As museums strive to become more inclusive and relevant to their communities, many leaders grapple with questions about audience engagement that go beyond traditional demographic breakdowns. In response to the thoughtful queries we’ve received from participants in our recent session on , we'll share a series of posts to address these concerns.
This series aims to provide valuable insights into museums' challenges today, drawing on the combined expertise of Museums as Progress (MaP) and Dr. John Falk. Each post will tackle specific questions from museum professionals, offering views on how our upcoming program in 2025 will help institutions enrolled in MaP's Organizational Membership transform their approach to audience engagement and community support.
Our posts will cover key topics such as:
Engaging diverse audiences beyond demographics
Measuring impact and value in museums
Implementing change based on audience insights
Putting new theories and approaches into practice
Today, I’ll start by addressing two questions about engaging diverse audiences.
To respect cultural differences, museums can let people define for themselves how they are different from one another.
A community member asked:
“I’m curious about how the framework would approach cultural diversity differences in each of our countries and regions. I’m really interested in how we engage with Indigenous audiences in Canada as part of our truth and reconciliation, and I wonder what the framework would do to help us to customize to those culturally different audiences that we serve.”
This question touches on a crucial aspect of modern museum practice: how to engage meaningfully with diverse communities, especially those that have been historically marginalized or underrepresented in cultural institutions.
The approach we’ll be exploring in our collaboration moves beyond traditional demographic categorizations to focus on people’s goals. This shift allows for a more nuanced understanding of your community, regardless of their cultural background.
This doesn’t discount the importance of cultural differences. Rather, we adopt a more integrated view of different communities by grouping people based on goals rather than only demographics. In addition to promoting a more respectful view of the complex identities we assume throughout our lives, an integrated, goals-centered approach to defining audience segments enriches our appreciation of the real similarities and differences between how people approach goals that matter to them.
Our program proposes a shift in how museums approach cultural diversity. Instead of studying each cultural group separately, we suggest focusing on shared goals across different communities. This approach recognizes that:
People from various cultural backgrounds may share common goals.
Individuals within a cultural group may have diverse ways of pursuing these goals.
Cultural background influences how people approach their goals, but it doesn’t define them solely.
By starting with goals rather than predetermined cultural categories, museums can:
Discover unexpected commonalities across different groups
Recognize diversity within cultural communities
Develop more nuanced, respectful ways to support various cultural perspectives
This method allows for a more organic, bottom-up understanding of your community rather than imposing predefined cultural categories. It helps avoid oversimplification while still acknowledging the important role of cultural background in shaping people’s approaches to their goals.
For engaging with Indigenous audiences in Canada, for example, the process would involve:
Prioritizing a goal that is commonly held by Indigenous people in the museum’s community (note that it is likely that other non-indigenous people may also share that goal, and our approach advocates for the inclusion of those perspectives and approaches in your learning).
Listening to people who share that goal to understand individuals' mental models and inner thinking as they address their goals.
Identifying how these goals are (or are not) supported by your museum and what resources might be allocated to better support those mindsets.
Co-creating or improving experiences and programs that support these goals based on the lived experience of those who have that goal.
By focusing on goals rather than demographics, you can create more authentic connections that respect and support the unique perspectives of Indigenous communities.
To change funders’ minds, museums may have to accept that there’s no changing funders’ minds
Another member asked:
“How can we get funders to look beyond traditional demographic surveys in grant reports?”
This is a common challenge for museums trying to implement more nuanced audience engagement strategies. While demographic data can provide valuable insights, it often fails to capture the full picture of a museum’s impact on its community.
To address this, consider the following approaches:
Engage with funders to understand their priorities while fulfilling current requirements. Consider initiating conversations about alternative metrics to better capture your museum’s impact. For example, you could ask, “We’re exploring new ways to measure our community impact. Would you be open to discussing how goal-based metrics could complement our demographic reporting?” Some funders may be receptive to innovative measurement approaches, especially if you can demonstrate how these methods provide deeper insights into your museum's effectiveness. Start with small steps, perhaps by including a supplementary report showcasing goal-based metrics alongside traditional demographic data. This allows funders to see the value of alternative approaches without immediately abandoning familiar metrics, ultimately building a more comprehensive picture of your museum's impact.
Alternatively, you could accept that funders may never change their priorities or definitions of success. That may sound defeatist, but the sooner we accept that we can’t change others, the sooner we can move on and stop letting others define success for us.
Accept stakeholder requirements as a tool to enrich your efforts rather than interpreting them as an end in themselves. Just because funders have certain requirements doesn’t mean you can’t meet those requirements while fulfilling your own. You can understand your communities in both demographic/quantitative and goal-centered/qualitative ways. It’s up to you to decide how and when to deploy that learning based on your current needs. The story you tell to funders can emphasize demographics, and the stories you tell internally to support your communities can be goal-based, and both can be true.
If you’re not ready to relinquish hope (I’m not), consider how we can guide external stakeholders towards new priorities and definitions of success. Museums can be creative experts regarding the communities they support — but to fulfill that role, they’ll need to demonstrate other ways of understanding. This change starts with us. No one other than museum professionals will initiate and shape this evolution in our field.
In our upcoming program with Dr. Falk, we’ll work with participants to develop compelling narratives and data visualizations to help funders understand the value of looking beyond demographics. By shifting the focus from who is visiting to why they’re visiting and their progress toward their goals, you can provide funders with a more comprehensive and meaningful picture of your museum’s impact.
As we continue this series, we’ll delve deeper into measuring impact, implementing institutional change, and putting theory into practice. If you’d like to participate in our 2025 pilot program you can register your interest here.