Professional Development

Training Opportunities:

We are currently working on getting our courses online. Keep visiting our website or subscribe to the AMM Messenger for more information as things develop.

Our Training Program is supported in part by / Ce projet est financé en partie par:

View our upcoming courses

The AMM offers excellent Training opportunities for staff (paid and volunteer) and boards of museums. Including:

Certificate Program in Museum Practice

This program consists of eight, one- or two-day courses, taught in a workshop format (we are working on getting them all online), designed for museum board, staff or volunteers who are new to the museum world or those who wish to obtain a better understanding of museums.

Participants who complete the program by attending and completing the assignments for seven of the courses will receive a certificate.

The courses are:

Organizing and Managing Museums - 1 day or 4 one hour or 90 minute online sessions
Develop the knowledge and understanding of the roles and responsibilities of a non-profit board based on the foundations of public trust and learn how to manage your museum in the areas of:

Decision-making and the need to work towards common goals and objectives
Policy writing
Risk management
Strategic planning
Operating environment of non-profit organizations, such as museums, including addressing issues of accountability, continued organizational viability, and maintaining involvement of the local community.

Museums and the Community - 2 days or 6 one hour or 90 minute online sessions
It has been an age-old and ongoing challenge for museums to evolve and compete for the attention of visitors and residents alike. Now, perhaps more than ever before, museums must find a way to be relevant in a society focused on technology and entertainment. Museums large and small, urban and rural must actively seek out and work with a broad network of community partners in order to appeal to new audiences and to ensure the long-term sustainability of the collections and stories they preserve. Museums & the Community will help you define your museum’s role in the community and give you ideas for finding new partnerships that can make your museum an invaluable community service provider.

Topics include:

History and Philosophy of Museums
Responding to a Changing Society
Understanding Community
Role of Museums for the Future
Partnerships between Museums and Community

Collections Management - 1 day or 4 one hour or 90 minute online sessions - Currently available as online workshop!
This course provides participants with the tools to properly manage a heritage collection. The course also outlines the legal and professional responsibilities with regards to records management for a museum collection.

Having your artifacts properly catalogued and accounted for reduces time spent looking for things that may no longer exist and reduces the amount of handling delicate artifacts and possible exposure to harmful chemicals. By the end of the course participants will have a proper collections management policy and an understanding of the ethics involved in deaccessioning.

Collections Care and Preventive Conservation for Museums - 2 days or 6 one hour or 90 minute online sessions - Currently available as online workshop!
This introductory course will provide a basic understanding of general approaches to the handling and storing of museum objects. It will also help participants to identify problem areas in their own museums and how to address these areas.

Preventive Conservation is:

Knowing your site, buildings, and collections
Causes of deterioration
Environmental monitoring and controls
Preventive measures
Storage, care and handling, display
Policies and procedures: why bother?
Classification of materials
Condition reporting and treatments

Exhibit Design - 1 day or four 90 minute online sessions
This one-day workshop will help participants develop knowledge and understanding of how museum exhibitions serve as a means of communication. They will explore the essential elements of an exhibitions policy, and the relevant standards on which the policy should be based. Lighting, labels, and directing visitor traffic will also be discussed.

Museums and Education - 1 day or 4 one hour or 90 minute online sessions
This course has been developed to help museum workers (be they staff, volunteer or board members) to develop knowledge of the role of museums as learning institutions. Elements of a museum education policy and the role of evaluation in museum education programs will be discussed.

Participants will develop understanding of how to use objects in learning, how museum education serves the public trust, the relationship with the public in program planning, and the inter-relationship between educational approaches and visitors characteristics, needs and expectations. They will also develop skills in planning and developing a curriculum-based school program and planning and developing a public education program.

The Museum Facility - 2 days or 6 one hour or 90 minute online sessions
If you have a museum you have a facility that needs to be taken care of the same as your collections do. Your museum needs regular maintenance and attention, just like your house, in order for it to continue to do its job housing your collections and welcoming visitors.

The learning objectives for this course include:

Knowledge and understanding of the care and maintenance of the museum facility.
Knowledge of the research and documentation of the museum structure.
Identify the building systems integral to the safe and comfortable operation of the museum structure.
Understand the basics of museum development in relation to the museum’s mission and goals.
Overview knowledge of the areas of responsibility and activities involved in managing a facility.
Develop critical thinking skills in assessing the museum’s physical accessibility and planning for future change.

Research: Policies, plans…action! - 1 day or 4 one hour or 90 minute online sessions
Any good exhibit deserves to be properly researched in order to be factual, interesting and insightful. But where to go? What sources provide accurate information? Which sources are less reliable? Take this course and learn how to:

Identify research sources
Develop research policies and plans
Conduct research
Build community relationships

Specialized Courses

These are courses that are developed or brought in by the AMM to address specific needs of our members or to expand upon a course taught in our Certificate Program in Museum Practice.

Bursaries/Grants Available

The Winnipeg Foundation and the Canadian Museums Association offer grants for Professional Development.

For more information regarding submission guidelines and deadlines, visit their website or contact them directly.

Other organizations that offer courses for Professional Development:

This is just a short list of some organizations that we know or have heard of that offer workshops benefitting not-for-profits and is by no means exhaustive. Feel free to contact us if you know of ours that could be added.

Indigenous Awareness Canada
Indigenous Awareness Canada offers Online Indigenous Awareness Training and facilitates in-person workshops. Our mission is to assist you, and all Canadians, to learn about Canada’s Indigenous People and to help non-indigenous Canadians and Indigenous peoples move toward reconciliation.

Indigenous Awareness Canada currently has 5 online courses:

Their courses are available in French and English.

Charity Village
CharityVillage® is a career resource to over 170,000 charitable and nonprofit organizations across Canada.

They offer paid job postings and free volunteer & event listings as well as nonprofit & charitable sector resources and eLearning courses.

Manitoba Tourism Education Council (MTEC)
While MTEC’s training is focussed more on the service industry (restaurants, hotels, etc.) they do offer other business courses that can benefit anyone who deals with staff, volunteers, and/or the public.

Check out their "Find the Right Training for You" page

Museum Study (U.S.)
At Museum Study our mission is to help you build a better cultural institution and be a stronger member of the team that carries out the mission of your institution. To accomplish this we provide online professional development.

TechSoup Canada
TechSoup Canada is a program of the Centre for Social Innovation, and a member of the TechSoup Global Network. Being a non-profit ourselves, we understand all too well the challenges facing the Canadian non-profit sector and we want to help. We can connect you to donated and discounted technologies through our technology donations program and provide valuable learning resources to equip you and your colleagues with technology tips and best practices.

Go to Full Course Catalog

Some of our Most Popular Courses

Volunteer Manitoba
Our training is designed to help increase your skills, build your confidence, and provide an opportunity to network with others in the non-profit sector. Whether you are an experienced staff or new to the job, our in-class and online training sessions will help you come up with new ideas, understand best practices, and give you the tools and resources you need to be successful in your work.

Volunteer Manitoba delivers training in the following streams:

•   Volunteer Management
•   Board Governance
•   Capacity Building

For a list of our current workshops, please visit our Training/Events Calendar!