Exhibition Resources

Applied Art and Technology

Edwards Creative


Mark Catton and Co.

McCullough Creative

John W. Neal - muralist

National Archives Traveling Exhibits Service

National Portrait Gallery Traveling Exhibitions

Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service

Triad Productions, Inc.

BOOKS

Exhibit Makeovers - A Do-it-Yourself Workbook for Small Museums by Alice Parman, Ann Craig, Lyle Murphy, Liz White, and Lauren Willis.  (Rowman and Littlefield).

If you have a donor recognition policy or photos of your donor recognition methods you could share, please email me at [email protected]

 FEEDBACK:

Sarah McDonald, Shelby County Historical Museum says," We decided to use a slideshow on a tv for donor recognition in our Military Exhibit Hall. The slideshow allows us to update donors, add informational slides, and add slides for upcoming events, etc. It can be moved and updated as the exhibit and museum evolve"

Eric Anderson, Blanden Art Museum says, "The Pearson Art center in Spirit Lake has a great one for high end donors they have wooden benches – with in the wooden bench they have a whole cut where you can put a metal medallion with the donors name on it." 

Cordelia Martin, UNI History Department said, "we send hand-written tahnk you cards to donors, and we name scholarhsips and events after the donors who sponsor them."

Melody Lager, Heartland Museum Foundation, said, "We give a gift item (shirt, cap, mouse pad), plus list the larger donors on our website, and all donors are listed in our newsletter."

Jerry Townsend, Grand Meadow Heritage Board, said, "Grand Meadow Heritage Center is working on starting a memorial/donor wall.  We will engrave bricks with donor name and will put up a free standing wall on our site.  Our thoughts are that this will be easy to maintain and add too over the years."

LaVon Eblen, Atlantic Rock Island Society Enterprise (ARISE), said, "ARISE uses enlarged dog tags as donor recognition."

Joanne Hardinger, Architectural Interpretive Center, said, "Our idea isn’t new, but it solved our need to recognize the many organizations and individuals that donated to the Architectural Interpretive Center we have next to the Stockman House Museum. We got a basic digital picture frame to set out on our customer checkout counter and put together a “page” for each donor on a flash drive and just “let it run”.  It features each person/organization for several seconds and then moves on.  After about 15 minutes it loops back to the beginning.   Rather than just a name, the digital pictures can be put together to include a pic of the person, logo of the organization, or whatever else you want to add to enhance the connection…color for sure!"

 

Donor Recognition Examples