Advocacy Resources

Advocacy for Museums & Libraries
March 2025

Recent Executive Orders and governmental actions have the potential to greatly impact the museum, library, and history fields in negative ways. We know many of our local historical societies and museums are wondering how you can lend your voice to supporting the field and encouraging an open, active, and broad interpretation of history. Here are a few ways you can do that, as well as potentially reinforce the importance of local history in your community.

Connect with your congressional representatives

Reach out to advocate for museums, libraries, and other cultural organizations at the national level. Provide examples of how federal agencies or funds have positively impacted your community or organization. Templates are available from many national organizations to help in crafting your message (see below).

Connect with your state representatives

Programs and projects at the state level may be even more important in supporting cultural organizations. Contact your local senators and representatives to invite them to learn more about you, your local library, and statewide organizations. Work together with other community cultural organizations to plan a group visit or town hall.

Connect with your community

Now, more than ever, it is important to be open and inviting to your community. Local history can help show how nationwide events were experienced differently in different places. as well as highlight the ways that small actions can influence broader trends. You can engage your community with its history by:

• Sharing stories from the past that connect to current events to help contextualize national events and explore how we can learn from past difficulties.
• Learning more about how you can be a part of the Vermont Historical Society’s “All in Vermont: Put your history on the map” project aimed at connecting students to their local history. https://vermonthistoryexplorer.org/allinvermont
• Offering moderated community conversations where people can learn and share about topics of interest utilizing a historic lens.

Connect with your mission

Data shows that the majority of people support teaching and learning about history that celebrates our strengths, examines our failures, and represents everyone in our communities. Use this opportunity to think and plan strategically for how you can integrate those ideas into your programs, exhibits, and collections. Some questions you can ask yourself include:

• What stories do you want to tell? How do your collections and historical scholarship help to tell those stories?
• Who is your audience? How can they best be engaged?
• What have we done well in the past? How can we use those strategies to explore new topics or themes?

Resources

AASLH Advocacy Information: https://www.aaslh.org/defend-the-institute-of-museum-and-library-services-take-action-now/ 

AAM Advocacy Information: https://www.aam-us.org/2025/03/17/ask-your-museums-supporters-to-save-imls/ 

Defusing the History Wars: Finding Common Ground in Teaching America’s National Story: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/6365158838b2f1610ddc47a8/t/638f953ca1fe44533191aab2/1670354239411/Defusing+the+History+Wars_More+in+Common+%281%29.pdf 

Inclusive Historian’s Handbook: https://inclusivehistorian.com/ 

Active Collections Online Resource Center: https://vermonthistory.org/resource-center/ 

Interpretive Planning Tools: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/heritageareas/upload/Interp-Planning-Toolkit-for-Heritage-Areas-Historic-Trails-and-Gateways-2.pdf 

Resources provided for information purposes only. Please report broken links to director.outreach@vermonthistory.org