Below is a strategic plan submitted to the Atlanta History Center for the redesign of their Margret Mitchell campus
ATLANTA SAFE SPACE: STRATEGIC PLAN
Step 1: Agreed Process
Schedule of strategic plan development
Step 1- August 22, 2021
Step 2- August 25, 2021
Step 3-August 29, 2021
Step 4-September 5
Step 5-September 12
Step 6-September 19
Step 7-September 26
Final meeting Meeting September 28, 2021
The Atlanta Safe place plan is designed for the revitalization and update of the Atlanta Safe Place. As the Atlanta History Center continues to pursue the missions of a more inclusive environment, the AHC Midtown location will promote diversity and inclusion. The Atlanta Safe Place will introduce modern-day conversations to provide audiences with new perspectives on the histories that carry the home, how it relates to our present day, and contextualize artifacts beyond the current narrative.
Step 2: Identify Organizational Mandates
Our strategic plan parallels that of the Atlanta History Center in a few ways. Many of our goals for the Atlanta Safe Place act as an extension of the AHC’s campus. With the Margaret Mitchel House, we aim to touch on all of the AHC’s strategic goals: inclusivity, community, service, relevance, growth, and performance.
Nondiscrimination Policy
Atlanta History Center is committed to the fair and equal opportunities for people with disabilities. Reasonable accommodation is the key to this nondiscrimination policy. It is the policy of Atlanta History Center to reasonably accommodate qualified individuals with disabilities unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship.
Code of Ethics
See Atlanta Historical Society code of ethics
https://www.atlantahistorycenter.com/app/uploads/2020/11/code_of_ethics_june_11_2007.pdf
Previous Strategic Plan
See Atlanta History Center
https://www.atlantahistorycenter.com/app/uploads/2020/11/AHC_Strategic_Plan_2017.pdf
Step 3: Identify and Understand Stakeholders and Develop Mission
Mission Statement
“Through the Atlanta Safe Place, the Atlanta History Center promotes the community engagement as a community resource for open engagement that promotes community, diversity, visibility, and inclusivity.”
The Atlanta community, specifically those living in the Midtown area and the universities in the surrounding areas, are the most prominent stakeholders to the Atlanta Safe Place. We believe it can be utilized as a center for engagement and knowledge building for the Midtown community. The goal of the Atlanta Safe Place is to to a place of open dialgue and premier community resource for the Midtown committee. Under the relevance portion[AM4] , the Atlanta History Center’s strategic plan states that they want to show up where they are not expected. High-rise apartments and shops surround the Midtown location. The benefit of having a historical site as a center for community engagement allows the Midtown community to grow more engaged with the South’s past.
The Atlanta Safe Place will offer Midtown’s growing and diverse community an institution that supports its local causes, such as LGBTQ+ issues and cultural misrepresentation. A primary pursuit for the Atlanta Safe Place is the use of community engagement. The Atlanta Safe Place will allow Midtown citizens the opportunity to participate in all community engagement programs. We aim to enable the communities of not only schools and educators but also Midtown citizens to get involved in what they believe is vital to building a stronger community. The Atlanta Safe Place will give the Midtown citizens a place of community togetherness and an institution to share in different cultures, religions, and histories.
The Atlanta Safe Place is a historic landmark registered with the U.S. National Register of Historic Places and is an Atlanta Landmark Building. As the physical community changes around it, the home will remain preserved. We will strive to work with prominent members of the Midtown community and leaders from any minority groups to understand what they would like to gain from the Atlanta History Center’s Midtown campus. In turn, we will let the community know that this is for them and we have their best interest at heart.
Some specific groups that we would like to engage with work towards civic engagement. Some are:
The center can also be a venue for education with the use of conference rooms and access to any historical documents for research. Various college programs implement ways to engage more in the community through visiting museums and historic sites. The Atlanta Safe Place can be a space for historical programming trips for various history programs for universities in the city. The field [AM13] trip tours created by the Atlanta History Center for the Atlanta Safe Place will align with the Georgia Board of Education standards for K-12 grade levels, as well as any alignment of the curriculum in the university setting. The field trips will highlight the story of Gone with the Wind and the social effects of the book and film through the use of in-house exhibits.
Step 4: Internal and External Assessments
Atlanta History Center’s mission statement aims to connect people, history, and culture, and they are committed to serving the community. The goal of the Atlanta Safe Place strategic plan will aim to address problematic concerns such as Lost Cause ideology in Gone with the Wind and the issues it poses today . The shared space of the Atlanta Safe Place, along with accurate interpretation and programming, will allow future discourse in the community to aim for a better understanding of our pasts, present, and ultimately future.
The Atlanta History Center’s strength lies in its determination to effectively follow its mission statement as well as its strategic plan.
The internal strength of the Atlanta History Center includes a great deal of funding, a higher level of staff quality, and an extensive archival collection to provide multiple avenues for exploring history. On an external level, the Atlanta History Center brings a degree of historical authority not all institutions carry. It is an organization that has been around for ninety-five years and has built a strong trust with patrons and the communities of Atlanta. Another factor to consider is the financial side of the organization — there is a great deal of money to support the Atlanta History Center’s properties and endeavors.
One way to promote the success of the strategic plan will be to effectively market, ensure quality staff, utilize the connections the Atlanta History Center has to universities and organizations in the Atlanta area, and provide the necessary funds to make the project succeed.
The Atlanta History Center also has internal and external weaknesses that may prove to be a problem in implementing this project. However, knowing the present weaknesses will provide potential remedies or even solutions for what is to come. The Atlanta History Center has had issues in previous years regarding listening to the community’s need surrounding the Atlanta Safe Place House. In the past, the site was mainly intended for out-of-state visitors with no connection to the Midtown of the modern-day. Additionally, the Atlanta History Center lies far removed from the Atlanta Safe Place due to its physical location, thus making it an island removed from the Midtown location. Finally, the site has issues regarding the proper space needed to accommodate visitor parking .
On the flip side of the coin, there is a lack of diversity within the organization, little professional mobility, and a division within the staff on pursuing the Atlanta Safe Place exhibit . These problems are significant in several senses, but we believe they are not unsolvable. They may yet be overcome by learning the views and opinions of both the community in Midtown as well as the staff of the Atlanta History Center. This could be implemented through voluntary surveys on how the AHC should present itself within Midtown . Once the results are returned, the surveys should have an influencing factor on the appropriate action needed.
Financially, the Atlanta History Center and Atlanta Safe Place will most likely flourish from the exposure of making the Atlanta Safe Place House more accessible for those who cannot make the trip to the Buckhead location and more relevant to the surrounding community. Ticket sales at both sites will most likely see an increase as interest from the Atlanta area spikes. Simultaneously, the sites will see good media coverage as the updated Atlanta Safe Place will present historically significant subjects pertaining to Atlanta and a diverse audience.
In terms of marketing, the updated Atlanta Safe Place will provide a broader focus on inclusion and diversity, granting the organization a better reputation in the communities of Atlanta. This is in part a correction to an oversight in the Atlanta History Center’s past by not providing a better job of educating on minority issues.
With all the benefits the Atlanta Safe Place update has, there are some risks that are viewed as a possibility. Possible threats include:
Trends, Audience, Competitors, and Collaborators
Audience:
Current audiences for museums in the state and region reach a more general audience — K-12, those with an interest in specific museum exhibits, and middle-class people. After researching, many organizations across the state are attempting to grow diversity in their audiences through the use of marketing strategies, lowering ticket costs, and changing content in the museums. The Atlanta History Center’s current strategic plan states, “ Increase the number of “Under the 50s”, non-whites, and those who live in zip code beyond those in North Atlanta (traditional zip codes) who visit our campus.”
Competitors:
The Atlanta Safe Place House has a few competitors in the local area that may pull visitors from attending the site. For example, the High Museum of Art, Oakland Cemetery, and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. Other competitors within the state include:
Collaborators:
We may stand apart from these organizations by gaining sponsorship and/or insight from organizations of the area such as the Midtown Alliance, the Atlanta Historical Society, the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, and Hands On Atlanta. These groups would allow the Atlanta Safe Place to have access to a variety of different businesses in the area and potentially aid in future events held at the Atlanta Safe Place House.
Step 5: Identify Strategic Issues
There are five key strategic issues for adult programming:
1. Service to the community
2. Financial Growth
3. Visibility
4. Inclusivity
5. Educational programming
We came up with various recommendations for all of the key strategic adult programming issues.
Service to the community: We aim to provide truth-telling factors in the exhibit content in order to tell the accurate story of Gone with the Wind and Lost Cause ideology. This will focus on specific artifacts and stories that initiate corrective action while also highlighting the legacy of Margaret Mitchell. The Atlanta History Center’s strategic plan aims to become more relevant in order for audiences to understand what they stand for. This issue is strategic because it aims to connect audiences with AHC’s mission statement. The Atlanta Safe Place is an opportunity to provide truth-telling storytelling to the public through the use of specific exhibit content that is provided.
We also aim to ensure the growth of community engagement through the use of open doors to community members, leaders, and those enrolled in the Atlanta Safe Place membership program . With an open-door policy to the Midtown community, the Atlanta Safe Place will provide the opportunity to partner with many organizations that the Atlanta History Center hasn’t had the chance to connect and collaborate with. Some ideas include: monthly discussions on various historical topics that connect with the modern-day; conference room rental opportunities at a small cost for discourse; annual summit on race relations in America; bi-annual music get-togethers; local food swaps to utilize the green space.
Financial Growth: AHC’s strategic plan aims to enhance financial strength by diversifying income sources, seeking new grant sources, growing admission and membership revenue, and growing shop sales. The financial growth of the Atlanta Safe Place can be monitored through the regular strategic planning cycle of the AHC, but the new mission for the Atlanta Safe Place can enhance opportunities for funding and financial support.
There are many opportunities for financial growth. We aim to source funding from donorship, grants, fundraising, and membership programs in order to create a stronger connection to the Midtown campus. We can also promote rental facilities for various events — weddings, outdoor events such as those bi-annual music get-togethers, classroom meetings — to gather monetary funds, along with the small price from ticket sales.
Visibility: One key factor is to push for visibility of the Midtown campus. To remain visible and relevant, we aim to push marketing strategies in order to bring awareness to the Atlanta Safe Place House, not only as a museum but also as a community center . By using marketing strategies such as social media, email newsletters, and fundraising events, we are able to increase visitation and community involvement.
Digital initiatives are also a huge step that we would like to pursue. Similar to the Atlanta History Center’s digital storytelling, we aim to produce stories for the Atlanta Safe Place, which includes relevant histories and truth-telling on an online platform to reach audiences who may not be able to make it to either the parent location or the Midtown location. These stories can be a few minutes long and can utilize various public history methods such as oral histories and interviews, foodways discussions on Southern food, and traditional historical telling methods.
We aim to remain relevant in our modern-day. Why is this center essential to the community and as a historical site? The Atlanta Safe Place, along with the Atlanta History Center, can get involved with current events in order to discuss their stance and perspectives on the past. In turn, these discussions can tell how the past and present are much aligned. These discussions can also be hosted through various digital initiatives, marketing strategies such as social media, and email newsletters.
Inclusivity: We speak of community engagement throughout this strategic plan for a reason, but inclusivity strives to be one of the most critical strategic issues in museums throughout the nation. We aim to partner with community-oriented groups to provide a more inclusive mindset and offer a safe space during this crucial era of our history. In partnership with various minority groups of Atlanta, we are able to conduct various surveys on what content or programming they would like to see.
Another idea towards inclusivity is to offer audio tours in different languages to reach a wider audience — Spanish and French are just an example. The Atlanta demographic, according to census.gov, states that the majority of citizens within the Atlanta perimeter are of black or white descent, but we need to keep in mind that many visitors may not speak English, or speak it well enough to convey the exhibit’s message. We suggest the possibility of hiring a consultant or utilizing bilingual interns and staff for audio recordings for a walk-through audio tour of the exhibit space.
[1]
Educational programming: The educational programming initiative for the Atlanta Safe Place will strive to discuss the history and legacy of Margaret Mitchell, as well as the historical impact of her novel, Gone with the Wind. We recommend a three-year rotating main exhibit in order to re-evaluate the interpretation of our storytelling efforts.
Some ideas for educational programming include:
Step 6: Action Plans
Goals
[1] “United States Census Bureau.” Census.gov online. September 28, 2021. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/atlantacitygeorgia
Schedule of strategic plan development
Step 1- August 22, 2021
Step 2- August 25, 2021
Step 3-August 29, 2021
Step 4-September 5
Step 5-September 12
Step 6-September 19
Step 7-September 26
Final meeting Meeting September 28, 2021
The Atlanta Safe place plan is designed for the revitalization and update of the Atlanta Safe Place. As the Atlanta History Center continues to pursue the missions of a more inclusive environment, the AHC Midtown location will promote diversity and inclusion. The Atlanta Safe Place will introduce modern-day conversations to provide audiences with new perspectives on the histories that carry the home, how it relates to our present day, and contextualize artifacts beyond the current narrative.
Step 2: Identify Organizational Mandates
Our strategic plan parallels that of the Atlanta History Center in a few ways. Many of our goals for the Atlanta Safe Place act as an extension of the AHC’s campus. With the Margaret Mitchel House, we aim to touch on all of the AHC’s strategic goals: inclusivity, community, service, relevance, growth, and performance.
Nondiscrimination Policy
Atlanta History Center is committed to the fair and equal opportunities for people with disabilities. Reasonable accommodation is the key to this nondiscrimination policy. It is the policy of Atlanta History Center to reasonably accommodate qualified individuals with disabilities unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship.
Code of Ethics
See Atlanta Historical Society code of ethics
https://www.atlantahistorycenter.com/app/uploads/2020/11/code_of_ethics_june_11_2007.pdf
Previous Strategic Plan
See Atlanta History Center
https://www.atlantahistorycenter.com/app/uploads/2020/11/AHC_Strategic_Plan_2017.pdf
Step 3: Identify and Understand Stakeholders and Develop Mission
Mission Statement
“Through the Atlanta Safe Place, the Atlanta History Center promotes the community engagement as a community resource for open engagement that promotes community, diversity, visibility, and inclusivity.”
The Atlanta community, specifically those living in the Midtown area and the universities in the surrounding areas, are the most prominent stakeholders to the Atlanta Safe Place. We believe it can be utilized as a center for engagement and knowledge building for the Midtown community. The goal of the Atlanta Safe Place is to to a place of open dialgue and premier community resource for the Midtown committee. Under the relevance portion[AM4] , the Atlanta History Center’s strategic plan states that they want to show up where they are not expected. High-rise apartments and shops surround the Midtown location. The benefit of having a historical site as a center for community engagement allows the Midtown community to grow more engaged with the South’s past.
The Atlanta Safe Place will offer Midtown’s growing and diverse community an institution that supports its local causes, such as LGBTQ+ issues and cultural misrepresentation. A primary pursuit for the Atlanta Safe Place is the use of community engagement. The Atlanta Safe Place will allow Midtown citizens the opportunity to participate in all community engagement programs. We aim to enable the communities of not only schools and educators but also Midtown citizens to get involved in what they believe is vital to building a stronger community. The Atlanta Safe Place will give the Midtown citizens a place of community togetherness and an institution to share in different cultures, religions, and histories.
The Atlanta Safe Place is a historic landmark registered with the U.S. National Register of Historic Places and is an Atlanta Landmark Building. As the physical community changes around it, the home will remain preserved. We will strive to work with prominent members of the Midtown community and leaders from any minority groups to understand what they would like to gain from the Atlanta History Center’s Midtown campus. In turn, we will let the community know that this is for them and we have their best interest at heart.
Some specific groups that we would like to engage with work towards civic engagement. Some are:
- National Pan-Hellenic Council (Black greek organizations)
- 100 Black Men of Atlanta
- 100 Black women of Atlanta
- Hands-on Atlanta
- Big Brother/Big Sister of Atlanta
- Meals on Wheels
- Atlanta Food Bank
- Religious organizations (Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, First Congregational, First Presbyterian, etc.)
- Midtown Alliance
The center can also be a venue for education with the use of conference rooms and access to any historical documents for research. Various college programs implement ways to engage more in the community through visiting museums and historic sites. The Atlanta Safe Place can be a space for historical programming trips for various history programs for universities in the city. The field [AM13] trip tours created by the Atlanta History Center for the Atlanta Safe Place will align with the Georgia Board of Education standards for K-12 grade levels, as well as any alignment of the curriculum in the university setting. The field trips will highlight the story of Gone with the Wind and the social effects of the book and film through the use of in-house exhibits.
Step 4: Internal and External Assessments
Atlanta History Center’s mission statement aims to connect people, history, and culture, and they are committed to serving the community. The goal of the Atlanta Safe Place strategic plan will aim to address problematic concerns such as Lost Cause ideology in Gone with the Wind and the issues it poses today . The shared space of the Atlanta Safe Place, along with accurate interpretation and programming, will allow future discourse in the community to aim for a better understanding of our pasts, present, and ultimately future.
The Atlanta History Center’s strength lies in its determination to effectively follow its mission statement as well as its strategic plan.
The internal strength of the Atlanta History Center includes a great deal of funding, a higher level of staff quality, and an extensive archival collection to provide multiple avenues for exploring history. On an external level, the Atlanta History Center brings a degree of historical authority not all institutions carry. It is an organization that has been around for ninety-five years and has built a strong trust with patrons and the communities of Atlanta. Another factor to consider is the financial side of the organization — there is a great deal of money to support the Atlanta History Center’s properties and endeavors.
One way to promote the success of the strategic plan will be to effectively market, ensure quality staff, utilize the connections the Atlanta History Center has to universities and organizations in the Atlanta area, and provide the necessary funds to make the project succeed.
The Atlanta History Center also has internal and external weaknesses that may prove to be a problem in implementing this project. However, knowing the present weaknesses will provide potential remedies or even solutions for what is to come. The Atlanta History Center has had issues in previous years regarding listening to the community’s need surrounding the Atlanta Safe Place House. In the past, the site was mainly intended for out-of-state visitors with no connection to the Midtown of the modern-day. Additionally, the Atlanta History Center lies far removed from the Atlanta Safe Place due to its physical location, thus making it an island removed from the Midtown location. Finally, the site has issues regarding the proper space needed to accommodate visitor parking .
On the flip side of the coin, there is a lack of diversity within the organization, little professional mobility, and a division within the staff on pursuing the Atlanta Safe Place exhibit . These problems are significant in several senses, but we believe they are not unsolvable. They may yet be overcome by learning the views and opinions of both the community in Midtown as well as the staff of the Atlanta History Center. This could be implemented through voluntary surveys on how the AHC should present itself within Midtown . Once the results are returned, the surveys should have an influencing factor on the appropriate action needed.
Financially, the Atlanta History Center and Atlanta Safe Place will most likely flourish from the exposure of making the Atlanta Safe Place House more accessible for those who cannot make the trip to the Buckhead location and more relevant to the surrounding community. Ticket sales at both sites will most likely see an increase as interest from the Atlanta area spikes. Simultaneously, the sites will see good media coverage as the updated Atlanta Safe Place will present historically significant subjects pertaining to Atlanta and a diverse audience.
In terms of marketing, the updated Atlanta Safe Place will provide a broader focus on inclusion and diversity, granting the organization a better reputation in the communities of Atlanta. This is in part a correction to an oversight in the Atlanta History Center’s past by not providing a better job of educating on minority issues.
With all the benefits the Atlanta Safe Place update has, there are some risks that are viewed as a possibility. Possible threats include:
- Negative feedback from outside communities
- Political issues arising from educating on the fallacy of the Lost Cause narrative and the potential for the Atlanta Safe Place
- to fail or underperform financially.
- If mishandled, the Atlanta Safe Place House may spread misinformation dealing with sensitive topics such as race history or disrespecting the area’s history and its people.
Trends, Audience, Competitors, and Collaborators
Audience:
Current audiences for museums in the state and region reach a more general audience — K-12, those with an interest in specific museum exhibits, and middle-class people. After researching, many organizations across the state are attempting to grow diversity in their audiences through the use of marketing strategies, lowering ticket costs, and changing content in the museums. The Atlanta History Center’s current strategic plan states, “ Increase the number of “Under the 50s”, non-whites, and those who live in zip code beyond those in North Atlanta (traditional zip codes) who visit our campus.”
Competitors:
The Atlanta Safe Place House has a few competitors in the local area that may pull visitors from attending the site. For example, the High Museum of Art, Oakland Cemetery, and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. Other competitors within the state include:
- The Augusta Museum of History
- The Georgia Museum of Natural History
- The Savannah History Museum
Collaborators:
We may stand apart from these organizations by gaining sponsorship and/or insight from organizations of the area such as the Midtown Alliance, the Atlanta Historical Society, the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, and Hands On Atlanta. These groups would allow the Atlanta Safe Place to have access to a variety of different businesses in the area and potentially aid in future events held at the Atlanta Safe Place House.
Step 5: Identify Strategic Issues
There are five key strategic issues for adult programming:
1. Service to the community
2. Financial Growth
3. Visibility
4. Inclusivity
5. Educational programming
We came up with various recommendations for all of the key strategic adult programming issues.
Service to the community: We aim to provide truth-telling factors in the exhibit content in order to tell the accurate story of Gone with the Wind and Lost Cause ideology. This will focus on specific artifacts and stories that initiate corrective action while also highlighting the legacy of Margaret Mitchell. The Atlanta History Center’s strategic plan aims to become more relevant in order for audiences to understand what they stand for. This issue is strategic because it aims to connect audiences with AHC’s mission statement. The Atlanta Safe Place is an opportunity to provide truth-telling storytelling to the public through the use of specific exhibit content that is provided.
We also aim to ensure the growth of community engagement through the use of open doors to community members, leaders, and those enrolled in the Atlanta Safe Place membership program . With an open-door policy to the Midtown community, the Atlanta Safe Place will provide the opportunity to partner with many organizations that the Atlanta History Center hasn’t had the chance to connect and collaborate with. Some ideas include: monthly discussions on various historical topics that connect with the modern-day; conference room rental opportunities at a small cost for discourse; annual summit on race relations in America; bi-annual music get-togethers; local food swaps to utilize the green space.
Financial Growth: AHC’s strategic plan aims to enhance financial strength by diversifying income sources, seeking new grant sources, growing admission and membership revenue, and growing shop sales. The financial growth of the Atlanta Safe Place can be monitored through the regular strategic planning cycle of the AHC, but the new mission for the Atlanta Safe Place can enhance opportunities for funding and financial support.
There are many opportunities for financial growth. We aim to source funding from donorship, grants, fundraising, and membership programs in order to create a stronger connection to the Midtown campus. We can also promote rental facilities for various events — weddings, outdoor events such as those bi-annual music get-togethers, classroom meetings — to gather monetary funds, along with the small price from ticket sales.
Visibility: One key factor is to push for visibility of the Midtown campus. To remain visible and relevant, we aim to push marketing strategies in order to bring awareness to the Atlanta Safe Place House, not only as a museum but also as a community center . By using marketing strategies such as social media, email newsletters, and fundraising events, we are able to increase visitation and community involvement.
Digital initiatives are also a huge step that we would like to pursue. Similar to the Atlanta History Center’s digital storytelling, we aim to produce stories for the Atlanta Safe Place, which includes relevant histories and truth-telling on an online platform to reach audiences who may not be able to make it to either the parent location or the Midtown location. These stories can be a few minutes long and can utilize various public history methods such as oral histories and interviews, foodways discussions on Southern food, and traditional historical telling methods.
We aim to remain relevant in our modern-day. Why is this center essential to the community and as a historical site? The Atlanta Safe Place, along with the Atlanta History Center, can get involved with current events in order to discuss their stance and perspectives on the past. In turn, these discussions can tell how the past and present are much aligned. These discussions can also be hosted through various digital initiatives, marketing strategies such as social media, and email newsletters.
Inclusivity: We speak of community engagement throughout this strategic plan for a reason, but inclusivity strives to be one of the most critical strategic issues in museums throughout the nation. We aim to partner with community-oriented groups to provide a more inclusive mindset and offer a safe space during this crucial era of our history. In partnership with various minority groups of Atlanta, we are able to conduct various surveys on what content or programming they would like to see.
Another idea towards inclusivity is to offer audio tours in different languages to reach a wider audience — Spanish and French are just an example. The Atlanta demographic, according to census.gov, states that the majority of citizens within the Atlanta perimeter are of black or white descent, but we need to keep in mind that many visitors may not speak English, or speak it well enough to convey the exhibit’s message. We suggest the possibility of hiring a consultant or utilizing bilingual interns and staff for audio recordings for a walk-through audio tour of the exhibit space.
[1]
Educational programming: The educational programming initiative for the Atlanta Safe Place will strive to discuss the history and legacy of Margaret Mitchell, as well as the historical impact of her novel, Gone with the Wind. We recommend a three-year rotating main exhibit in order to re-evaluate the interpretation of our storytelling efforts.
Some ideas for educational programming include:
- Educational lessons on subjects related to the mission of the Atlanta History Center provided one Friday evening or Saturday a month
- Author series on culturally-related novels or nonfiction
- Decolonizing Museums by Amy Lonetree, A Misplaced Massacre by Ari Kelman, Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Mailhot
- Monthly professional development talks in the humanities
- Resume and CV workshops for students
- Historical museum tours throughout the exhibit space for students in historic preservation, public history, and museum studies, and general history tracks
Step 6: Action Plans
Goals
- Inclusivity
- Action plan:
- Partner with community-oriented groups in Atlanta in order to ensure a more inclusive mindset due to current events
- Establish meaningful relationships with community organizations by developing interesting content and housing artifacts in which these organizations can utilize for research, education, programming, etc.
- Encourage a community gathering space for educational programming.
- Action plan:
- Visibility
- Action plan:
- Promote the AHC’s Midtown campus through various marketing strategies in order to increase visitation and community involvement
- Explore digital initiatives in order to reach a wider audience
- Get involved with current events in order to provide awareness of the AHC’s stance and perspectives by using our historical past. This will enable relevant storytelling and interpretation during educational programming and in-house exhibits.
- Action plan:
- Community
- Action plan:
- Promote community outreach and membership in order to have Atlanta citizens feel connected to the organization.
- Establish surveys for community members, visitors, and staff in order to gather input regarding exhibit content
- Often revisit interpretation to encourage discourse, discussion, and internal knowledge building at the Midtown campus.
- Action plan:
- Implementation
- Action plan:
- Cultivate a healthy work environment for staff/executives to effectively implement the Midtown campus goals. This includes professional development programs, supporting staff’s personal goals in the field, encouraging healthy communication amongst staff and leadership.
- Ensure appropriate funding through various grants and stakeholders in order to support all educational programming and collection care
- Internally examine how the Atlanta History Center has portrayed historical topics under traditionally underrepresented groups.
- Action plan:
[1] “United States Census Bureau.” Census.gov online. September 28, 2021. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/atlantacitygeorgia