Caroline Klibanoff
Executive Director
Made By Us
Caroline Klibanoff is executive director of Made By Us.
Made By Us began seven or eight years ago with a handful of history museums. It was originally housed at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and is now based at the Atlanta History Center.
Today, it is a coalition of more than 500 museums, libraries, and civic organisations working to bridge the gap between museums and young people, especially Gen Z. Through this work, it has built a coalition of informed, engaged, and collaborative organisations.
Made By Us’s signature program is Civic Season, a celebration of civic life and participation that runs from Juneteenth (19 June) to 4 July. Now in its sixth year, Civic Season brought together 850 participating organisations, mostly museums, and engaged tens of thousands of people across the country.
One nominator said: "Caroline is a fierce advocate, champion, and walking advertisement for collaborative, impactful work that involves young people in everything museums do. She doesn’t just tell museums to program for young people or think about young people.
"She provides them with the tools, opportunities, data, and connections to do it. She brings museums and young people together so that museums can hear directly from them, consult with them, and build with them.
"In her work, and in her championing of museums and our audiences, Caroline is unrelenting. She pushes our field to collaborate more, listen more, and do more."
