organizations.
- Acquire, centralize, and catalogue objects and archives.
- Digitize and post the collection on-line.
- Utilize actual and virtual exhibitions and related educational programming.
- Create personalized experiences for our visitors.
- Broaden our offerings by forging creative partnerships with other cultural organizations in the region.
Goal 4: Ensure long-term sustainability and grow organizational capacity
- Develop a volunteer corps to provide support to Museum activities.
- Focus on long-term strategy, fundraising, and fiduciary responsibilities.
- Grow and diversify financial resources—operational and endowment.
Goal 5: Develop the Museum’s brand, communications, and marketing
- Develop and launch a brand for the Museum.
- Develop public and media relations to reach the entire Edgewood community and the surrounding trade area.
- Align the Museum’s marketing efforts with its audience development goals.
- Create a communication strategy for promoting the Museum.
- Develop a comprehensive digital strategy by focusing on the broader role that technology must play in every aspect of the Museum’s operations, especially in marketing and communications and new interpretive initiatives.