Programs

The Friends of the National Asian Pacific American Museum designs, administers, and executes a variety of programs necessary to attain Congressional authorization and the creation of a forward-looking museum that is dynamic in operation and financially sustainable.

Communication and Awareness

We are driving awareness of and growing community support for the effort to establish the National Museum of Asian Pacific American History and Culture.

Objectives:

  1. Create awareness and support for the Museum through content-driven communication conveyed through the power of digital and social media, and through the engagement with allies, partners, and stakeholders.
  2. Connect and coordinate with APA organizations, mission-aligned thought leaders, corporations, universities, institutions, constituencies, and decision-makers who can help build support for Congressional authorization of the Museum.
  3. Coordinate engagement with public officials and representatives at the local, state, and national level to support for the Museum.
  4. Organize, host, and participate in events and activities to raise awareness and garner support for the Museum.

Outreach and Alliances

We aim to establish, nurture, and coordinate alliances with other organizations—ethnic, regional, industry, and mission-driven—to build support for the Museum's authorization. We must ensure that in its creation, the Museum represents the full, disaggregated histories and cultural contributions of all Asian Pacific American communities.

Objectives:

  1. Coordinate with a broad base of Asian Pacific American and other organizations and institutions, including schools and regional museums, to build and channel enthusiasm and resources to support the museum.
  2. Nurture a broad base of relationships with ethno-racial, regional, professional, and industry-related advocacy organizations that represent the historical and ongoing cultural contributions of Asian Pacific Americans.
  3. Prioritize continuous, substantive, and meaningful outreach and engagement with Asian Pacific American organizations. This includes co-hosting, attending, and presenting at conferences and events.


Fundraising Support

‍Our support program engages in fundraising efforts to pay for program costs, working groups and the Commission. In addition to fundraising, this program offers in-kind services, staffing, information, research, and consultancy work, as needed by the Commission and other initiatives.

Unlike previous national museum commissions, this Commission received no Federal funding to cover its costs.

Asian Pacific American History and Culture Initiative

The Asian Pacific American History and Culture Initiative engages with APA organizations, academics and historians, museum experts, and community leaders to develop disaggregated, positive, incisive, sensitive, and museological directions and curatorial programs.

Objectives:

  1. Establish a national task force to formally gather key APA organizations, historians, academics, local museums, and other institutions that focus on the history and culture of each Asian Pacific American racial and ethnic communities.
  2. Ensure that the disaggregated histories, chronicles, narratives, and cultural contributions in America of all Asian Pacific American communities are appropriately, sensitively, and comprehensively collected and curated.
  3. Provide support to the Commission and other working groups and to the future Museum to help ensure chronicles, narratives, stories, and artifacts are properly assessed and prioritized for museological and curatorial consideration.

Innovation and Museum Experience

This program pushes the boundaries of innovation to imagine exhibition experiences and storytelling in a forward-looking museum for younger and future generations.

It explores the use of innovative and immersive XR (Extended Reality), including AR (Augmented Reality), VR (Virtual Reality), as well as AI technology for exhibition design and use, collections accessibility, storytelling, and ultimately, achieving an enhanced and meaningful visitor experience.

Incorporation of the latest thinking, applications, and ideas in curatorial and exhibitions to create “museum experiences” in the digital age of AI is key to attracting young and new museum audiences. This creates opportunities for revenue streams to ensure financial sustainability in the Museum's operations and addresses potential concerns of Congress.

Objectives:

  1. Work with leading technology companies and consultants to develop concepts for immersive museum exhibitions, including VR, AR, holography, and generative AI.
  2. Explore the “museum as incubator” concept, including the possibility of public-private partnerships.
  3. Evaluate the viability of various revenue streams, including evening hours, concept dining, and live theater, music, and dance performances.
  4. Share the program results and beta proof-of-concepts for consideration by the key decision-makers, and members of Congress.

© 2025 Friends of the National Asian Pacific American Museum

1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW Suite 600
Washington, DC 20036
info@friendsofnapam.org

Friends of the National Asian Pacific American Museum is a 501 (c)(3) not-for-profit organization. We are not affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution or the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center.

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