Hello Maria,
At the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM), our Volunteer Department shifted to multiple departments or umbrellas over the course of our first years as a museum. I'd be happy to go into more detail if that would be helpful to you, but in short - we are now a department within the umbrella of Education/Public Programs and have been so for a couple of years. This has been great in many ways, particularly because of the close partnerships necessary with these teams anyway, but also because of the support of leadership within them. That being said, before being within this umbrella, we also spent a couple of years as part of HR. In many ways, I still see that as having made a great amount of sense - for many of the reasons Jenny mentioned above, and also mainly because I see us as a team that works with and for all the departments of the museum. Being able to come at things more clearly from an HR perspective with everyone felt like a clear-cut and reasonable direction. Both of these umbrellas have had their perks, depending on goals.
Best,
Cristina Caballero
