This post is part of a series examining the concepts of the Museums & Race Report Card. This series is intended to help readers more effectively use the Report Card by increasing their understanding of each key concept in light of justice and equity work. Each post has been written by a member of the Museums & Race Steering Committee with feedback from the group.
This is a particularly fraught time in understanding the intersection of DEAI, anti-racism, and accountability since society as a whole and many of the external institutions, such as funding bodies and community partners, with which museums collaborate are redefining their commitments to DEAI and anti-racism. Accountability can facilitate understanding of an institution’s progress towards best practices in aspects of governance. Museum & Race (M&R), which continues to be committed to upholding the principles and practices of Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion (DEAI) and anti-racism, has developed the M&R Report Card as a tool for museum staff for personal and team agency. This blog by members of the Museums & Race Steering Committee maintains M&R’s commitment to DEAI and anti-racism as reflected in the grading system in the Report Card, which measures an organizational lack of a plan to track success and impact of DEAI activities (F), through degrees of planning for assessment, up to a fleshed out action plan with metrics and ongoing systemic implementation efforts (A).
Accountability refers to the intitution’s ongoing commitment to evaluation, transparent reporting and feedback of its practices and programs related to diversity (of race, gender, sexuality, age, ability, religious beliefs, language, etc.)
Accountability for any not-for-profit institution requires goals, responsibility for meeting those goals, evaluation of the institutions’ activities towards those goals, and a system of internal and external feedback. With the understanding that museums function through an interconnected web of contractual obligations and dedicated individuals working in community to make those happen, your institution has agreed to fulfill specific requirements on a pre-set schedule. What makes museums’ accountability different is the range of those obligations and the amount of museum staff and time needed to properly assess and report them.
To whom is a museum accountable?
Internal – A museum’s commitment to DEAI and anti-racism can be top down, coming from the board and leadership, or can be instigated by or through the staff (moving up, down, sideways, etc.). In either case, progress towards that goal (as defined through the Report Card) should be assessed and communicated frequently and consistently to leadership and staff, especially progress toward DEAI and anti-racism in hiring and staff interactions, as well as improvements in public engagement. Any additional governing institutions, such as sponsoring universities or municipalities, should be included in this internal reporting.
When an institution is firmly committed to DEAI and anti-racism, it can communicate those valued practices through all its contractual accountability, as listed below.
External – The institution is contractually required to provide accountability to any funders of core functions, as well as funders for specific projects. This can include facility and staff budgets, as well as exhibitions, programming and acquisitions. In other words, money coming in must be balanced by responding with information.
External – Those assessments should be reported to the institution’s community, which can include but not be limited to geographic neighborhood and/or to subscribers or membership groups.
External – The institution may also be accountable to collaborating institutions, including but not limited to artifact lenders and/or hosts for touring exhibitions.
Accountability: What are you assessing and reporting?
Accountability is always reporting on activities which have begun and, in some cases, may have been completed. The standard accountability practices for nonprofits focus on finances – income, expenditures, adherence to project budgets, etc. The accumulation, evaluation, and reporting of this information may need to meet a multitude of internal and external deadlines, including but not limited to board meetings, federal or state tax schedules, and preparation of interim or final reports to funders.
Though accountability serves as a critical component of an organization’s standard operating procedure, it is important to apply it from the lens of anti-racism since standard operating procedures have been long held up as an excuse for racism and exclusionary practices. Planning for accountability will facilitate your museum’s move in the Report Card from “little planning for assessment” (grades D-C) to the “planning for metrics and assessment” (grades C-B to A).
It is important that all contractual obligations be understood and communicated to every part of the institutions’ staff who need to be involved. This can and will range from the head of Finance responsible for the budget to the Security staff that counts visitation since all of these factors shape the institution’s activities in, and commitment to, equity and anti-racism.
The institution may also need to report non-financial information with its accountability reports, chief among this being visitation, participation, or other related audience statistics. For instance, accountability should include an awareness that, often, visitation in museums is not demographically inclusive—a direct result of systemic exclusionary practices in the field.
Accountability with adherence to the Museums & Race Report Card necessitates that an anti-racist outlook should be reflected in any and all reporting of an institutions’ functions. This requires an institutional commitment that you may need to fight for. In some cases, those values may be shared by a funder/funding organization. In New York, for example, museums may compete for grants of public funds through the New York State Council on the Arts or the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. In both cases, long held policy requires that the institution provide accountability of their commitment to diversity in governance, representation and public engagement. In other states or under the 2025- federal administration, those policies might make that museum ineligible for funding. This is the crisis that currently concerns the museum field as well as related not-for-profit arts organizations.
To repeat: Accountability is always reporting on activities which have begun and, in some cases, may have been completed. It is important that accountability be accurate, provide introspection on “standard practices,” and be consistent despite potential conflicts, i.e. do not revise facts to accommodate changes in reporting values.
However, even when there is conflict with a funding organization’s values, institutions (individuals and teams) have a responsibility to uphold their own ideals, and work together to keep each other accountable (beyond funding). This is the accountability that we have to our colleagues and to the communities that museums serve, especially in challenging political times.
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