FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 11, 2000

Mid-America Arts Alliance Awarded $50,000 From The James Irvine Foundation for ExhibitsUSA
Award to Support the Enhancement of Museum Exhibitions

ExhibitsUSA, a division of Mid-America Arts Alliance (M-AAA) has been awarded $50,000 from the James Irvine Foundation (San Francisco). This award will support a feasibility study on the professional development needs of small and mid-sized California museums. The goal is to research and identify a cluster of museums in California eager and able to participate in a multi-year training project, combining exhibition development and technical assistance to achieve institutional advancement.

The objectives of the feasibility study are to:

• determine the number of California museums and galleries with budgets of $1 million or less;
  
  
• find out current capacity of target pool (size of staff, facility, and volunteer base); ·
  
  
• investigate their needs, interests, and competency level in areas such as community programming, marketing, fund raising, and exhibition development;
  
  
• identify best practices for communicating and distributing project information, education materials, and exhibition objects among participants; and·
  
  
• propose a program structure to address the technical assistance needs of moderate and smaller museums.

The mission of ExhibitsUSA is to create access to an array of arts and humanities exhibitions, nurture the development and understanding of diverse art forms and cultures, and encourage the expanding depth and breadth of cultural life in local communities. ExhibitsUSA offers over 50 diverse exhibitions in their annual catalog. Each year they reach over a million visitors in more than 100 communities. In total over the past ten years, more than 11 million visitors in 583 different communities in all 50 states and abroad have viewed an ExhibitsUSA exhibition.

Henry Moran, Executive Director of Mid-America Arts Alliance said, "We are delighted to be partnering with the Irvine Foundation on this project to research moderate-sized museums interested in a multi-year project to advance their institution's capacity and strength in the community. For over 25 years, our organization has designed and managed programs based upon our beliefs that when the arts and arts organizations thrive, communities thrive."

"Experience tells us that the world of small and mid-sized museums is very different from larger institutions. Access to technical assistance for smaller museums is extremely limited and often focused on the needs and abilities of larger museums. Exacerbating this problem is the reality that smaller institutions often have small, overworked staffs that cannot afford the financial or staffing luxury of attending conferences, workshops, and training courses. Nonetheless, their commitment to engaging their communities with enriching cultural experiences is undaunted and their ability to imagine new and creative methods for broadening and deepening community participation remains extraordinary. Our task is to identify institutional advancement strategies that serve the museum professional, the institution, and the community simultaneously," said Mary Kennedy McCabe, Director of ExhibitsUSA.

ExhibitsUSA's particular interest in California institutions stems from two factors: 1) ExhibitsUSA already has a familiarity with many California institutions and artists from past partnerships; and 2) California's critical mass of smaller museums presents an ideal situation for incubating new ideas. ExhibitsUSA has long been committed to developing museum-quality, affordable exhibitions with a range of sizes, subjects and security requirements. With ten years experience and a keen insight into the sort of exhibition concepts likely to appeal to various types of institutions in their communities, ExhibitsUSA is well positioned to work with these museums to develop solutions and obtain positive results.

The James Irvine Foundation was established as a trustee of the charitable trust of James Irvine, a California agricultural pioneer, to promote the general welfare of the people of California. With current assets of approximately $1.3 billion, the Foundation is dedicated to enhancing the social, economic, and physical quality of life throughout California, and to enrich the State's intellectual and cultural environment. Within these broad purposes, the Foundation supports the arts; children, youth and families; health; civic culture; higher education; sustainable communities; and workforce development programs.

ExhibitsUSA is generously supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the H&R Block Foundation, Cooper Foundation, Richard Florsheim Art Fund, Samuel H. Kress Foundation, Sprint, the Embassy of Australia, Washington, D.C., the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, its six state arts agencies and private contributors.