Jan McKay and Associates

Jan McKay

With more than twenty years with nonprofit cultural organizations, Jan McKay has walked many museum halls in various (comfortable) shoes. Her passion for informal learning environments comes from recognizing the connections they make in the world as they inform, serve and enhance life for visitors and communities.

From art to natural history to living history, McKay’s experience includes planning and management; relationship building; marketing and fund raising; evaluation and research, educational program planning; community collaborations, special events and more. McKay is known for her sensitive and encompassing awareness of the external audience – the visitor, the community and the donor. Her sixth sense on how decisions affect an organization’s reputation as well as its operations continue to amaze her colleagues.

Jan has served as Executive Director of Old Cowtown Museum in Kansas, Casa Romantica Cultural Center and Gardens in San Clemente and as Assistant Director of The Cleveland Museum of Natural History and Director of Communications and Marketing. Here McKay managed an award-winning team of professionals responsible for the integrated marketing/communications of this internationally regarded institution. She designed and implemented the Museum’s brand program and promoted hundreds of traveling and in-house exhibitions, scientific discoveries, events, and educational programs. During her 13 year tenure she managed the Membership Department, launched Family Programming; created an in-house PR and publishing department; and developed visitor feedback programs, including a major brand analysis and plan to better position the museum in the marketplace.

She served on the Mayor’s Martin Luther King Jr. Project Committee; the Cleveland Cultural Coalition; Beacon Street Performing Arts Ministry; Templum House for women and children, and on the Board of Trustees of the Ohio Museums Association.
McKay helped to form a collaborative of five cultural organizations to bring group tourism to the University Circle area, the cultural district of Cleveland. She was often asked to weigh-in on cultural tourism marketing plans of the Greater Cleveland Convention and Visitors Bureau and was part of Cleveland’s tourism renaissance.

McKay then brought innovation and professionalism to an accredited museum/living history site, Old Cowtown Museum in Wichita, Kansas. During her many years as Executive Director, the museum improved historic interpretation, refocused on collections care, doubled volunteer participation, designed and built a new Visitors Center on the River and set up new earned revenue streams with unique features such as stagecoach rides, old time photos, brand products, rental improvements and a new retail center. Fund raising efforts were improved and membership and donor gifts grew. Her creativity and enthusiasm prompted volunteers to begin an annual fund raising/mystery event, called “Calamity at Cowtown.”

During her tenure the museum became more relevant to the community with high profile special event weekends of history and learning, improved facilities for its Girl Scout Program, training in living history interpretation and the creation of an Interpreter’s Headquarters for its staff and volunteers. Revamped school curriculum, new historic preservation standards for its 26 historic structures, and improved business practices helped to catapult the museum to the highest awareness it received in its 50 year history, enjoying the highest attendance ever gained.

McKay’s experience then came into play as Executive Director of Casa Romantica Cultural Center and Gardens in San Clemente, California. There she raised new grant revenue, launched new programming and an exciting exhibition schedule, and revamped major donor efforts which included the development of a new business partner program, while overseeing the final restoration of this beautiful property. Awareness building and new connections to the community took many forms including a new Bridal Fair by the Sea; Surf Culture Weekends spotlighting San Clemente’s art and surf community; and The Big Read, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Now consulting to stakeholders in the nonprofit sector, McKay continues as a peer reviewer with the American Association of Museum’s MAP program, and has presented on various panels at AAM conferences. She received degrees from Ohio’s University of Dayton (BA) and Miami University (MA), Oxford, Ohio.

McKay’s presentation skills were honed during her first career in radio broadcasting – as a morning –drive rock and roll DJ, Program and Music Director Positions, award-winning News Director and host of her own talk shows. Her character voices were heard throughout the marketplace. McKay lives in San Clemente, California.

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