If the approximately 1,000 active volunteers at the Metropolitan Museum of Art suddenly vanished, “the museum would go on without them, but our volunteers really are a big help,” Jaime Neary, who leads the volunteer program, told Observer. “They make a big difference in the visitor experience.” Those volunteers greet visitors in the museum’s Great Hall and help them plan their visits. They offer free public tours of the galleries—thirty-five each day—and support family programs, especially at the Met’s 81st Street Studio, where hands-on activities abound. Behind the scenes, they assist in the library, membership and curatorial departments. While the museum has a paid staff of 2,000, much of the visitor-facing experience, aside from the guards reminding guests not to get too close to the art, is shaped by docents and greeters there to explain what visitors are seeing.
If the current crop of volunteers disappeared, Neary added, their roles would be filled quickly. “We get hundreds of applicants, and we’re always looking for more.” The same holds true across many of the country’s museums, historic houses, botanical gardens and zoos, where volunteers often outnumber paid employees. Queens Botanical Garden, for instance, has 3,000 annual volunteers who contribute to education, public programs and horticulture, literally getting their hands dirty.
At many institutions, a significant percentage of volunteers are already members and have some familiarity with the collection. But deep subject knowledge isn’t required because training, whether informal or rigorous, is nearly always provided. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, says “no prior art history knowledge is required,” as volunteers undergo a three-month training program that includes classes with homework and practice gallery tours.
Neary said “knowledge of art is not required” but noted that curiosity and interest in the subject help. Language skills are also a plus. The Met’s current volunteers speak thirty-three different languages, including Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Spanish and Arabic—all of which she said are particularly valuable in helping international visitors feel welcome.
The first step in becoming a museum volunteer is usually completing an online application, followed by an interview conducted via video, phone or in person, and then the aforementioned training. At New York’s Jewish Museum, prospective docents are interviewed by their future supervisors, and they are asked, explained deputy director of education and programs Nelly Benedek, to “bring an object to their interview and speak about it for about five minutes, including providing a formal analysis of the object and information about its social or historical context.” It could be a work of art, a family photo or a meaningful household item.
The goal, she said, is to assess how articulate, observant and prepared the applicant is. “Do they know how to zoom in and analyze an object aesthetically and formally, then contextualize it? Are they making thoughtful and relevant references? What is their communication style—do they make eye contact, are they warm and engaging, can they connect with diverse audiences? Did they conduct research?”
Volunteers also undergo a criminal offender record information (CORI) background check. Institutions want to ensure a good personality fit and confirm a candidate’s willingness to commit to showing up on time and working a consistent number of hours each week. A spokesperson for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, told Observer that “the vast majority of people who get through the virtual meeting, application and interview process are approved.”
Reliability is obviously a top priority. Most institutions provide all the necessary training; they just need to know that volunteers will actually show up. Boston’s MFA requires a commitment of three to five hours per week for at least a year, while the Smithsonian Institution’s Ambassador Program asks for at least thirty three-hour shifts per season—fifteen shifts for weekend-only volunteers. Some volunteers give just a few hours weekly; others, like Patrick Horrigan, commit much more. A former English professor at Long Island University’s Brooklyn campus, Horrigan now averages twenty-five hours each week as a Met docent, leading highlights tours year-round, LGBTQ-themed tours in June and occasional private tours. “Being a tour guide feels like a natural extension of my job as a university professor,” he told Observer.
At the Smithsonian Institution’s American Museum of Natural History, training covers science content, teaching techniques and public engagement. Behind-the-scenes volunteers receive specialized instruction tailored to their roles, delivered through lectures, interactive sessions, demonstrations and guided activities.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art requires prospective guides to attend weekly training sessions for two years. The curriculum includes art appreciation, art history, knowledge of the museum’s collection and visitor engagement skills. These sessions are led by the Division of Education, curatorial staff and experienced guides. After the first year, trainees serve as intern guides, further refining their skills and assisting at information desks.
Qualifications for volunteer roles—especially public-facing ones like gallery guides and info desk staff—prioritize communication skills over content knowledge. At the Nelson-Atkins Museum, the ideal volunteer is described as a “good listener” who demonstrates a commitment to “diversity, equity, access and inclusion” and is “willing to embrace an educational model that is audience-centered. (Note: Museum Guides do not lecture.)” In short, it’s not about the guide—it’s about the audience.
Volunteers must be at least 18 years old, which rarely poses an issue. Benedek noted that “we don’t ask people their age,” but said most are Jewish and between 50 and 90. The Jewish Museum’s docent corps is fiercely loyal. “It’s important to note that we’ve only had four classes of docents in the history of the program, which dates back to the 1970s. That’s because our docents tend to stay. They are very devoted to the Jewish Museum and their role as guides.”
According to the spokesperson, the volunteer community at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, “skews female and older. ” While race wasn’t mentioned, most museum docents are white, even as institutions increasingly want their volunteers to reflect the communities they serve. Nationally, more than 75 percent of museum docents are still white, retired women, but many museums have sought to diversify those ranks.
In 2021, the Art Institute of Chicago dismissed its entire docent corps, aiming to replace them with paid guides more representative of the tour groups they lead. According to a board statement, the goal was to allow “community members of all income levels to participate, respond to issues of class and income equity and not require financial flexibility to participate.”
Robin Schnur, executive director of the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Learning Center at the Art Institute, told Observer that the museum seeks volunteers “who represent the communities that we serve.” Because student groups visit frequently, “first and foremost, volunteers have to want to work with children and the public.” Prior experience with young people is ideal, but not required. Flexibility and adaptability are crucial, as is the ability to work as part of a team. Of the museum’s 130 volunteers, 30 percent are bilingual or multilingual, which is valuable for connecting with non-English-speaking visitors.
Older white volunteers guiding minority school groups can create uncomfortable optics. Some institutions—including the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama, the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., the Portland Art Museum in Oregon and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis—have discontinued docent programs entirely. Others, such as the Oakland Museum of California, have made similar moves. “Some of our older volunteers were disappointed,” Lori Fogarty, director and CEO of the Oakland Museum, told Observer. “It’s still a challenge to find younger volunteers to work with school children.”
The Mississippi Museum of Art still maintains a volunteer program, although its only current opening is for a floral arranger. Its online application includes a voluntary question asking applicants to select one of eight ethnicity options, with two additional boxes for “Other” and “I’d rather not say.” Meanwhile, some major museums—including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim and New York’s Museum of Modern Art—paused their volunteer programs during the pandemic and have yet to resume them, possibly signaling a desire to rethink the model without having settled on a replacement.
Other institutions, like the MFA in Boston, have taken a gradual approach. “Newer volunteers, those recruited post-pandemic, are more diverse in age, gender and race,” the spokesperson said. “We do want to diversify our volunteer community to better reflect the visitor population. That effort began prior to the pandemic, and we continue to make strides.”
These efforts haven’t been universally embraced. Some long-serving volunteers have felt displaced by efforts to recruit more BIPOC guides. Yet even as museums prioritize inclusion, they’re also struggling to fill both paid and unpaid roles. A 2023 survey by the American Alliance of Museums found that 60 percent of institutions reported difficulty filling paid jobs, while 31 percent struggled to fill volunteer roles. Some of the vacancies stem from volunteers who stepped away during the pandemic and have been slow to return. “We’re in a time right now when a lot of federal funding has been rescinded or repurposed,” Chris Morehead, president of the American Association of Museum Volunteers, told Observer. “Institutions have had to find ways to manage their operations, and volunteers are needed now more than ever.”
He added that it’s unethical to ask unpaid workers to do jobs that were once compensated. Volunteer work is, by its nature, unpaid, though it can come with perks. Many institutions offer discounts of 10-20 percent at museum shops and cafes, free admission (often with a guest), invitations to previews and members-only events and discounted parking. MFA volunteers get free admission to other Boston-area cultural institutions, while the Brooklyn Museum offers access to museums across New York City and the U.S. The Smithsonian tops that by offering free or discounted entry to select museums worldwide. Volunteers can also deduct work-related expenses on their taxes, including mileage, tolls, parking and public transportation, though it’s likely most volunteers are less motivated by the small perks and more motivated by the opportunity to share their passions with others.
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