News

The Museums Alaska Board and Director will be traveling to Juneau from January 30 to February 2 to advocate for several field wide priorities.

We will be reaching out to organizations for support letters in the near future. To make it as easy as possible, we will provide templates that you can edit as needed.

Our three priorities for 2024 are:

Updating the Undocumented Property Statute

The current undocumented property statute requires museums and cultural centers to follow outdated and expensive methods of public notifications, which prevent them from managing their collections to meet their mission.

We have been working with Representative Carrick's office and several collections managers across the state to update the statute language to allow digital notices as an alternative to printed notices.

The Ask

We will ask state representatives and senators to sign on to the updated law, which will allow museums to use lower-cost, digital alternatives to publishing FIC collections information in local papers. 

This change is essential because local papers are disappearing and using social media posts will allow museums to geo-target the appropriate audience and reach more people on a lower budget.

Fully Fund the Alaska State Libraries, Archives, and Museums

The Alaska State Libraries, Archives, and Museums (SLAM) cannot fully meet the needs of the state without full funding. SLAM is a jewel in the state’s crown, caring for over 30,000 objects telling the vast history of the state. SLAM is our state’s calling card. It needs to be valued as such.

The Ask

Fully fund the Alaska State Libraries, Archives, and Museums. 

Our State’s repository of knowledge and history should always be fully funded and staffed to care for and share the history, knowledge, stories, and treasures of Alaska with our residents and visitors. Fully funding SLAM will also allow them to continue to support museums across the state of Alaska with the Grant-In-Aid program—an essential source of funding for Alaska museums.

Museums Infrastructure Matching Grant Program

Many museums are in older buildings and our state’s cultural heritage and history is at risk unless museums renovate or construct new buildings. Recent surveys have shown that more than half of Alaska’s museums and cultural centers anticipate undertaking major capital improvement projects in the next five years. 

We will talk to the state representatives and senators about the need for establishing a matching grant program for museum construction and major expansions in the state of Alaska, similar to the existing Library Construction Grant Program. We do not intend to ask for the program creation this year, but set the stage for a future ask.

We're excited to announce that we will be moving from Wild Apricot to Salesforce, which will allow us to streamline our services and communications to members. 

Wild Apricot has been a wonderful platform for the last several years, but in order to grow, we felt like a change was required.

How will this affect you?

• Beginning in January 2024, we will direct people to our new membership, donations and event forms to pay for their memberships, register for events, or make a donation. 

• We are creating a portal for our individual members' convenience to access their contact, membership, event, and donation data in case they need to make any changes to their information, request tax receipts, or check their registrations.
• • If you are an organizational member, please continue to reach out to me (director@museumsalaska.org or 907-371-4348) to change your contact person or other details.

• We are also planning to move our AAF & CMF grant applications over to Salesforce. This process probably won't be completed until the end of 2024, so in 2025, you will have a new applicant experience. As we learn more, we will let you know!

• Since Wild Apricot is also the system we created and host our website on, we will also be building a new website that we plan to launch in Spring 2024.

More information about why and how we came to the decision to move to Salesforce is below.

If you are looking for a new donor and member management system, the "Who did we consider?" section may be helpful. Feel free to reach out with any questions!

Why did we decide to move from Wild Apricot?

Our current Wild Apricot service term ends next June. While the system is very convenient and inexpensive considering all the tools it provides, it has also been limited. We can't track major donors, grants we apply for, soft credits for donations made through Facebook or PFD donations, or in-kind donations. If we want to grow and get a full picture of our donors, we needed more tracking options.

We don't currently use Wild Apricot for our mass emails because if we input all of our contacts, we would be bumped to a more expensive level with no added benefits. This is why we used Mailchimp for enews and other non-member specific announcements. If we were going to pay more so we could include all of our contacts in one place, we wanted more features.

Wild Apricot is also very limited in its reporting features, and there were a few other improvements we would have liked to see. 

However, we weren't sure if there was a system that better fit our needs, so we decided to do some research and meet with other platforms.

We do want to make it clear that Wild Apricot is a wonderful option for a small organization and we would recommend it for small museums who need a platform that provides a website, online store, contact database, online membership and donation capabilities, automated renewal emails to members, and mass email capabilities.  

If you are a small museum looking for an affordable all-in-one platform, please contact us and we can talk to you about our experience with Wild Apricot. It might be an amazing platform for you!

We are simply in a growth phase and needed a more robust platform.

Who did we consider?

We seriously considered four platforms:

NeonOne - This was the platform that came in second place to Salesforce for us. NeonOne is a more sophisticated version of Wild Apricot. You can host your website on their platform with their website builder. They have all the functionality of Wild Apricot, as well as the ability to track major donors, grant tracking, create automated welcome series emails, and more robust reporting. Unfortunately, as a museum association, we have special needs, like the ability to create member-only content, which was not possible on this platform. But if you are a museum searching for a platform like Wild Apricot, I would recommend you reach out to NeonOne as well.

Every Action (now Bonterra) - This was a third runner up. Every Action is very similar to NeonOne, but they don't have the website builder, so you would have to have your own third-party website on Wix or Wordpress or something similar. A really wonderful tool that is built in to this platform is an advocacy tool to draft template emails and social media posts that constituents can send to their representatives. This is a tool that would be very helpful to us as a museum association, but once again there was a lack of ability to create members-only content.

Charity Engine - Charity Engine was another strong contender. They even have a built in auction tool, which no other platform had. But in the end, they were out of our price range. 

Salesforce - After meeting with all four platforms, we ended up choosing Salesforce's Nonprofit Success Pack.

Why did we choose Salesforce?

We chose Salesforce because it is a highly extensible platform that will grow with us. 

Salesforce was created as a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system for corporations. About a decade ago, they began building a nonprofit side of their CRM.

Salesforce is the back-end CRM. It's a database for people—your interactions with people and their interactions with you. In Salesforce, we can track our contacts, members, donors, foundations and the grants we apply for, and major donors. We can track hard credits for donations, soft credits, and in-kind gifts. We can also track our communications—mass communications emails and personal emails.

It also comes with robust reporting capabilities and customizable dashboards for easily accessible data reporting.

In order to interact with our members and donors, we can purchase any number of apps to extend the abilities of the CRM. For instance, we have added an app that will allow us to take online membership payments, donations, and event registrations and track them in Salesforce. 

We've also added an app that will allow us to create mass emails and segment our audience based on their relationships with us.

But many of the other systems we looked at had these functionalities as well, so why choose Salesforce?

We decided Salesforce was the best option because of these three things:

• Salesforce has a very robust content portal that comes with the Nonprofit Success Pack. We can create a portal for our members that has on-demand courses, templates, recorded webinars, community conversation sections where people can ask and answer questions, and more. It will likely take us a year or more to create the content portal—so please don't look for it anytime soon—but this ability to host a wide variety of educational content was one of the main selling features for Salesforce.

• Salesforce is also a grant management platform for those who give out grants. I first noticed Salesforce when I applied to the Henry Luce Foundation for the expansion of the Access to Alaska Native Collections program. My grant applicant experience through this platform was positive, so we decided to reach out to Salesforce to learn more about their system. The opportunity to have EVERYTHING we manage under one platform and one database was a real bonus. No other system we looked at had a grant management capability. 
• • Also, because Salesforce's rate scale is based on how many admin and applicant logins you need instead of the number of grant programs you are managing, the grant platform is less expensive than the one we are currently using.

• And finally, we have room to grow. Salesforce gives all nonprofits 10 user licenses for free. We have one staff member, so even if we add staff members in the future, we will continue to pay roughly the same price for the CRM for years to come.

What are our current costs?

If we renewed Wild Apricot in 2024, we would pay $2,448/year. And GOSmart costs us $3,500/year for two grants programs with two cycles each.

Our total annual cost in 2024 would be $5,948 to keep the same functionality we have now.

How much is Salesforce costing Museums Alaska?

We have signed a five year contract, and pay $5,589 annually for the Salesforce CRM and grant management system. This includes:

• 10 free licenses for the CRM and content portal administration

• $2,100/year for the grant management system
• • which includes 100 applicant logins and 1 admin login

• $720/year for 40 member logins a month
• • for member-only content - this amount may increase after we build a member portal and more people need to log-in every month

• $150/year to connect gmail inbox to Salesforce
• • to record important non-mass emails to Salesforce

• $2,619/year for Premier Success Plan
• • 24/7 assistance and as-needed, one-on-one training
  • the rate is based on 30% of the total annual cost including the original cost of the free licenses
  • • $1,728/year - $144/month for ten licenses
    • $630/year - $52.50/month for grant management
    • $216/year - $18/month for 40 logins
    • $45/year - $3.75/month for gmail connection

We have also added third party apps for our specific needs:

~$600/year - Payments2US - allows us to take online donations, memberships, and event registrations. The original price is in AUD, so the conversion to USD will change every month, hence the "about" sign in front of the amount.

$600/year - Campaign Monitor - allows us to send mass emails, automated email series, and segment our audience as needed.

Sidenote: We hope to add the SoapboxEngage app in the future, so we can create advocacy messages that our community can email to their state and local representatives. This will cost about $1,188/year.

Additional cost:

Because our website is currently created on and hosted by Wild Apricot, we have to build a new website as well. We decided on a Wordpress website using Alaskan developer, Weber & Co. Our annual hosting cost will be $1,500.

Total Cost and Difference:

Our new total annual cost, with Salesforce, the two apps, and our new website is: $8,289/year.

This is $2,341/year more than we currently pay for Wild Apricot and GOSmart, but it provides much higher functionality and room to grow.

We are currently using our Rasmuson Foundation grant to pay for the new system, but we will move most of the costs to our general operating budget in 2025.

Conclusion

While Salesforce is more expensive than Wild Apricot, it is less expensive than some of the other platforms we investigated. We see it as an investment because the added functionality will help us grow, and its highly extensible nature will allow us to remain on the platform for many years to come.

If you have any questions about our shift to the new platform or about any of the platforms mentioned in this post, please let me know by emailing director@museumsalaska.org or calling me at 907-371-4348.

Beginning in 2024, we will be requiring all AAF and CMF applicants to be organizational members of Museums Alaska. This is a new requirement.

As much as we would like to behave a like a foundation and award grants as a free service to our field, we aren't a foundation. We're a museum association that relies on our field to sustain our operations.

We apply to Rasmuson Foundation every three years for the AAF & CMF funding through their Tier II application. We view managing these grants as a valued partnership with Rasmuson Foundation and as an important service to our museum community. But we can't continue to provide these grants without buy-in from the museums who benefit from them. 

Most of our applicants are members, and we thank you for your support over the years!

It is our hope that even with our recent increase in membership rates, our rates are low enough that requiring membership will not be too much of a burden on prospective applicants. 

If you do foresee an issue with this new requirement, please let us know by contacting Dixie at director@museumsalaska.org or 907-371-4348.

We haven’t raised our rates since 2015, but with the rising cost of doing business, we have made the difficult decision to raise them next year. 

Our new membership levels and rates beginning in January 2024 will be:

• Student: $0

• Emerging Museum Professional (EMP): $25

• Individual: $50, $100, $150, or $500

• Organization - Budget Under $50,000: $50

• Organization - Budget Under $100,000: $75

• Organization - Budget Under $250,000: $150

• Organization - Budget Over $250,000: $250

If there is a budgetary issue with the rate increase next year, we want to work with you, so we don't lose you as a member.

You can email me at director@museumsalaska.org or call me at 907-371-4348, with any concerns about the new membership rates.

If you are a current member and haven't already received a call, a board member or I will be reaching out over the next two weeks to get your feedback on the rates and ask a few questions about how we can improve our services.

Thank you to all of our members! We look forward to meeting your needs in 2024 and beyond!

Thank you to the panels for all of your hard work in reviewing the applications. We appreciate you volunteering your time and expertise to the grant review. We couldn't do it without you!

And a huge thank you to Rasmuson Foundation for their 20th year of funding our AAF grants and their 10th year of funding our CMF grants.

In this round, we awarded $163,813.19 to twelve museums and cultural organizations across Alaska through the AAF and CMF grants.

Without further ado, congratulations to the following grant recipients:

Collections Management Fund (CMF) - Round 2 Grants - $122,613.19

• $8,404.33 - The Sheldon Jackson Museum will bring in Yup'ik culture bearer Chuna McIntyre and State conservator Ellen Carrlee to advise on how to best address bead disease in Yup'ik material in a culturally sensitive and appropriate way.

• $20,000 - The Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitor Center will retain an exhibits expert to review the existing offerings, engage with partners of the facility on their needs and expectations of the exhibits, and facilitate community feedback so that an exhibits plan can be developed to update outdated exhibitions.

• $6,588.86 - The Kodiak Maritime Museum, with the help of the Kodiak History Museum, will photograph, pack, and move Kodiak Maritime Museum’s Uganik Cannery Collection to new storage space, and monitor the new space.

• $19,994.02 - Ketchikan Museums will improve collections storage at the Tongass Historical Museum by purchasing two storage cabinets for textiles.

• $14,920 - The Bristol Bay Historical Society will complete a collections assessment and rehousing project which aims to sort, group, catalog, store, and engage their tribal and community residents in the society's collection to increase stability, access, and contextual knowledge.

• $20,000 - The Alaska Native Heritage Center will support off-site storage of critically important cultural objects for the Alaska Native community amidst a renovation project that is improving the existing storage spaces and main exhibition space at ANHC.

• $15,682 - The Fairbanks Children's Museum will improve their exhibits and collections storage that serve their camps and class attendees.

• $11,500 - The Jensen-Olson Arboretum will update their plant collection database by funding a project-based contractor, and purchase collections software and equipment to support the work.

• $5,523.98 - The Alaska Jewish Museum will catalog new museum acquisitions such as books, photos and artifacts into Past Perfect; box and shelve newly acquired historical artifacts and photos for the archives room; and add documents to their print history files.

Alaska Art Fund (AAF) - Round 2 Grants - $41,200

• $15,500 - The Alutiiq Museum will commission a set of 11 watercolor paintings of Alutiiq ancestors from Alutiiq artist Cheryl Lacy. These paintings will be inspired and informed by historic watercolors of Alutiiq people painted by Russian artist Mikhail Tikhanov in 1818. Lacy will reinterpret the paintings, capturing portraits of early 19th-century Kodiak Islanders in a way that celebrates each person in a fresh, decolonizing style.

• $11,000 - The University of Alaska Museum of the North will purchase two masks carved by artist Kathleen Carlo-Kendall, Love on the Other Side and Enaa, Enaa, which will join earlier Carlo-Kendall masks in their collection, allowing the museum to demonstrate the evolution of the artist.

• $7,500 - Ketchikan Museums will purchase DaKl’aweidi (2023), a vest made by Tlingit artist Christy Ruby composed entirely of legally harvested sea otter fur from the Ketchikan area. Christy Ruby is an artist not currently represented in the collection and her vest is applicable to three categories of collecting priorities: Social History (especially women’s and Indigenous history), Outlying Areas (her hunting territory spans from Ketchikan to Prince of Wales), and Culture and Art (harvesting and endangered materials).

• $4,700 - Ketchikan Museums will purchase two pieces of engraved silver jewelry from local master artist, Norman Jackson. The purchase will increase the limited number of engraved silver objects in their collection—none by a Tlingit artist, nor any from a Ketchikan artist. These pieces are by a Tlingit artist who is also from Ketchikan, allowing the museum to improve their collection representation in multiple ways.

• $2,500 - The Alaska State Museum will purchase The Extinguishing by Gail Priday to improve their collection through the unique subject matter, by adding a prominent Alaskan artist to their collection, and by representing art created during this time period.

Congratulations to everyone on their successful grant applications! We can’t wait to see the progress.

We presented three awards this year at our Annual Meeting on September 20, 2023!

AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN THE FIELD

The first award presented at our Annual Meeting was for the Award for Excellence in the Field. Nominations for the Award for Excellence are made for exceptional exhibits, collections care, planning, marketing, publications, significant improvements to physical plant, conservation, etc.

This year's awardee is Faith Revell, Curator of Education and Public Programs, Valdez Museum and Historical Archive! Patty Relay presented the award:

"In 2011, I hired Faith Revell as the Valdez Museum & Historical Archives first Curator of Education & Public Programs. Since that time, Faith has embraced the role of Community Connector. In addition to working with the schools to bring students to the Museum, she collaborated with local agencies like Valdez Adventure Alliance, the public radio station, artists, the senior center, scholars, historians and the fisheries just to name a few. As her former supervisor, I would say Faith spearheaded a culture of inclusivity welcoming all to the Museum as well as embracing the philosophy that the whole community is part of the Museum. 

I also have some statements from community members that I'd like to share:

Beverly Colapietro stated, "Ms. Revell is truly an outstanding educator and connector of people. Her level of commitment to excellence in every program she touches has helped make our local museum a genuinely enlightening experience for locals and out-of-town guests."

Kent Runion lent his support for Faith, saying, "Faith is a frequent guest and contributor to my Alaska History courses at Valdez High School. I rely on her expertise to help students interpret primary sources and artifacts and learn how to study history. Using hands-on examples, students are able to see how historical interpretation is done and they leave her class aware that history is not just something in a textbook."

Sharry Miller sings Faith's praises with the following, "Faith has been a tireless proponent of arts education at the museum in ways that involve community members of all ages. My daughter and I have participated in numerous art workshops Faith has taught herself, as well as ones she coordinated with visiting artists. She is always an energetic, engaging, and enthusiastic workshop instructor and host. Additionally, I have attended and presented at Tuesday Nite History Talks, unfailingly fun and intellectually stimulating opportunities."

Lanette Oliver added, "For more than a year Faith worked with elementary teachers to create an entire historical unit with interactive activities, literally taking the museum to the students. Additionally, Faith started the 12 Free Days of Christmas. All these activities engage the community with each other, and create a legacy and long-term impact, as many of the students then convince their families to continue regular visits to the museum."

Thank you, Faith, for all of your excellent work at the Valdez Museum and Historical Archives."

MIDNIGHT SUN AWARD

We have a new award this year. We received several nominations for the Lifetime Achievement Award and both were extremely worthy. Our next awardee is still very active in the field, so we have decided to award her our Midnight Sun Award! The Midnight Sun Award is an award that may be awarded for extraordinary achievements.

Our very first Midnight Sun Awardee is CJ Jones, consultant and former executive director of the Haines Sheldon Museum! Bethany Buckingham Follett presented the award:

"CJ served for 21 years as director of the Sheldon Museum in Haines and has served on the Haines Volunteer Fire Department as a firefighter and EMT2 since 1983. She has instructed many emergency preparedness courses and drills and worked in law enforcement. In 2016 CJ served as interim director of the Museum of the Aleutians and recently came back to the Haines Sheldon Museum to help with their reaccreditation process.

CJ has been a quiet, kind, and passionate leader in our field for decades - always promoting our work and its purpose. She has lobbied in Juneau for our museums and cultural institutions.  CJ is always ready to help and go where she is needed, anywhere in the state.  Every time I talk with CJ or see her in passing at various activities and events I always learn something new about her experiences. and CJ always has a bit of knowledge and information to impart to me that helps me move forward in my own museum and emergency preparedness work.  I am sure each of you have your own adventures with CJ, and if not, no worries, I am sure she will be there to assist you when you need it or least expect it.  

We look forward to her continued contributions to the field in the coming years because she doesn't seem to be slowing down. 

Congratulations, CJ, on setting the bar for this first Midnight Sun Award for extraordinary achievements.  Thank you for all you've done for our field!"

AWARD IN HONOR OF LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT

And our final award of the year is for our Award in Honor of Lifetime Achievement. Nominations for the Award in Honor of Lifetime Achievement recognize the contributions of an individual over a career. 

Our Lifetime Achievement awardee is Sue Deyoe, former executive director of Talkeetna Historical Society! Christine Carpenter presented the award:

"When Sue was hired by the Talkeetna Historical Society, the museum was on the verge of folding. With Sue's guidance and vision, not to mention tenacity and passion, she has brought the museum to be a much loved part of the community. Under Sue's tenure, the museum was able to start an endowment; develop a master plan for the many historic buildings owned by the museum in town; install a walking tour; foster an excellent working relationship with the National Park Service; and create a thriving year-round tour program. After many years of service, Sue retired this year, and I think it would be remiss to not acknowledge her dedication to the historical society, museum, Talkeetna community, and Alaska museum field."

Thank you to all of our nominators, nominees, and awardees! You all do and have done so much to improve the field and lives of those in your communities. We are lucky to have such wonderful colleagues!

Thank you to all of our members who voted! And welcome to our new and returning board members!

SARA HAY

Sara Hay became an active member of Museums Alaska upon moving to the state in January 2020. Sara holds an MA in Museum Studies from San Francisco State and has worked for a wide range of museums and archives, from house museums to the National Park Service, for over 15 years. Her focus is on collections and mainly registration. During Sara’s time with the NPS, she completed inventories, reviewed ownership documents and accession files, created various plans and standardization procedures, and completed collection management tasks for both natural and cultural resource collections. Currently in the Museums Alaska organization, Sara has volunteered to be on a grant review committee and to serve on the conference committee. Sara hopes that her wide range of museum experience would be a benefit to the Museums Alaska board and that her current non-affiliation with an Alaska museum would bring an impartial voice to the group while providing her with the opportunity to serve Alaskan museums. 

Sara Hay will begin her three-year term on November 1. 

CINDI LAGOUDAKIS

Cindi Lagoudakis' focus on arts and culture, tourism and economic development, and philanthropy have led to travels throughout Alaska for work and pleasure. She has served as board member and presenter for the Petersburg Arts Council, founding member and first Chair of the Petersburg Community Foundation, past board member and then Director of the Clausen Memorial Museum, was a member of the Alaska Folk Festival board, and as a board member for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southeast Alaska, helping foster connections to our communities, their inhabitants and their stories. Cindi shares her love of the arts across miles, with young and old alike. As a mixed media artist with a special interest in printmaking, she has curated and participated in group and solo exhibitions from Ketchikan to Fairbanks, most recently serving an instructor for Artfest 2023 in Yakutat. Her artwork and photography appears in various Alaskan publications, collections, websites and installations.

Cindi Lagoudakis will complete Kelly Gwynn's last year. She will begin her one-year term on November 1. 

We also have two returning board members. This year, both Christine and Ashley completed the final years of former board members who left one year early. They have both have been elected for their first three-year terms.  

CHRISTINE CARPENTER

Christine Carpenter is passionate about museums and has been honored to serve on the Museums Alaska board for the past year. As a designer, artist, and project manager, Christine uses her skills to work collaboratively with museums to find opportunities and limit challenges. After completing her MFA in Museum Exhibition Planning & Design, she relocated to Juneau to work with ExhibitAK, an exhibit design firm. She also maintains her own company, Liaise Studio: a design and art practice. Christine uses design and art as a tool to communicate and distill the world around us. In collaboration with the communities she serves, she has designed exhibits, websites, interpretive panels, and master plans all over the state. After more than 10 years of working with museums across Alaska, Christine is in a unique position to serve on the Museums Alaska board: she understands the broad needs and opportunities of Alaskan museums. She would be honored to continue to support museums in this capacity.

Christine Carpenter will begin her three-year term on November 1. 

ASHLEY BIVIN

Ashley Bivin is the Museum Director with the Cordova Historical Museum. As a young museum professional herself, she is passionate about helping other emerging museum professionals (EMPS) in Alaska excel in this field. Since September of 2021, she has been working with Museums Alaska to host monthly Alaska EMP Meet and Skill Shares. She has a variety of experience in museum and archive collection management working with organizations such as the American Bald Eagle Foundation, Sinclair Research Center, Saint Louis Science Center, and the Madison County History Museum & Archive. She also spent 2 years working in museum education with the Bettendorf Family Museum and the Butterworth Center & Deere-Wiman House. Ashley has a B.S. in Anthropology from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and a M.A. in Museum Studies from Western Illinois University- Quad Cities. She spends her free time exploring Cordova and relaxing with her 2 cats.

Ashley Bivin will begin her three-year term on November 1. 

We look forward to working with our new board members!

We also wanted to take a moment to thank our departing board members. Selena Ortega-Chiolero has been with us for the past six years—serving on a variety of committees, as well as serving as our Secretary and later President. And Kelly has been a wonderful board member over the past two years serving on our CMF panel and on several committees. We will miss both of them!

It's taken a second to get our 2022 Annual Report out, but we are delighted to present it to you all today!

View Museums Alaska's 2022 Annual Report

This year, we used Canva's website feature to create our annual report, but I you prefer to view the annual report as a pdf, you can view the pdf here.

We hope you enjoy this blast from the 2022 past! Please let us know if you have any questions!

Museums Alaska partners with Rasmuson Foundation to oversee two grant programs.

The Alaska Art Fund (AAF)—previously known as the Art Acquisition Fund—was established in 2002 and began in 2003. The purpose of the AAF is to encourage museums in Alaska to collect the work of accomplished Alaska artists for their collections, and support living, practicing Alaska artists through these acquisitions.

The Collections Management Fund, established in 2013, builds on the success of the Alaska Art Fund (previously the Art Acquisition Fund). The new fund was created by Rasmuson Foundation and is managed by Museums Alaska. The program responds to needs of the Alaska museum community to enhance collections management through professional expertise, training, and access to conservation materials and supplies.

2023 Round 1 Grantees:

Collections Management Fund (CMF) - Round 1 Grants - $118,810.59

• $19,931.09 - The Alutiiq Museum & Archaeological Repository will de-install exhibits and move 453 artifacts to storage in preparation for their renovation. The Qumluglluku–Store It project will support a safe, organized, and tracked unmounting and re-storage of these objects.

• $19,567 - University of Alaska Museum of the North will digitize ~15k historic fly specimens. Most of these are biting flies and thus of great importance to science and the public because of their potential for disease transmission.

• $19,532 - The Haines Sheldon Museum will work with a conservator to determine whether fluctuating humidity is causing damage to museum collections. The project funds preparation, execution and follow-up for an onsite condition inspection, workshops, and reporting by the conservator.

• $14,155.75 - The Kodiak History Museum will partner with the Alutiiq Museum to catalog ca. 1,100 artifacts excavated by Dr. Donald Clark over 50 years ago. The artifacts have never been inventoried. The project will make them accessible for research and display.

• $20,000 - Cape Fox Cultural Foundation will display and reintroduce to the Village of Saxman, the 1899 Edward H. Harriman Expedition artifacts repatriated by the Sanyaa Kwáan (Cape Fox Tribe) belonging to the Teikweidi and Neix.ádi Clans.

• $5,741.25 - The Valdez Museum & Historical Archive will improve their artwork storage which will, in turn, improve preservation conditions, increase accessibility, establish baseline for future conservation, and allow the curator to identify cultural and historic holes in collection.

• $19,883.50 - Sealaska Heritage Institute will improve storage for the flat textile collection. This includes contracting a textile conservator to assess the collection and provide training to SHI’s Collections Manager and Summer Intern, and a workshop for local organizations.

Alaska Art Fund (AAF) - Round 1 Grants - $40,000

• $25,000 - Sealaska Heritage Institute will purchase a child’s Chilkat robe made by Shgendootan. The robe is made of Merino wool, yellow cedar bark, sea otter fur, ermine skins, cotton canvas, deer leather, and a fragment of jacket. The fragment comes from a jacket manufactured by Neiman Marcus. The design was at the center of a lawsuit that SHI filed in 2020 alleging that Neiman Marcus had “falsely affiliated garments sold by them with Native artisans through its use of the term “Ravenstail” (Yéil Koowú)...and unlawfully infringed the copyright of a famous Northwest Coast artist.”. The robe documents an important historical and legal event in SHI’s history and will be a resource for future generations studying intellectual property rights of Native art, design, and cultural materials. It is also a continuation of a Tlingit tradition of reusing and revitalizing old regalia and turning it into something new.

• $15,000 - The Alaska Museum of Science and Nature will commission James Havens to add recently discovered ichthyosaurs to the museum’s large painting of plesiosaurs and mosasaurs (both swimming reptiles) entitled The Talkeetna Mountains/Cretaceous Oceans. James will complete the work during museum hours to allow the public to ask questions and learn more about these new discoveries.
  

The Access to Alaska Native Collections (AANC) program responds to the needs of the Alaska Native artist community for access to Alaska Native collections in museums by supporting research visits to museum collections storage in Alaska. As such, Alaska Native artists were invited to propose a visit to a participating museum’s collection that has a clear benefit to the artist and the development of their work. 

The grant covered travel costs for the collections visit—flights, ferries, mileage, per diem, lodging, parking, taxis, and family care needs—up to $2,500. There were six grants available.

The grant program is made possible with funding from The CIRI Foundation’s A Journey to What Matters: Increased Alaska Native Art & Culture (JWM) funding and is administered by Museums Alaska on behalf of the Foundation. All inquiries must be directed to the Museums Alaska Director.

Eligibility was limited to Alaska Native artists located in the state of Alaska.

First Round 2023 AANC Grantees:

Erin Ggaadimits Ivalu Gingrich was awarded an Access to Alaska Native Collections grant to visit the University of Alaska Museum of the North .

Erin (Koyukon Athabascan and Inupiaq) is a carver, an interdisciplinary artist, and is expanding her practice to include other artforms and more complex narratives. She is currently pursuing her MFA, and the visit will allow her to engage in museum collections to ground her work in that of the Indigenous artists that have come before her.

Erin hopes to visit a variety of collections including historical cultural belongings, photographs, carved objects, animal representations and animal specimens that are culturally connected to her many homelands and Indigenous heritage.

You can learn more about Erin and her work at https://ggaadimitsivalu.com.

Golga Oscar was awarded an Access to Alaska Native Collections grant to visit the Anchorage Museum! During his visit, he intends to explore different forms of the Yup’ik collection ranging from headwear to footwear and capture them through the lens of photography.

A self-taught artist with a huge passion for his culture and tradition, Golga enjoys revitalizing traditional designs with careful observation. Through revitalization, he observes the material, technique, and significance behind the clothing with a goal of bringing back what was once discontinued since the impact of westernization. Golga's goals are to pursue cultural awareness teaching and get into the fashion industry. He aims to showcase the Yup’ik cultural art and bring recognition of Yup'ik clothing and traditions to the “American” mainstream.

Follow Golga on Instagram to learn more: https://www.instagram.com/quki92/?hl=en

Nicolette Corbett received an Access to Alaska Native Collections grant to visit the Alaska Native Heritage Center where she will be studying the piluguk/kameskak collection from the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta Region!
Since Nikki started her sewing business, Sew Yup’ik, in the summer of 2015, it has taken off. In addition to creating and selling qaspeqs, bags of various sizes, and other small sewing pieces, she has taken on a new role teaching qaspeq workshops across the state of Alaska.

In the last year, her focus has been to work on skin sewing projects and especially those that are of the lost art, like piluguks/kameksaks (hard sole bottom shoes). Creating piluguks is becoming a lost art, and Nikki is hoping to learn it so that she can share that knowledge with others and keep Yup’ik traditions alive.

Learn more about Nikki and her work at https://sewyupik.com.

Raktenga Elaine Kingeekuk was awarded a grant to visit the Alaska State Museum to collaborate with conservator Ellen Carrlee on gut conservation and care. Elaine will also spend time in collections storage freely opening cabinets and drawers to see and handle dolls, sewing tools, jewelry, toys, footwear, garments, and any other items in the museum collection that may promote her artistic and teaching goals.

Elaine has been sewing dolls, baskets, clothing, boots, toys, and other small items since her childhood in Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island. She learned sewing and its cultural values from her mother (Ruthelle) and grandmother. In addition to teaching within her community, Elaine has been working with scholars and museums for nearly 20 years.

While she is in Juneau, Elaine is considering hosting a public program at the museum, and getting the word out about a teaching studio she would like to open in Savoonga. Elaine will also take time to connect with old friends and the land through berry picking and other cultural activities.

X̱’unei Lance Twitchell was awarded a grant to visit the Totem Heritage Center and Tongass Historical Museum in Ketchikan to study with Nathan Jackson while continuing to document his life and work through video and photo.

He will work closely with staff of the Totem Heritage Center and the Tongass Historical Museum to organize visits with the intention of documenting both the work and Nathan Jackson’s comments on the artwork. He will also consult with Nathan Jackson on X̱’unei's own artwork and future projects.

X̱ʼunei will also photograph the collections in the Totem Heritage Center and the Tongass Historical Museum for both individual artistic study and teaching at the University of Alaska Southeast and in workshops with the Goldbelt Heritage Foundation and Sealaska Heritage Institute.

These visits will greatly increase X̱ʼunei's ability to continue to grow as a visual artist and to produce new works in design, sculpture, fashion, regalia, and more.

Learn more about X̱’unei Twitchell at https://troubledraven.com.

Qaadax̂ Chloe Bourdukofsky and Carter Price were awarded an Access to Alaska Native Collections grant to visit the Museum of the Aleutians! At the museum, they will visit the archives and pieces that include their family history and art.

Qaadax̂ Chloe Bourdukofsky was culturally raised by her grandparents and great grandma who found it very important to teach her about Unangax̂ practices and values. They taught her how to speak some Unangam Tunuu, how to crochet, about traditional foods, and about an Unangax̂ way of life and community. To this day she wishes to continue to teach others about traditional Unangax̂ dance, sewing, foods and community life as her relatives did for her growing up.

Over the past 2 years, Carter Price has begun creating Unangan model Iqyaxs (kayaks) to connect with his culture. More recently his art medium has taken form in ivory. He grew up connected to his culture, but only on a surface level. Since diving into his connection with culture and art, Carter’s overall well being has increased. His goal for the future generations is to provide a space separate from school, to connect, educate, and create whatever their passions are.

Qaadax̂ and Carter hope to photograph artwork to learn from and share with their fellow Unangans in Unangam Tanangin who do not have this opportunity to visit. The visit will also provide a wonderful opportunity to visit with relatives on Iluulux̂ (Unalaska) to gain oral information on Unangax̂ history, stories and art to also connect with the local Unangans on the Island.

Learn more about Qaadax̂ at https://www.qaadax.com/about-me.