Capacity Building
The Whitney continually strives to improve its core strengths and serve its diverse public. This year, the Museum undertook three strategic projects designed to enhance its institutional capacity.
Collection Documentation Initiative
Major support from the Henry Luce Foundation allowed the Whitney to launch a four-year Collection Documentation Initiative (CDI). Once complete in 2013, the Whitney will have accurate cataloguing information and high-resolution digital images of each work in the collection. This project will enhance future scholarship, increase our capacity to conserve works going forward, and extend the collection’s reach through dissemination of digital images.
Institutional Strategic Planning
In 2008–09, the Whitney completed an institution-wide strategic plan which will guide the Museum’s future direction as it plans for and builds a new 185,000-square-foot museum in New York City’s Meatpacking District. Central to the planning effort were the Whitney’s core mission and values: a commitment to being the “artist’s museum,” maintaining visitors’ intimate engagement with art and artists through exhibitions and education programs, and ensuring rigorous scholarship to directly serve our various audiences as well as the ability for the first time in its history to fully display the Museum’s renowned collection of American art.
Education Evaluation
In 2008–09, the Whitney’s Education Department began a series of workshops led by Randi Korn & Associates, one of the country’s top museum research and evaluation specialists. This series of workshops resulted in a focused mission and five-year strategic plan for the department and evaluative tools to help staff verify the successes and shortcomings of their programs on an on-going basis. Since the study, the Department has fully completed an evaluation on the effectiveness of our Family Guides; they are currently working on an evaluation of our teen afterschool program.
