Arts & Culture
Partnering to Support Community Institutions
Our cultural institutions, such as museums and libraries, not only preserve our history but also educate and inspire the community. It is vital for these institutions to collect and utilize data to effectively understand the needs of their patrons, document the impacts that they make, and maintain and attract new funding sources.
EVALCORP has partnered with cultural institutions to design and implement program evaluations, develop needs assessments, and build evaluation capacity. These services help institutions better understand what drives patronage and how to tailor their services and programs accordingly.
Arts and Culture Expertise and Clients
By collaborating with EVALCORP, museums, libraries, and arts institutions can determine patron needs and demonstrate their impact. Through our partnerships with cultural institutions, we leverage data with the aim of ensuring sustainable, long-term success. For example, when conducting an evaluation capacity building project with a museum, we first conducted a needs assessment through interviews and surveys with staff and patrons. Data were collected to determine organizational goals and assess the alignment of staff on how the museum could better serve individuals and families. Based on such findings, we developed a tailored training curriculum and led an organization-wide Evaluation Capacity Building (ECB) training that helped the museum create an internal culture driven by data-informed decision-making.
Program evaluations help museums and libraries assess and respond to their patrons to ensure that services are accessible. EVALCORP has partnered with museums to create models to predict positive experiences in their museums based on participant characteristics, interests, and needs. Museums can use these findings to develop opportunities to improve overall visitor experience and attract additional patrons and/or funding. As another example, we have consulted with major library systems to conduct large-scale survey initiatives in multiple languages assessing whether patrons felt welcome in the library and how library services could be enhanced. We then analyzed these data and provided user-friendly reports and actionable, data-based recommendations to help the library system ensure maximum accessibility to a diverse range of patrons.
Whether we are helping libraries and museums develop internal evaluation infrastructure, conduct system-wide surveys of their patrons, or leverage evaluation models, we advance a culturally responsive approach. We take the steps necessary to make sure our methods are responsive to the diverse communities we are working with.
Arts and Culture Clients
Some of our libraries, museums and other arts institutions clients include:
- Goodwin Design
- Imperial County Library
- Las Vegas Natural History Museum
- Los Angeles Public Library
- Planet Word Museum
- Pretend City Children’s Museum
- San Jose Public Library
- The Planetary Society
- See our full client list
Case Study: Pretend City Children’s Museum Evaluation Capacity Building
Client: Pretend City Children’s Museum
Service Type: Needs Assessment, Capacity Building & Technical Assistance
Context: Pretend City Children’s Museum, an innovative, interactive museum featuring a child-size city where children learn about the world through play, partnered with EVALCORP to strengthen its internal evaluation capacity and create sustainable systems for measuring, understanding, and communicating the impact of its programs to the broader community.
Approach
EVALCORP conducted a comprehensive needs assessment that included key stakeholder interviews with museum leadership and board members to understand organizational goals, priorities, and potential challenges, as well as surveys with museum floor staff to gauge their current knowledge of evaluation practices and interest in participating in assessment efforts. Findings from the needs assessment directly informed the development of a customized Evaluation Capacity Building plan incorporating multiple training formats tailored to Pretend City’s culture and staff.
EVALCORP worked closely with museum staff to deliver tailored museum-wide foundational evaluation training, followed by a series of advanced workshops for Pretend City’s newly formed internal evaluation team. Our team guided their internal team through the full evaluation cycle, from developing evaluation questions and designing data collection tools to analyzing data and presenting findings.
Impacts Achieved
By the close of our engagement, Pretend City’s internal evaluation team had successfully designed, executed, and presented the findings of their evaluation project to museum staff. The team demonstrated both the depth of skills developed and the ability to reflect critically on their process, identifying refinements to carry into future evaluations. EVALCORP also supported the museum in building lasting organizational infrastructure through evaluation process recommendations, reusable planning templates, and facilitation guides that their team could carry forward independently.