In light of the unfolding events surrounding this nation's struggle against racial violence and harm, the original plan to designate June 1-7 as Museum Survival Week will be postponed to a later date.

#MuseumSurvivalKit began as a project to help encourage resilience, resourcefulness, and community support during a time of crisis. We need those qualities more than ever, but right now, some survival skills are more critical than others. So, for the week of June 1-7, we will be realigning to be responsive to current events. 

We are grateful to our many partner museums for preparing content to share this week and we promise to designate another opportunity to share this useful instructional content in the future. During the coming week, however, we will prioritize messages that help us confront the most difficult issues we are faced with in our present moment. In the spirit of cultural and community survival, we hope you will join us in focusing on what is most needed right now. 

Call for Participants: Museum Survival Week, June 1-7! Join museums and public historians in celebration of creative survival

Call for Participants
Help build a #MuseumSurvivalKit and  show how history can help us face today’s challenges! From June 1-7, museums and their members and fans nationwide are invited to share “survival skills” inspired by museum content or collections.  During Museum Survival Week, you can build this resource by posting a video, Instagram or Facebook post, or blog entry tagged with #MuseumSurvivalKit. Together, these posts celebrate the incredible range of creative ways our ancestors (and contemporary communities) have found to care for themselves and others during tough times. Sign up here to join in! 

Why #MuseumSurvivalKit?
COVID-19 brings many challenges with it. But people have faced hard times before, and museums can help us look to the past--and within our own communities- for ways to face present-day struggles. Museums (and their sister organizations:historic sites, libraries, archives, nature and science centers, arts centers and community spaces) are essential institutions that preserve and sustain the knowledge our ancestors developed when facing hard times past. They keep and share skills that can help us all cope with the challenges we face today, and find joy in acts of collective creativity, survival and resilience.  

Who can participate? 
Any individual or organization with historic and/or community-based knowledge to share. This project is celebrating history as a source of ideas for creative resilience, whether or not that history is preserved within a museum. We hope to feature a diversity of people and places and a wide variety of living skills. If you have knowledge to share, please add it to the Kit. 

How do I take part? 

1. Sign up to participate. We’d like to coordinate efforts using this Google Form,  Let us know how to reach you, what you’d like to share, and what day you will post. This will help us share information in advance and re-circulate your post via our social media channels.  (If the form is an obstacle in any way,, you’re still welcome to participate without using it.)
2. Identify a skill. Mine your museum, your skills or your memory to find tips, tricks, and tools​ rooted in your unique content. Explore collections, programs, oral histories and exhibits for ideas. Remember, surviving isn’t just about food, water, and shelter - it ‘s also about lifting the spirit, bringing comfort, and enjoying entertainment. If it helps you get through a tough day, it’s a survival skill! Need ideas? Check out our Ideas page. 
3. Design your item. Download our Graphics Package and use it to build a story shareable on social media. This could be a 1-3 minute video, an Instagram story or post, a Twitter thread, or a Facebook post. Using the graphic elements helps give #MuseumSurvivalKit a unified presence and wider impact. 
4. Post and share. Post your survival kit item to your museum’s social channels on the day you planned. Be sure to include the hashtag #MuseumSurvivalKit to allow others to find and share your post. Also, be sure to find and share other #MuseumSurvivalKit posts to help it reach a wide audience! 

​I’m only one person. How fancy does this need to be?
We understand lots of us are working on reduced capacity right now. If you only have time to take a photo and write a caption on Instagram, or draft a Tweet or two, that still counts. Even if your contribution is simple, it’s an important part of the kit. 

What if I Can’t Do This by June 7? 
That’s OK! We’ll keep the hashtag and website alive for some time to come. Post when you can.

Who’s Behind This Project? 
#MuseumSurvivalKit was developed during an online happy hour when five history museum advocates got excited about how the field can help now and have a little fun doing it. The creative partners are: Melanie Adams, Jackie Barton, Michelle Moon, Sarah Pharaon, and Tobi Voigt, 

Help! I have questions! 
Please send any questions to [email protected]. We’ll get back to you as soon as we can (we’re all volunteers, so please be patient!) 

Where’s that Signup Form Again?
Please visit this Google Form to sign up. It only takes a minute.     

We hope you’ll join us. Thanks for helping to support the relevance of history and the role of  museums in preserving cultural know-how!