MaP Academy • Labs
Understanding Community Goals and the Purposes of Membership: Gardens & Arboreta
Registration Deadline: July 31, 2024
Lab Overview
Community Goals and the Purposes of Membership: Gardens and Arboreta is a study designed to help arboreta and botanic gardens understand the audience goals their organizations are uniquely positioned to support. The study is led by Museums as Progress (MaP) and FIVESEED.
If your organization registers for this lab, we ask that you send a survey to your membership mailing list. The MaP/FIVESEED team will present customized findings to help you better engage and retain your members.
Objectives
Describe the fundamental goals of gardens and arboreta members
Uncover possibilities for new and enhanced member benefits and experiences
Fuel a cross-departmental project to design new and creative solutions to increase member participation
Eligibility
If you work at a nonprofit Public Garden or Arboretum located in the United States with a membership program, you’re eligible to participate in this study.
Project Leaders
Rosie Siemer is the founder and CEO of FIVESEED. Her work focuses on empathic research, choice architecture, and the future of membership.
Kyle Bowen is the founder of Museums as Progress, a research consultancy specializing in progress-space research for cultural organizations.
Registration
Register for a Museum Membership to participate in this lab. The fee for the lab is included with your organization’s Museum Membership fee.
Steps and timeline
First, complete the registration form below.
Next, complete payment for your Museum Membership by July 31, 2024. Enrollment fees are based on your organization’s operating budget and range from $176 to $1,495. View pricing→
Finally, send the survey link to your member email list within the designated deployment window (August 2024).
Throughout the summer and fall of 2024, you can follow project updates in the lab space on the MaP Community website. Participating organizations will be invited to participate in a private virtual briefing in late 2024 to discuss the findings and implications of the research for their institutions. Read the FAQ↓
Get Started
Share the factsheet with your colleagues.
FAQ
Consider the following example: A museum surveyed its potential visitors in the San Diego market to identify the experiences audiences seek for leisure and education. The findings from this survey indicated that one of the primary jobs potential visitors are seeking to fulfill is to “Connect with my community.”
Our research found that potential visitors were less satisfied with the availability of options in San Diego that could support this particular goal, this represented an opportunity where the museum could differentiate itself in the marketplace. Further, the concept of connecting audiences to their community was strongly aligned with the museum’s mission. This important insight informed marketing messaging, exhibit design, and program development. In addition, insights from the JTBD study helped guide strategic decision-making around the museum’s new membership program, including opportunities to introduce community-impact benefits and community-focused member events.
This lab will bring similar insights to gardens and arboreta, focusing on membership. (For a closer look at this example, view this post.)
Participation in labs is included with Museum Membership. To make participation accessible to more organizations, the fee is based on organizations’ annual operating budgets.
Museum Membership offers additional benefits and can be renewed each year. However, if your organization prefers to only participate in a single lab, you can join for one year only.
We don’t ask you to share your mailing list with us. We will provide the information needed so that you can invite your members to participate in the survey.
No, not for this lab.
We will host two briefings to accommodate schedules. These will also be recorded and the recordings will be shared with participating organizations.
A written report will also be made available in 2025.