The Value Realization Collaborative with John Falk
Most museums invest significant resources trying to engage their communities. They track visitor numbers, measure satisfaction scores, and segment audiences by demographics. But what if these familiar metrics can obscure more fundamental challenges?
An exhibition can drive record crowds without creating lasting community impact; High member satisfaction scores can cloak opportunities to better support member goals; Detailed demographic data says nothing about why people engage.
The Data-Driven Paradox
The Value Realization Collaborative (VRC) emerged from a striking realization: Museums can't become more data-driven until they have a compelling reason to collect and share meaningful data.
When we began exploring how to help museums become more data-driven (thread), we found something unexpected: The barrier wasn't technical capability or resource constraints — it was purpose. Without a clear understanding of what progress they're trying to measure, museums default to counting what's easy rather than what matters.
This insight transformed our approach. Instead of starting by trying to understand the barriers to data collection or sharing within museums, we now begin with a more fundamental question: What is the ONE critical challenge your institution needs to address? Without a shared understanding of what matters, efforts to become more data-driven are untethered attempts to optimize hollow practices.
Data can be used to solve many problems, so we surveyed members of our community to see which challenges were most important to their institutions today. Several interconnected challenges emerged at the top of the list: Audience Engagement and Diversification, Financial Sustainability and Funding Constraints, and Measuring and Communicating Institutional Impact.
Of these, we identified Audience Engagement and Diversification as the lynchpin — If we can help institutions make headway in this problem space, this will have positive implications for Financial Sustainability and Impact measures …
From Data to Understanding
This focus on audience engagement revealed another crucial insight: Museums often collect demographic data without truly understanding the people behind the numbers. We needed a fundamentally different approach — one that could reveal not just who engages with museums, but why they do so and what progress they're trying to make in their lives.
This is where Dr. John Falk's groundbreaking work provides a critical path forward. For over three decades, his research on visitor identity and free-choice learning has helped museums look beyond surface-level demographics to understand the deeper patterns that drive engagement. His Value Realization Process offers what data-driven initiatives have been missing: a practical framework for understanding and supporting genuine community impact.
Redefining the Problem
The Value Realization Collaborative combines Falk's methodology with MaP's Progress-Space Research approach to help museums:
Identify which community goals they're uniquely positioned to support
Move beyond demographic data to understand genuine community goals
Develop sustainable relationships with diverse communities
Create clear paths from visitor insights to measurable value
Build internal capacity for ongoing progress
This isn't just about collecting better data or increasing engagement — it's about transforming how museums understand their role in their communities' progress. Instead of asking "How do we engage more people?" we help museums ask "What value might we provide and what progress can we help our community achieve?"
The difference is significant — When museums focus on progress and value rather than engagement, they discover opportunities for impact that traditional approaches miss entirely.
Program Overview
The Value Realization Collaborative offers two pathways for institutional progress:
1) Foundations Series with Dr. John Falk
February 2025
A focused introduction to value realization principles through Dr. Falk's forthcoming book, Leaning Into Value: Becoming a User-Focused Museum and Progress-Space Research methods through courses by Indi Young.
Foundations participants:
Attend four 80-minute sessions exploring core principles with Dr. Falk each Thursday in February (view session 1, 2, 3, and 4)
Access to Progress-Space Research courses, beginning with Listening Deeply
Attend private Listening Circles where participants surface hidden assumptions and practice deep listening techniques (through February 2025)
Receive implementation guidance through office hours (through February 2025)
Have the option to upgrade to the full program experience after completing the Foundations series
2) Full Program Experience
February–November 2025
Move beyond traditional metrics to uncover what genuinely matters to your community. This guided journey helps you shift from measuring what's easy to understanding what's meaningful.
Core Program Elements:
Everything in the Foundations Series
Private workshop with Dr. Falk to identify your institution's strategic focus (March)
Structured framework for collecting meaningful community insights
Year-round access to Listening Circles and guided practice sessions
By November, your institution will have:
A map of how a critical community segment approaches a goal of strategic value to your institution
Evidence-based insights into which goals you're uniquely positioned to support
Practical tools for measuring genuine community impact
Registration Ends:
Friday, January 31, 2025
This pilot program is limited to 12 organizations to ensure personalized attention and support.
There are six seats remaining.
2025 Program Structure
Phase 1: Foundations
January–February: Participants attend weekly sessions with Dr. Falk to discuss Leaning Into Value: Becoming a User-Focused Museum. Learning Leaders from each institution can begin coursework (Listening Deeply in Museums) and attend Listening Circles with MaP members to practice what they’re learning in the course. Institutions enrolled in the Foundations program can decide if they’d like to upgrade their registration to continue with the full program.
Phase 2: Calibration & Listening
March: Each institution participates in a private workshop with Dr. Falk to identify which community goal they’d like to focus on for the remainder of the program. Learning leaders should complete the Listening Deeply course, by March 15 and begin work on courses 2 and 3 (data synthesis).
April–June: Learning leaders collect data by hosting listening sessions. In May, participants will share their progress at the MaP & Tell Unconference. Data synthesis course #1 is completed by June 15.
Phase 3: Synthesis & Creation
July–September: Learning leaders begin synthesizing data. Data synthesis course #2 is completed by September 15. Participants attend office hours and co-working sessions to make sense of the data they’ve collected so that they can produce an opportunity map.
Phase 4: Implementation & Validation
October–November: Participants create opportunity maps — visual assessment tools that evaluate how your institution can better support the diverse ways people approach their goals. These maps become powerful tools for funding appeals and stakeholder communications.
In November, participants will share their findings at the MaP & Tell Unconference.
How to Get Started
This program is open to nonprofit cultural institutions in the Americas.
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. Program participation includes one year of Organizational Membership benefits ($700–$2,000 value) for your entire staff. If your institution is already enrolled in Organizational Membership, you’re eligible for a partner discount. Contact us for more information.
NB: Learning Leaders are those who have access to course materials; Additional learning leaders can be added ($360 each); There is no limit to the number of staff who can attend events and workshops.
If you need an invoice to pay by ACH or direct debit, please email us.
Who Should Participate
This program is designed for museums that are:
Ready to move beyond traditional metrics
Committed to understanding community goals
Prepared to implement strategic change
Able to dedicate staff time to research and implementation
Participating Cultural Institutions
FAQ
Learning leaders are members of your team who have access to course materials and are responsible for data collection and synthesis at your institution. We recommend identifying at least two staff members who will serve as learning leaders. More learning leaders distributes the workload for data collection and synthesis, which means less time required by each individual. More staff from more corners of the museum also leads to better alignment and understanding between departments — This program will foster cross-department collaboration if you bring a diverse team.
Participants are any and all staff at your museum. Participants don’t have access to course materials and are not directly involved in data collection, but they can participate in events, such as the February event series with John Falk.
The time commitment will vary depending on the staff member's role and the project phase. Learning leaders should expect to spend between 2 and 6 hours per week on reading, coursework, data collection, and synthesis. (The amount of time depends on a number of factors, including the number of learning leaders your institution has — more learning leaders means less time per staff member.)
Executives should expect to devote an average of two hours per month in sessions and reading. (The February foundation series will be the most time intensive period.)
Program participants will have direct access to Dr. Falk throughout the year. In addition to weekly February group discussions, Dr. Falk will co-facilitate calibration workshops with each participating organization, participate in Office Hours sessions to answer questions, and participate in two end-of-season unconference sessions where participants will share their progress with program leaders, fellow community members, and unconference attendees. These sessions will provide opportunities to:
Validate your institution's progress-focused initiatives
Get an expert perspective on your opportunity mapping
Connect your work to broader sector trends
MaP provides support throughout the data collection and synthesis process:
Courses: Three core courses on data collection and synthesis, accessible anytime through our platform
Co-working sessions: weekly sessions with trained MaP team members which are critical for assisting with recruitment and data synthesis
Office hours with Dr. Falk
Live practice sessions for learning leaders
Asynchronous expert access: Direct messaging support for course-specific questions
We recommend participating with 2-3 cross-functional colleagues whose roles involve creating and communicating value for your audiences. This work is most effective when it brings together diverse perspectives from across your institution. Ideal participants can come from:
Education
Curation
Exhibits
Visitor Experience
Community Outreach
Membership
Marketing
Research & Evaluation
The most successful teams often include both those who direct institutional strategy and those who implement it. While researchers and evaluators can be valuable team members, the shift toward goal-oriented understanding needs to be driven by those who shape your museum's relationship with its communities.
The individual's curiosity and commitment to developing a more user-centered institution are more important than their title. What matters most is that participating staff members have the interest and institutional support to help lead this transformation.
The primary output is an opportunity map. An opportunity map describes how people approach a goal. It is also a tool that assesses an organization’s stregths and weaknesses in supporting the goal in question.
Here is an example (click to expand):
In the example above, the organization has chosen the goal Cultivate child’s interest in living things/nature. Your institution’s goal will be different — Every map is unique and is based on the organization’s strategic priorities and what’s relevant to their specific, local communities.
The light blue columns describe the different “towers” of mental attention — These are created based on listening sessions with community members.
The darker grey columns below describe ways that the institution is trying to support the various approaches to the goal. In some columns we see more instances, which may suggest stronger support. In others there are few or even no instances of the organization supporting the tower of mental attention. These represent areas where the organizaiton may wish to invest resources (e.g., improved communications, changes to programs, new programs, etc.)
Please email us to complete registration — We’ll ensure your membership status is reflected in your registration fee. If your institution has been enrolled for more than 3 months, you’re also eligible for a partner discount on this program.
Have a different question?
Ready to Get Started?
Select your registration tier and begin your institution's journey toward becoming more user-centered.
Need Funding Approval?
We've created a template you can download, edit, and share with colleagues and stakeholders to make the case for your museum's participation.