Update from our CEO | April 2025
Dear Friend of the Museum,
What an interesting time for museums.
Whether we are presenting fine art, history, culture, or educational experiences for children, museums do the important work of holding a mirror to our human experience.
Until March, we were represented at the federal level by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), which understood and advocated for our work and provided matching grants, on a reimbursement basis, for projects that were found innovative and important to the advancement of our industry. Those services have now been deemed “wasteful.”
At Discovery Museum, a museum with a 43-year history of service to children, a proven tradition of building early STEM confidence, and a commitment to strengthening families’ access to and love of natural spaces, we are mourning. We can weather the inevitable termination of our existing grant contracts, but struggle to understand what it means to be in a society in which museums are thought to be a sign of social inefficiency, an “extra,” an unnecessary indulgence.
And in nearly every conversation I have these days, I am answering one question: What does this mean for the work and well-being of Discovery Museum, a place that 250,000 people trust and rely upon every year?
In answering, I reflect on 2024. A year in which we were awarded the IMLS National Medal for Museum Service—the nation’s highest honor for our industry. A year in which we were the beneficiaries of the gifts and time of 1,423 donors and volunteers. A year in which we completed a new strategic plan, with a powerful vision informed by every one of our employees and hundreds of members of our broad community.
For 43 years, this organization has existed because it has been needed. This museum has created protected spaces where children and their adults can play together. It has encouraged kindness, empathy, and community. It has welcomed every visitor without regard to ideology, and has suggested that we all have something to learn from each other. It has stood up for science and the uniquely human process of discovery. And it has celebrated every child and the moments of pure joy they have shared with us.
What does this time mean for Discovery Museum? It means we are called to do more, to stand up for the people and issues that need our voice, to ask our community also to do more for us while we plan to do with less.
As we share our 2024 Report of Generosity and thank all the people who have contributed in myriad ways to a successful year for Discovery Museum, I ask:
- Please extend us your support, your partnership, your advocacy and affirmation.
- Please visit with the kids in your life—and bear with us when our museum is full to capacity and we ask you to wait outside to enter. (Pro Tip: Afternoons are less busy!)
- Please mbeam [at] discoveryacton.org (share with me what Discovery Museum means to your family). Your stories help us secure important funding and buoy our hardworking staff.
Please send any reactions, ideas, or how you’d like to help to mbeam [at] discoveryacton.org (mbeam[at]discoveryacton[dot]org).
Thank you for your friendship to our museum.
Marie R. B. Beam
CEO