Last weekend, the Volkskrant published from a confidential investigation into the Nederlands Fotomuseum. That article, which again made (only) two accusations of cross-border behaviour against sacked director Birgit Donker, caused some controversy.
On Sunday, we got hold of the letter through which the SB invited staff members in September 2025 to participate in the ‘cultural research‘. The SB had to follow that course because, according to the Privacy Act, staff members' data cannot be shared with third parties. (Former) staff members and employees could therefore register themselves.
28 + 39 or 39 - 28?
In the letter, the Supervisory Board stressed that the invitation had been sent to all (former) employees. In the Volkskrant, we could read that of them, 39 people (42 per cent) completed a questionnaire. In addition, 28 (former) staff members were interviewed. The newspaper does not make clear whether the 28 interviewees were among the group of 39 respondents. The Supervisory Board's invitation did state emphatically that a selection would be made from those who answered the questionnaire.
NRC takes up the Volkskrant article on Wednesday 25 March, after we published about the biased questioning in the invitation by the SC largely about. The newspaper says it has also been given access to the investigation report. Incidentally, that research report is qualified as ‘statistically insignificant’, according to the SB itself. That means no value can be assigned to the figures. .
13 out of 92?
The story in NRC shows that ‘almost half’ of the staff interviewed reported bad experiences with Birgit Donkers. So that's less than 14 of 92 (former) staff, let's say 13. Then it becomes interesting to make the whole survey public, because to cause all this misery when 15 per cent of the staff don't like the director, and only 2 of them seem to have a ‘genuine’ complaint? Not only statistically indeed rather irrelevant.
So 85 per cent had very different stories. For example, about interpersonal relationships within the workforce. This may not be statistically significant, but it is interesting.
3 out of 92!
But so now it turns out not all (former) employees have been approached either. Within a day three former employees who informed us that they had not received any invitation. We spoke to them.
“When Birgit [Donker(ed)] took office, the museum was in deep trouble. Few people realised how bad it was. We were in dire straits, there was a change of directors and some go along more easily than others. But how that is being laid on Birgit now is unjustified.” This says Saskia Cornelissen, who worked at the Nederlands Fotomuseum as Head of Operations during that management change. In this position, she was close to the successive boards. Indeed, during the change of guard, she was interim director for a time.
‘Just guessing’
Cornelissen worked at the Nederlands Fotomuseum from 2015 to spring 2020. As a former employee, she should have been asked to cooperate with the now controversial ‘culture survey’. However, she only heard about the study when reports about it appeared in the press.
“I can only guess why I was not asked, because I am not that hard to find,” Cornelissen explains on the phone. Ditte Ooms, who worked at the museum twice as head of marketing and communications during the period investigated by the SB, also did not receive an invitation. A third employee also reports not having been approached, but does not want to be named.
One sentence
All three former employees are not among those who were critical of Donker's performance. Saskia Cornelissen does not want to speculate, but does note: “The world is small, the egos are big.” When the first article appeared in the Volkskrant, she was also quoted with one sentence, even though she had spoken to the journalist in question for ‘at least an hour’.
Her story at the time? “I have always enjoyed working with Birgit. And I really do believe this has been a tough time for some. Under her predecessor Ruud Visschedijk, there was already a reorganisation. Under Birgit, there was also reorganisation. That always causes stress. But there was enough openness to say what you thought. I also sat at the dismissal talks with Birgit. that didn't go out of bounds.”
Nederlands 
English (UK) 
Français 