ABSTRACT
Museums have used Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to convey the importance of catering to guests’ basic needs before trying to teach them anything. Successful museums take on interesting partnerships in order to advance their mission and to build their cache in the community. Relationships built on a shared language of trust and respect can yield important insights as museums seek to design and develop new experiences and programs. Shared experiences and dreams become part of the process of relationship building. The ties that form as our own personal needs and desires are subsumed into care and concern for other people create the foundation upon which community and partnership form. Mechanistic or transactional approaches to relationships have no place in a positive, empathetic, community-driven development process.
