The Cultural Competence Learning Institute (CCLI) is led by Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose (CDM) in cooperation with the Association of Children’s Museums (ACM), the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), and Garibay Group, a research and consulting firm. The Cultural Competence Learning Institute is both a process and set of resources designed to help museums increase their organizational capacity around diversity and culture. For the past four years, CDM has worked to create a new training model for the museum field that reaches beyond externally focused diversification to establish an internal change process that leads to inclusive practices throughout the museum.
The pilot phase of CCLI was funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services from September 2012-October 2016. The second phase of CCLI, funded by a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, launched in October, 2017 and focuses on increasing the number of museums nationwide who commit to cultural competency initiatives within their own institutions. The project will include up to 18 additional museums from all disciplines of the museum field over the next three years (October 2017-September 2020).
As part of the cohort, each museum will:
- Articulate a strategic initiative that will be addressed and implemented by an identified leadership team within the museum.
- Develop strategies, timelines, and processes for achieving the strategic initiative.
- Receive facilitated instruction to increase institutional capacity around cultural competence.