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On February 17, 2017, over 350 cultural organizations—museums, libraries, archives, science centers, and educational groups—collectively rejected the idea of “alternative facts” by sharing thousands of posts on social media tagged #DayofFacts. Using facts about immigration, climate change, refugees, LGBT issues, freedom of the press, support for the arts, and more, the campaign quickly went viral and generated 50,000+ posts and plenty of press coverage. In this presentation, Mara will discuss the original goals of the campaign, how she and her co-conspirator Alli Hartley pulled off an international day of museum resistance, and evaluate of the success and usefulness of the action. Caitlin Kearney and Lucille Carver will discuss the Field Museum’s viral #DayofFacts video that was viewed over 1 million times and widely celebrated. Mara will present the #DayofFacts both as a general social media case-study and one of institutional bravery: many participants needed convincing to join a potentially risky action. The campaign had to have a coherent message but also be relevant to each institution’s mission to mitigate possible blow-back for appearing too “political.” Factors that encouraged participation included the extensive content suggestions the organizers provided in advance, support from major museum and library organizations, and knowing which other institutions were participating. Mara will discuss inspiring feedback from the campaign as well as the problematic fact that the viral nature of the campaign activated some of the kind of negative rhetoric and unsubstantiated assertions it was meant to fight. Ultimately, evaluation revealed increased engagement and goodwill for the majority of the institutional partners, was deeply meaningful for participants, and proved that standing up for truth in a mission-aligned way can be a huge benefit for institutions. To demonstrate this, Lucille and Caitlin will share a look at #DayofFacts from within the Field Museum: how they secured institutional buy-in to participate, how the video came to be, and the overwhelming positive reaction they received from their audiences and in staff morale. The campaign demonstrated the need for museums as truth-tellers and provided a productive framework for institutions to assert their missions in a powerfully public and united way.Read less