Ontario Museum Association
50 Baldwin Street
Toronto, Ontario
M5T 1L4
Tel: 416-348-8672
Toll-free: 1-866-OMA-8672
Fax: 416-348-0438
Email: contact

The Ontario Museum Association is the leading cultural organization ensuring a relevant and sustainable museum sector in the province for the benefit of Ontario residents and our global community.

"The Ontario Museum Association builds capacity among institutions and individuals active in Ontario’s museum sector".

The three key values of the Association are:

Sector Relevance: The OMA believes that museums are a critical and necessary element in a healthy society, as one key vehicle through which an appreciation and understanding of our connections to natural and cultural history are formed. Accordingly, museums are relevant institutions in society, and this applies to the small volunteer-run community museum as much as the large and specialized provincial flagship. The OMA will continue to work with its members to build upon the ways in which it can help them be increasingly relevant to their own constituencies and communities.

Service Focus: The OMA’s members are institutions and individuals who expect high value-added in return for the fee that they pay and the time that they devote to the organization. In a sense, just as the museum sector must be relevant to its constituencies and audience, so too must the OMA be relevant to its members. The organization is therefore continually evaluating the worth and value of the services it provides to members, and is continually looking for new ways to be of service to them.

Partnership Orientation: A fundamental value for the OMA is to, wherever possible, work with knowledgeable partners who a share its overall vision of sustainability for the sector. These partners include government departments and agencies (including the provincial museum institutions), other funders, other like-minded organizations, current and potential corporate partners, etc. The value of working with partners is twofold: on the one hand they can provide knowledge and resources and thus help the OMA expand its range of services provided to the sector, and on the other, they broaden the ‘museum constituency’ in the province – i.e. the base on individuals and organizations that support the sector overall and the role of the OMA as the logical body representing it.

1. Enhancing Sector Position through Advocacy and Stakeholder Relations
i.e. raising the profile of Ontario’s museum sector as a necessary and relevant element of society among all stakeholders

2. Enabling Organizational Capacity-Building
i.e. equipping Ontario’s museums with the tools and resources necessary for them to remain relevant and sustainable

3. Encouraging Career and Professional Development
i.e. equipping those in the museum profession with the resources necessary for them to pursue valuable and meaningful careers or volunteer activities in the sector

4. Promoting Membership Networking and Communications Opportunities
i.e. ensuring greater communications with institutional and individual members, including opportunities to share resources and best practices

5. Ensuring the Sustainability of the Ontario Museum Association
i.e. ensuring that the organization has the vision, leadership, resources and partners it needs to remain viable in order to enable it to continue to provide services to members.