Letter from the Chairperson of the Swedish American Museum

My second year as chair of the museum's board of directors has been a fascinating story both of evaluation and of planning for the future. Our membership in the Chicago Cultural Alliance (CCA), a collection of more than 20 ethnic museums in the Greater Chicago area, gave us a flying start at the beginning of 2008. We were the first member museum to participate in CCA's smARTscope process, a professionally conducted survey to analyze where we stand and where we want to go.

With those findings as a basis, the whole board met for a retreat in eary September to build the foundation of our new strategic plan. It was that terribly wet weekend, when all of Chicagoland seemed to flood, but we managed to be quite productive! At our retreat, we outlined our Vision and Mission Statements to keep us focused on the right direction in the years to come.

Before and after the retreat, several staff and board members participated in CCA-sponsered workshops to improve our knowledge and understanding of brand indentity, fund raising, budgeting, and other topics designed to help us run a succesful institution. We also formed two new committees- Marketing and Strategic Planning- and recruited competent new members to move us forward.

Thanks to major donations from our 30th Anniversary Campaign, we are now in the process of completing the reonvoation of our facade. We call it "A New Face in Andersonville" in the spirit of the ambitions for the future.

The troubled economic times are hitting us all, but together we can weather the storm. Because of sound fiscal management, the Museum is fortunate to be reasonably well prepared during the economic downturn. Like all non-profits institutions, however, we will need all the help we can get. To assit our members in leaving a lasting legacy for the Museum, we have a Planned Giving campaign in the pipeline that you will hear more about during 2009.

We are proud of our Museum and invite you to share your ideas for the future!

This is adapted from the Swedish American Museum 2008 Annual Report