The Community Goals Study
Most museums know who their members are. But knowing demographics doesn't reveal why people join or what keeps them engaged. MaP’s Community Goals Study uncovers the drivers behind member decisions, helping you design offerings that truly matter.
Register by February 28, 2025
The Hidden Gap in Audience Understanding
Traditional approaches to research create three critical blind spots:
Surface-Level Insights: Museums ask members or visitors about their satisfaction with what exists today, missing opportunities to understand what could be meaningful tomorrow.
Demographic Tunnel Vision: Organizations segment people by simplistic characteristics rather than what they're trying to accomplish, limiting our ability to create genuine value.
Misaligned Solutions: Institutions design benefits and programs based on assumptions rather than understanding of people’s goals, leading to engagement that feels transactional rather than supportive.
A Different Approach: Understanding Member Progress
The Community Goals Study:
Uncovers what progress members are trying to make in their lives
Facilitates a discussion within your museum as to which goals your institution is uniquely positioned to support
Builds cross-departmental alignment around community-centered initiatives
Beyond Traditional Member Research: A Midwest Arboretum Case Study
The Challenge: Moving Past Surface-Level Engagement
A large Midwestern arboretum found itself at a familiar crossroads — rich in programming but uncertain how to deepen member connections. While they excelled at delivering beautiful spaces and educational experiences, they questioned whether they were missing deeper opportunities to support their community's goals.
The Research Approach
Using this study’s mixed-methods approach that combines quantitative satisfaction data with AI-assisted voice responses, we mapped member goals against satisfaction levels. This revealed an important pattern: Members frequently engaged in activities where they reported lower satisfaction with available options.
Key Insights
The data revealed that members weren't just seeking traditional benefits — they were trying to accomplish deeper personal and social goals. Members expressed strong interest in:
Getting out of comfort zones
Connecting with history/heritage
Supporting meaningful causes
Building community connections
Finding creative inspiration
One member captured this transformative potential in describing their experience:
"I go to relax … While I was there, I realized some trees are still standing, some trees are not, and it's the native trees that survive. As a result, we have decided to only plant native trees."
What appeared as a simple relaxation visit led to a shift in environmental decision-making.
Strategic Impact
The findings helped the institution:
Validate planned community engagement initiatives for 2025
Identify opportunities to reframe existing programs through goal-oriented messaging
Discover ways to strengthen post-visit communications by connecting experiences to member goals
Build cross-departmental alignment around member-centric approaches
Beyond Traditional Metrics
As their membership director reflected: "I think we should own our own biases … We know that people come here to exercise. We know that they spend time with us. We know that they're impacting their community. But we don't message it in a way that is quite that relevant."
This insight provided new direction for how the organization communicates value, moving from institution-focused messaging to highlighting how people can achieve their personal goals through engagement with the arboretum.
How It Works
1. Getting Started
We encourage you to schedule a call with us to discuss how the Community Goals Study may support your museum’s strategic purpose. This meeting gives us a view into your institution’s priorities, which helps inform the insights we share at the end of the season.
If you decide to participate, you can register online and complete the study agreement form.
Shortly after you register, we’ll share a link with you that will let your colleagues participate in MaP events and follow findings from the Community Goals Study.
2. Deployment & Analysis
We ask that you send a survey to a sample of your membership base. Our team will provide you with templates to email your members, inviting them to participate. (We never ask you to share your members’ contact information.) We'll collect up to 50 responses from your member base.
Our team will then analyze responses and prepare custom insights for your institution. These findings will be delivered in a private repository in advance of your insights briefing. We ask that you review these materials asynchronously to prepare for a fruitful discussion in your briefing.
3. Insights & Briefing
Your team is invited to participate in a private briefing to discuss findings. If you deploy your survey before March 15, your briefing will be held in May; If you deploy in the summer (before August 15), your briefing will be held in November.
In this session, we’ll invite you to identify the most relevant questions that arise from the insights you received. We’ll use our time together to dig deeper into a few of the most relevant opportunities and discuss how these results may shape future strategic decisions at your institution.
How to Get Started
This study is open to nonprofit cultural institutions in the United States with membership programs.
To get started, we encourage you to schedule a call with a member of our team using this link.
If you’re ready to enroll, use the appropriate link below to complete your registration. Study participation includes one year of Organizational Membership benefits ($700–$2,000 value) for your entire staff.
The fee to participate is based on your organization's annual operating budget. If needed, we’ll verify your organization’s operating budget after you enroll. If you need an invoice to pay by ACH or direct debit, please email us.
Project Leaders
The Community Goals Study is led by Museums as Progress (MaP) in collaboration with FIVESEED.
Rosie Siemer
Founder and CEO of FIVESEED, focusing on empathic research, choice architecture, and the future of membership.
Kyle Bowen
Founder of Museums as Progress, specializing in Progress-Space Research for cultural organizations.
FAQ
You'll receive:
A visualization mapping your members' goals against satisfaction levels
Analysis identifying specific opportunity areas unique to your institution
Qualitative insights from member stories and experiences
Strategic recommendations for leveraging findings across departments
A private briefing to discuss findings with your colleagues
Consider the following example from a museum in San Diego. The findings from this survey indicated that one of the primary jobs is “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 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 study will bring similar insights, focusing on membership.
No. We don’t ask you to share your email or 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 study.
Each participating institution receives a collection of individualized insights that’s hosted in MaP’s research repository. Generalized insights are shared in MaP’s Insights space (your staff will have access after registering). Briefings are held at the end of the season (May or November, depending on your deployment date).
In the future, we may expand this study to include visitors and non-visitors. For now, we’re focused on members because they’re your organization’s strategic scouts. They're actively engaged in pursuing goals that matter to them, whether that's connecting with community, finding mental respite, or nurturing creativity. By understanding their journey — both successes and frustrations — you gain valuable insight into broader opportunities.
Keep in mind that members aren't a separate species from non-members. They're simply further along in recognizing your institution as a potential ally in their progress. The goals that drive them are shared by many who haven't yet made that connection.
This is why we start with members — not because they're the only audience that matters, but because they're a good laboratory for understanding how your institution can support people’s progress. The insights we gain often reveal opportunities to serve entirely new audiences who share similar goals but haven't yet discovered you as a potential partner in achieving them.
We collect 50 responses because depth matters more than volume when understanding human goals and motivations. Unlike traditional member surveys that gather surface-level preferences, our survey probes deeper through follow-up questions that reveal the "why" behind member behaviors. Think of it as the difference between having fifty meaningful conversations versus thousands of casual exchanges. The insights we gain — about how people pursue their goals and where they face obstacles — provide actionable intelligence for strategic decision-making. Quality of insight, not quantity of responses, drives transformation.
This is a mixed method semi-qualitative study that will leverage a combination of traditional survey questions paired with a voice survey to gain richer insights into specific goals members are seeking to accomplish in their lives.
This isn't a survey that evaluates your programs or member benefits. It's about understanding the deep currents that move your members through their lives.
Most institutions ask "How can we help people have a better experience at our institution?” We ask "How can our institution support people’s goals?” The difference is significant — Instead of evaluating your current offerings, we're mapping the landscape of human goals and aspirations where your institution could play a vital role. Rather than measuring how well you're meeting known needs, we're uncovering opportunities you might otherwise be unaware of.
Please email us to complete registration — We’ll ensure your membership status is reflected in your registration fee.