Historical Commission Agenda and Packet 2016 08 03 SP

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and exhibit the collections and serve tourists and the community. Metcalfe advised the City that the final Master Plan document should consist of its own Needs Assessment Report, plus an Interpretive Plan to be written by the Museum Coordinator and a Business Plan for the City to commission from a consultant who focuses on museum business plans. Following another request for proposals, the City engaged ArtsMarket, Inc. to prepare the Museum Business Plan. ArtsMarket visited in December 2015 and met with groups of stakeholders in a number of meetings. ArtsMarket's Business Plan is dated February 2016. The Louisville Historical Commission has been very involved in the creation and evolution of this Master Plan. The Commission has regularly discussed both the overall direction and the specifics of the Master Plan at Commission meetings since 2014, and individual Commission members were able to meet with the consultants during their site visits. The Commission reviewed and discussed a draft of the Interpretive Plan at its meeting on Sept. 2, 2015, and The Museum Coordinator also sought and received input for the Interpretive Plan from a Commission subcommittee that met for this purpose. Commission edits and suggestions from these meetings were incorporated into the Interpretive Plan. The Louisville History Foundation, as a private nonprofit 501c3, is not a part of the City administration and its directors do not act in an official advisory capacity to the City. However, City staff has kept the Foundation board of directors informed throughout the Master Plan process, and sought and incorporated input from its directors at key points throughout the process. Commission members, in reviewing the two consultants' reports, overall expressed satisfaction and gratitude that the City retained museum experts to focus their expertise on our Louisville Historical Museum campus, and expressed enthusiastic approval of the overall goals contained in the Needs Assessment Report and Business Plan. In closely examining the details of the recommendations, the Commission also had some suggestions for other ways to carry out the goals. For example, based on a request by the Museum Coordinator, the Commission has suggested a change the Museum tag line that the Needs Assessment Report contained. The Commission, along with the Foundation, also raised issues concerning some aspects of the Business Plan recommendations, such as whether the City should require the Foundation, which is a private 501c3, to fundraise for ongoing operational funding for the Museum and whether the new building will provide adequate space for a museum store. These and similar discussion points and suggestions, all of which were very productive, have been incorporated into the Interpretive Plan and have thereby been made a part of the Master Plan. The Master Plan process also led the Museum Coordinator to review the needs for new or updated Museum policies. During the period of working on the Master Plan, the Commission reviewed and approved three Museum policies that the Museum Coordinator presented for approval. These policies, which are the Collections Management Policy, Visitor Policy, and Volunteers Policy, appear in this Master Plan as appendices. The City administration and residents can count themselves fortunate not only that they already have the Museum as an existing City asset, but also that there are constituencies who deeply care about the past, present, and future of Louisville and of the Museum that has been telling the story of Louisville for thirty years. The Commission, Foundation, City staff, Museum volunteers, Foundation members and donors, and Museum visitors have all had input into the planning for the future of our