From Aspiration to Action: Six Powerful Practices to Cultivate Communities of Belonging

ID: WMA2026_615

Track:

The work of human rights doesn’t live behind glass; it lives in how we welcome, interpret, and connect. But how do we move from bold imagination to daily practice? Through the Wassmuth Powerful Practices, a field-tested framework, museum professionals will explore six intentional practices – from Designing for Belonging to Collecting Joy – that turn shared values into everyday choices. Participants will leave with a personalized toolkit for cultivating spaces where people feel seen, valued, and connected.

Session Information

Format: Regular session/panel (roundtable, single speaker, etc.)

Uniqueness: Six interconnected practices give museum professionals something new: a replicable framework for embedding human rights not in exhibitions, but in daily operations.

Objectives:

Participants will leave this session with three concrete outcomes they can apply immediately in their own institutions, regardless of size, budget, or mission focus. 

Identify and articulate core values that guide daily museum practice. Participants will move beneath the language of mission statements and strategic plans to name the specific values that shape how they welcome visitors, train staff, design programs, and respond to community needs. Through guided and hands-on activities, each participant will clarify their own institutional values and examine where daily practice aligns with those commitments.  

Engage with the Wassmuth Powerful Practices as a shared language for values-aligned action. Participants will explore six intentional practices (Collect Joy, Design for Belonging, Listen Deeply, Stay Curious, Notice and Name Bright Spots, and Align Actions With Values) as an actionable approach to building relationships, navigating complexity, and co-creating spaces rooted in human dignity. From docent interactions to exhibit design to staff culture, participants will identify specific ways to incorporate these powerful practices into their work. 

Build a personalized toolkit for cultivating dignity-centered spaces. Through interactive exercises and peer dialogue, participants will develop a practical, portable set of strategies tailored to their own institutional context. This toolkit will help them cultivate environments where both visitors and colleagues feel seen, valued, and connected — not as a one-time initiative, but as sustained daily practice that turns aspiration into transformation.

Engagement: We’ll begin by activating background knowledge about communities of belonging, inviting individual perspectives and ensuring every voice is heard. In small-group conversations, participants will explore the six practices, share strategies, and build on each other’s expertise through verbal, written, and visual modes of engagement. A closing harvest session will guide participants through a collaborative brainstorm – identifying where they can apply these practices individually, within their institutions, and across their circles of influence.

Relationship to Theme:

Audience

Audiences: Other 

Professional Level: All levels 

Scalability: The six practices require no special budget, technology, or staffing. They are applicable to all people and organizations, which makes them inherently scalable.  A volunteer docent at a small historical society and a director of programs at a large art museum face different operational realities, but both welcome visitors, navigate difficult stories, and shape culture through daily choices. This session is built around collaboration, reflection, and transfer. Participants will learn from the six practices and from one another, then build a personalized toolkit to carry their learning into their own context. There are countless ways these practices can frame and inspire organizational culture, systems, programs, and spaces — because they start where  all meaningful change starts: in how we show up for the people in front of us.

Participants