Is it fair for public museums to pay for volunteer associations without the volunteers receiving anything?

Is it fair for public museums to activate onerous agreements with private associations that provide volunteers to serve in museums, without the volunteers receiving any money? Raising the case is the collective Mi Riconosci? I am a cultural heritage professional, which returns to this point by reporting the revelations of Roberto Cena, since 1973 a member of the Touring Club Italiano (TCI), the well-known nonprofit association that has long provided its volunteers to museums, particularly through the Open for You initiative. This is a program through which, the TCI explains, the opening of places of art and culture (museums, churches, archaeological areas, historic buildings) that would otherwise be inaccessible to the public or visited with reduced hours is encouraged: volunteers are engaged not only at private facilities but also at public sites such as GAM in Milan, Mudec in Milan, the Civic Museums of Modena, the Hellenistic Necropolis of the National Archaeological Museum in Reggio Calabria, the Quirinal Palace in Rome, and the National Archaeological Museum in Taranto.

During the openings of these sites, “Touring Volunteers for Cultural Heritage” (as the young and old who lend their services for TCI are called) welcome visitors by giving them information but also accompanying them on guided tours: in some cases there are no admission fees, but other times a ticket must be paid (such as at the Quirinale, where costs vary depending on the route chosen). “Few, however,” they let Mi Riconosci know, “that many of the agreements between public institutions and the TCI provide for an onerous convention, that is, entering into the agreement upon payment to the association. We imagine few even among TCI members know this, since that money does not go to the volunteers.”

Cena, reached by Mi Riconosci, made some statements: “in a meeting to which I was summoned by TCI’s national leadership, exactly one year after my initial request for clarification/transparency, in addition to informing me that my (legitimate, as a member) desire for transparency and outreach was deemed ’hostile,’ I was confirmed to have dozens of onerous conventions throughout the country, including the one entered into with the Quirinal: ”it has been reiterated to me that the TCI considers such onerous conventions compatible with volunteer activity, and it has been stressed that it does not consider it appropriate to disseminate to all volunteers the existing conventions, their content and their economic terms.

Usually, at least as far as state institutes are concerned, notices of selection for nonprofit volunteer associations are published (the most recent being that of the Istituto Superiore per la Conservazione ed il Restauro, published in January), which, however, on the part of the public institute, include a commitment to guarantee expense reimbursement for volunteers. Apparently, however, as Mi Riconosci makes known, this is not the case in some cases.

Mi Riconosci makes it known that the kind of relationship that the TCI establishes with museums is entirely legitimate, but “represents an obvious oddity for a reality such as the Italian Touring Club.” It also points out that “the TCI’s budgets are not public on their website, but available for a short period of time prior to the Assembly and the related vote to approve them only to members registered on the site,” and consequently Mi Riconosci asks the TCI “to publish online all budgets and explain, to its members and to the citizenry, how these conventions work and why they are in place,” and to the heads of the institutions involved “to provide clarity regarding the existence of these onerous conventions.”

Image: the courtyard of the Quirinal Palace. Ph. Credit

Is it fair for public museums to pay for volunteer associations without the volunteers receiving anything?

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.