Pausing at the halfway mark to “Our Shared Future”

As we approach the halfway mark of our strategic plan, Our Shared Future, I invite all of us to reflect on how far we have come. When we began outlining this plan a few years ago, we knew we needed to capture some of the great work already underway. But we also challenged ourselves to expand our reach, evaluate our internal culture, and strive to build our shared future.

I hope that each one of you has taken the opportunity to engage in this uniquely One Smithsonian endeavor. Whether you have listened to one of our Brown Bag sessions, volunteered to participate in your unit’s strategic plan, or used the goals of the plan to frame your own work, the plan takes root and grows as we use it. What we started as part of Our Shared Future will become ever more powerful as it proliferates through our community.

To that end, I am pleased to highlight a few of the many building blocks we achieved this year as we look toward the future and what is now possible.

Digital

In 2024, Smithsonian committed significant resources to developing and deploying a pan-Institutional constituent relationship management system (CRM). This complex platform presents many opportunities to grow our audiences, our engagement, and our business. In the last year, foundational features were developed and are currently being rolled out. These include transformative new features to better engage our audiences, both in-person and virtually, including a unified ticketing platform, upgraded email and text message solution, and self-service audience portal. These features, combined with new data management strategies, are allowing us to better understand our audiences and quickly respond to their needs and interests with thoughtful, curated experiences.

Nimble

As an organization, we are always on the lookout for new opportunities and potential risks. We now have a unified approach to identifying, assessing, and addressing risks under our revitalized Enterprise Risk Management program (ERM). This program has implemented a new process that facilitates a pan-institutional understanding of both risks and opportunities. This work has further expanded Smithsonian’s ability to react and respond to risks through a centralized risk register and a group of Risk Champions tasked with identifying strategies to address the identified enterprise risks.

Trusted Source

As an organization, we put considerable emphasis on meeting people where they are, whether in DC, classrooms and homes throughout the nation, or on the road. Through the Rural Initiative, we are building capacity as a trusted and reliable partner that adds value to all communities across the nation. This work is teaching us how to be better listeners and how to reimagine our mission while interacting with these communities. With this new knowledge and understanding, the initiative now looks to shape future engagement practices, emphasizing the importance of place-based content.

Science

In our rapidly evolving technological landscape, Smithsonian researchers need access to the best data, platforms, and analytic methods. The inaugural Big Data Committee, a collaboration between the Office of the Under Secretary for Science and Research and the Office of Digital Transformation, developed an approach to unlock new research potential through a needs assessment and series of pilot projects. Stemming from the recommendations of that inaugural committee, a standing committee on Big Data was established to focus on finding and resourcing the foundational enablers and strategic investments needed to unlock the Smithsonian’s research data.

Education

Our efforts to be a partner with teachers and students in every classroom in the nation have successfully integrated new programs into the culture of education at the Smithsonian. Internal Together We Thrive funding opportunities ensure that Smithsonian educators have the capacity to consider new ideas, develop community partnerships, and refine methods to reach their target audiences. The success of the National Education Summit, now in its 5^th year, illustrates the convening power of the Smithsonian and the importance of information exchange across all learning environments.

As the plan continues to move forward, I will ask each of the Co-Leads to evaluate their progress and consider these questions: Have we met the stated objective? Has the strategic emphasis succeeded in adding new functions or pathways to our work?

As the strategic work of the initiatives becomes our everyday work, you will see some of the initiatives sunset. This will be a sign of success: that the work has become business as usual. With the second half of the strategic plan timeline ahead of us, we look forward to the opportunity to say our strategic goals have succeeded, and the work now continues day-to-day.