At my last museum (I retired a year ago), we had to start from scratch in 2012 after re-opening after a significant construction and renovation program. We had re-interpreted and re-installed almost all of the "permanent" galleries after decades of stagnation. In the 1950s and 60s, there had been a docent program, but it was abandoned for reasons I never learned. We were, in many ways, fortunate, because the museum is an academic one, one of only two professional museums in the country linked to a high school. However, when we started, we had an environment with a finance office hostile to the museum, so we had no new funds to spend on a docent program. The "museum educator" an academy art teacher, was "assigned" to the museum part-time and wanted nothing to do with docents. We also felt that because it was so new and within a small city with its industrial wealth far in the distant past, we could not charge for the training. I believe Norwich, CT, home to the museum, is about the same size as Zanesville, with similar geographic distance to the state capitol, and similar demographics.
Nevertheless, my assistant director and I (members of a tiny staff) started what became a very successful docent recruitment and training program. The two of us were literally writing the weekly lectures the week before they were scheduled. We had a terrific response in the first few years and that group of the first classes (of the 20-week, 6-month training program) have become fast friends. We did this with literally no money, although (as in any teaching situation) it got easier in the second and third years because we had the basis for the curriculum on which we could build. In addition, many of the earliest docents proved so skilled and proficient, we had them take over many of the training lectures for new classes. I believe that also boosted their confidence and made them feel needed and respected. When lectures outside our expertise were needed (as in African Art) we called in favors, trading, for example, a lecture by a scholar from a near-by university in exchange for fee-free visits for his classes.
The docents proved invaluable when we had large (and often unruly) school groups, with several of the docents being retired teachers and/or school administrators. The docents were fabulous with adult groups (like the red-hat ladies and senior citizen groups). Whatever we eventually spent on the program was immeasurably repaid in the satisfaction of visitors, goodwill in the community and the loyalty of the doents who became embassadors of the museum and volunteered for other programs of the museum. We also almost always had a docent at the ready for casual, unscheduled visitors because we required a certain number of hours to be considered a docent in good standing.
Some of the resources of the parent institution benefit the museum and the museum itself has its own endowment. For example, when using a 20-person academy-owned van, we only had to pay the direct cost of the driver. We could take the docents, on a first-come, first-served basis to other museums close enough to visit on day trips. Here again, we traded; free admission and docent-led tours for our group in exchange for the same for the other museums. The museum is also fortunate in that it has a friends group with its own institutional budget, so support for the docent program often came from this source.
As the program grew, and several years later, it became the responsibility of the newly hired, full time Director of Education to nurture and manage. Many, though far from all, of the earliest docents were either alumni of the academy, parents of alumni, or retired academy teachers, so I am certain that helped with recruitment and commitment in the small New England city.
Vivian F. Zoë, director (retired)
Slater Memorial Museum