The value of your institution can’t be measured by “engagement.”
Value isn’t defined by museum staff, leaders, or board members. It’s defined by the museum’s users. Museum professionals value audience engagement. Audiences value the well-being outcomes that museums provide. “Engagement” is just the residue left behind. When we measure engagement, we measure the shadow of what the public values, not the value itself. We claim their goal is ours, and hope that making the shadow jump will somehow impact the source — like trying to steer a cat by its tail.
Rather than focus limited resources on improving engagement metrics, museums can prioritize the well-being outcomes that produce engagement.
Our partner John Falk has identified 24 outcomes that museums support — the result of decades of research into visitor experience.
The 24 outcomes
These outcomes produce what we observe as “engagement,” but engagement is not on the list itself.
This perspective represents a shift for museums. Today, many institutions take a product-focused approach to their work. Experts produce outputs that succeed to varying degrees, with success defined either by what the experts themselves would recognize as valuable (to people like themselves) or by the aforementioned engagement metrics. The alternative is an outcomes-driven approach that defines success based on value to the participant (visitor, member, donor).
This change takes time. For those ready to start that journey, we begin with an Outcomes Assessment. The survey measures across four key dimensions of organizational performance: Critical Challenges, Financial Performance, Learning Capabilities, and Participant Outcomes.
We start by acquainting staff with well-being outcomes through the survey itself. Here’s the result of one question from one institution:
How often do participants spend quality time with others beyond their own group or family?
Most staff at the institution think that participants at their museum occasionally spend quality time with others beyond their own group or family. Four staff members think this outcome is among the most commonly achieved at their museum; one says they simply do not know.
One outcome is interesting, but the overall picture can be more useful. Look at how staff at one museum responded across the total number of outcomes:
Most staff feel that they support most outcomes most of the time. That’s not unusual. Look at where there’s more density to the right or left of the “frequent” column. Staff at this museum believe participants “are immersed in an exciting or beautiful setting” and “see or do things they do not usually get to see or do.” Relative to other outcomes, they think it’s less common for participants to “spend quality time with others beyond their own group or family.” There’s also more uncertainty about how often participants achieve Intellectual Outcomes overall.
These patterns are a powerful starting point for discussion within the museum. Why are we less certain about these outcomes and not others? How would we know if people are achieving these outcomes? What would have to be true for us to excel at outcome x instead of outcome y? These are strategic questions that put user value first. The instrument is a tool to facilitate that discussion.
Why staff perceptions and not visitor surveys?
Because outcome data from visitors, members, or donors is only as useful as your team’s agreement on what you’re trying to deliver. When staff disagree on which outcomes matter, survey data becomes ammunition for whoever’s loudest. The assessment surfaces what your own staff believe — and where they quietly disagree — so the strategic conversation starts from a picture everyone can see.
What about you?
Take a moment to reflect on how often you think your museum’s users achieve a few of these outcomes. Once you select your options, you’ll see how your perspective lines up against what professionals at participating institutions have answered.
Rate how commonly participants achieve each outcome at your institution today.
What does it look like when we look for patterns across museums?
Every institution that joins adds to the picture.
Staff rated each outcome from Rare (0) to Most Common (3).
Fainter bars indicate wider cross-institutional disagreement.
Bring this conversation to your colleagues.
If you’d like to see how your own museum views user outcomes, you can distribute the survey at your institution. It takes between ten and twenty minutes to complete, and you’ll receive an outcomes alignment map to share and discuss with your team. There is no cost to participate.
About this data
Participating institutions contributed different numbers of responses. The patterns above describe what staff at those institutions believe; they are not sector-wide benchmarks. Staff could answer “Unknown” on any outcome. We exclude those responses from the calculations, so each outcome’s score includes only the staff who said they had a basis to assess it. The single-museum view is one real institution, anonymized as “Museum A,” where 23 staff responded.
We developed the assessment instrument with John Falk. It measures 24 outcomes, grouped into four categories: Physical, Intellectual, Social, and Personal.