Begun in 1962 as an informal gathering of directors of children's museums, the Association of Children's Museums is headquartered in Washington, D.C. The Association of Children's Museums views children's museums as an "essential community resource where play inspires creativity and lifelong learning."

The mission of the Anne and Kirk Douglas Playgrounds is to encourage schools to refurbish playgrounds. The mission of the Douglas Playground Award is to encourage schools to refurbish playgrounds and rejuvenate school grounds by partnering with others in their community.

The organization, ASTM International, is the developer and provider of voluntary consensus standards in public safety to create industry best practice standards for the public good. ASTM International was originally known as the American Society for Testing and Materials.

The maximum fall height from which a life threatening head injury would not be expect to occur is defined as critical height. ASTM F1292 uses critical height to assess impact attenuation of playground surfacing. The testing for critical height is typically done in a laboratory, however, testing may also be done in the field using the F1292 testing methodology.