Building the Mass History Commons together
The Commons is an online hub for people, organizations, and businesses in Massachusetts public history. With Conversations, Resource Guides, the Mass History Directory, and more to come, we aim to make solutions in public history more readily available to all users: teachers wishing to connect with local historians; tourists or parents looking for an interesting place to explore; historical organizations looking for advice, consultants, tradespeople or specialists; students in the fields looking for internships or work.
We’re aiming to make the Commons simple, interactive, and informative, and its Directory comprehensive. Mostly we’re volunteers, but it does take some money for logistics, IT services, and so on.
If you organization or business (no matter how small) is part of the public history field in Massachusetts listing yourself in the Directory and sponsoring the Commons makes sense: as more of us participate, the service gains in usefulness– for all of us. So, too, with donating ad sponsoring: participation is free, and you can get it for free. However, if you contribute and sponsor, everyone will get more and better service, including you! If no one sponsors, the Commons will disappear. If everyone does a little bit, we will build a service hub that will help you do your work, get business, advocate for yourself and for the field, and in general help support a thriving local and public history community in Massachusetts. The Mass History Alliance built the Commons to meet the problem that Massachusetts has no state-sponsored service to the people and groups in public history — who form the core of the Massachusetts identity. When you participate and contribute, you become part of the solution!
Advantages of listing your business or organization on the directory
First, your business or service will be part of a directory that contains hundreds upon hundreds of history organizations, institutions, services, and businesses in public history in Massachusetts. Searchable and browsable by all. We are actively working to expand use as well as the size of the list, so your visibility is growing. “Providers,” that is, businesses and services in the field, are featured on a randomized/rotating basis at the top of this directory.
Second, Conversations on the Commons, peer-to-peer chats on topics of interest to the public history community in Massachusetts, are marketed to about 3000 individuals and organizations every other week and through our social media networks. All these people get a link to the directory.
Advantages of sponsoring the Commons
When you see the value of the Commons, we know you will want to sponsor it and become more visible.
All sponsors are featured at the top of the Directory on a randomized/rotating basis.
For a $200.00 or higher contribution, your sponsorship will be listed in all of our Conversations outreach.
For $500 and more, your Sponsorship will also be listed in a sidebar in the sponsor directory.
Contributions of $1,000 and more make you a premier sponsor. In addition to the above, your logo will be featured at the top of the sponsor sidebar, and we will announce your sponsorship at the introduction of every Conversation on the Commons (bi-weekly).
CONTRIBUTE TO THE MASS HISTORY COMMONS
LIST YOUR BUSINESS IN THE DIRECTORY (AND OPTIONALLY CONTRIBUTE) LIST YOUR HISTORY-FOCUSED NON-PROFIT IN THE DIRECTORY (AND OPTIONALLY CONTRIBUTE)