Five Decisions for Boards That Govern for Posterity
When the Pérez Art Museum Miami planned its new home on Biscayne Bay, its leaders were building for posterity in the most hurricane-prone major city in the United States. [1] With the architects Herzog & de Meuron, the museum lifted its galleries above the 18-foot high-water mark Hurricane Andrew left in 1992, placed its generator on the third floor with fuel that can arrive by barge, gave collections storage an air system built for post-storm humidity, and chose glass strong enough to make shutters unnecessary. [1]
Mark Rosenblum, PAMM’s chief operating officer, describes it as hurricane resistant “in its natural state,” which frees staff to concentrate on the art when a storm approaches. [2] Regulation set the floor for some of these measures, and the rest were choices the institution made and paid for. No hurricane has yet struck the building directly. [2] That is the point. Stewardship is a price paid in advance.
A museum’s most important client is posterity. Every board governs for two publics, this year’s visitors and the generations who will inherit the collection, and funds a commitment measured in centuries with finite resources. The strategist’s work is to make the long-term choices before the short term makes them by default.
In September, Heat Rising closed with three questions for board chairs:
When did we last commission an expert assessment of our building systems, and what did it tell us?
What would a two-week unplanned closure cost us in revenue, programs, and reputation?
Where does climate risk appear in our strategic plan, and who is accountable for it?
Five decisions answer them, and each fits within the board’s existing calendar.
1 Protect a Capital Maintenance Reserve
Every building system has a service life, and each will need replacing on some board’s watch. A capital maintenance reserve, designated by the board and funded by policy every year, turns that certainty into a plan.
The National Research Council set the benchmark in 1990: annual maintenance and repair of 2 to 4 percent of a building’s current replacement value. [3] A floor already sits in every audited statement. Accounting standards issued in 1987 require nonprofits to record depreciation, [4] and a reserve funded at that level keeps pace with the books. The benchmark keeps pace with the building. The distance between the two is a strategic choice, and boards should make it deliberately. The sector starts from behind: the Government Accountability Office estimates that 85 percent of American museums carry deferred maintenance, and nearly half have backlogs above $100,000. [5]
The board’s question: What share of our building’s replacement value do we reinvest each year, and is that amount protected from the operating budget?
2 Commission an Expert Condition Assessment
A board governs the building it understands. An independent condition assessment every three to five years documents the remaining life of the systems that protect the collection and how they will perform through hotter summers and longer outages. It becomes the schedule for the reserve and the case for a capital campaign. One museum in three has commissioned an assessment in the past decade, while 77 percent report a building condition that puts collections at risk. [5] An independent assessment gives the board its own view of the building, the essence of trust and verify.
The board’s question: When did we last commission an assessment, and has the full board seen the findings?
3 Revisit the Environmental Standards
For decades, museums held their galleries to a single tight band of temperature and humidity. The Bizot Group of international museum directors has since moved the field toward adaptive ranges. [6] The board’s interest is strategic. Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning often account for 60 to 70 percent of a museum’s energy use, so well-justified ranges lower costs and extend equipment life; the Portland Museum of Art saved about 9.5 percent of its energy in a trial. [7] The standards belong to conservators. The board asks that they be reviewed and the savings reported.
The board’s question: When did our conservators last review our environmental standards, and what would an adaptive approach save us?
4 Plan and Rehearse for the Day the System Fails
An emergency plan earns its value through rehearsal. PAMM’s begins before landfall, with staff de-installing the most sensitive works first. [1] Every museum needs the same clarity for its own geography: who can close the building, how people and collections are protected, and how the museum speaks to its public. [8] GAO estimates that 41 percent of museums operate without a disaster plan and trained staff. [5] Annual tabletop exercises, with board leadership in the room, turn a plan into practiced judgment.
The board’s question: When did we last test our emergency plan, and did the exercise include a multi-day heat event and a loss of power?
5 Hold It in Governance
These decisions endure when governance holds them in place. Assign climate resilience by charter to a standing committee, and write it into the risk register and the strategic plan. Give that committee the insurance policy as well. Premiums are climbing in disaster-prone regions, [9] and insurers reward the kind of building protections PAMM chose. [2] The annual broker review should cover limits, exclusions for flood and wind, works on loan, and business interruption.
Then ask management for one annual resilience report covering the reserve, the assessment, the latest exercise, and the insurance review. Management owns the work, and the board receives the evidence that the work matches the risk.
The board’s question: Which committee owns climate resilience, and if we closed for two weeks tomorrow, which of our losses would our policy cover?
What This Looks Like
Consider a composite drawn from our client work. A mid-sized museum loses its chiller twice in one August. In September its board designates a reserve, commissions an assessment, and assigns climate resilience to its facilities committee. By spring it has a ten-year replacement schedule, a first deposit, and a rehearsed heat plan. Each step fit the board’s regular calendar, and together they gave posterity a seat at the board table.
Resources to Share with Your Management Team
Committing to the Cost of Ownership. The National Research Council’s foundational report on funding building maintenance and repair. Link
Bizot Green Protocol. Guiding principles, climate control guidelines, and handbooks from the UK’s National Museum Directors’ Council. Link
CIMAM Toolkit on Environmental Sustainability. Includes the Min/Max Dashboard for modeling energy and cost savings from adjusted temperature and humidity ranges. Link
AAM Disaster Planning and Risk Management. Resources distributed with the Heritage Emergency National Task Force. Link
NPS Museum Handbook, Chapter 10. A model emergency planning framework with clear assignment of responsibility. Link
Coming in December
The Price of a Closed Day will separate two figures the field often blends, the opportunity cost of closing for a day and the marginal cost of operating for one, so boards can weigh every closure with clarity.
Notes
[1] Leann Standish, “Designing for Resilience,” Center for the Future of Museums Blog, American Alliance of Museums, August 11, 2015. https://www.aam-us.org/2015/08/11/designing-for-resilience/
[2] Aimee Dawson, “How does art survive a hurricane? Behind the measures Florida museums are taking to withstand extreme weather,” The Art Newspaper, December 7, 2023. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/12/07/how-does-art-survive-a-hurricane-behind-the-measures-florida-museums-are-taking-to-withstand-extreme-weather
[3] National Research Council, Committee on Advanced Maintenance Concepts for Buildings, Committing to the Cost of Ownership: Maintenance and Repair of Public Buildings (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1990). https://doi.org/10.17226/9807
[4] Financial Accounting Standards Board, Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 93, Recognition of Depreciation by Not-for-Profit Organizations, 1987.
[5] U.S. Government Accountability Office, Museum Facilities: Deferred Maintenance Persists and Costs to Repair Are Unknown, GAO-26-108485, March 10, 2026. https://files.gao.gov/reports/GAO-26-108485/index.html
[6] “Bizot Green Protocol,” National Museum Directors’ Council, 2023. https://www.nationalmuseums.org.uk/what-we-do/climate-crisis/bizot-green-protocol/
[7] Annabel Keenan, “Rising costs force museums across North America to rethink climate control guidelines,” The Art Newspaper, September 21, 2026. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/09/21/museums-across-north-america-rethink-climate-control-guidelines-amid-high-bills-and-large-carbon-footprints
[8] National Park Service, Museum Handbook, Part I, Chapter 10: Emergency Planning, 2019. https://www.nps.gov/subjects/museums/upload/MHI_Ch10_EmergencyPlanning.pdf
[9] “Rising Temperatures, Rising Premiums: Climate Change Litigation and Fine Art Insurance,” Center for Art Law, November 13, 2023. https://itsartlaw.org/art-law/rising-temperatures-rising-premiums-climate-change-litigation-and-fine-art-insurance/
