Museums continue to face growing pressures and censorship threats, yet crises like this can spark new pathways forward. With this in mind, this month we recommend the annual TrendsWatch from the American Alliance of Museums, a story of not backing down, and a proposition for museums to embrace a new paradigm.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not going away. For the last few years, it has been something we at Kera have regularly talked and written about. Inspired by those conversations, we decided it was time to set some guidance for how we approach AI in our work. Given the rapidly evolving contexts, we opted for a values-driven guidance versus more prescriptive directives on AI use.

Museums and cultural institutions are at a crossroads, balancing bold exploration of human experience (art, awe, authentic storytelling) with challenges like decreased visitation and censorship. How can museums forge a path forward with integrity and courage?

In today’s world, we need creative problem solving skills more than ever to plan for an uncertain future and unexpected developments. This month, explore how creative problem solving helps to interpret history in politicized times, rethink philanthropy, and address unexpected uses of AI in research.

For museum program facilitators, a post-program reflection tool is a great way to not only reflect on your teaching and facilitation practice, but also generate rich data with which to evaluate your participants’ progress. At Kera, we often include these first-person perspectives in program evaluation designs as an additional data set to triangulate with data representing other relevant perspectives, like those of program participants or museum program managers.

When things don’t go as planned, it can be painful and frustrating. Yet there are other ways to do something, other paths to take. This month we share three resources to remind us of this.

In reviewing our recent blog posts, I realized that we don't talk as often about museum audiences as I would have expected. This surprised me because—as a company with over 35 years of history—we have learned so much about museum audiences over the years. We also advocate for museums to center their work around people! Therefore, I wanted to tap into our collective knowledge and share some key insights about museum audiences.

In this article, Gwendolyn Fernandez and Hannah Heller share insights from their analysis of 2024 Museum Workers Relief Fund applications, offering a snapshot of where museum workers stand in summer 2025 and what they hope for the future of museums.

Eras of censorship and misinformation are not unfamiliar to the United States—from the repression of political activists to banned books to manufacturing consent for genocide. Today, many feel scared and unsure of how to proceed with this administration’s actions and orders regarding repression of political speech and censorship of topics like race and gender identity. So how do we, as evaluators and museum professionals, confront this era?