Working with Kera Collective on an evaluation for last year’s exhibition series was invaluable for Brooklyn Botanic Garden. After listening to us and understanding the needs of our organization, the Kera team suggested a two-part study: one focused on a tool to collect visitor feedback and the other aimed at getting a comprehensive look at a semi-permanent co-created exhibition. This holistic approach included interviews with staff, consultants, co-curators, partners, and visitors, as well as a visitor survey. It introduced us to a fresh new way of evaluating our projects and was the perfect method to assess the co-created exhibition. Overall, this evaluation was the most useful I’ve ever received. It not only provided us with suggestions for improvement but also empowered us with the knowledge and tools to achieve our objectives. We are immensely grateful for the professionalism, expertise, and support of the Kera team and will enthusiastically work with them again in the future.

Our interpretive engagement team had a broad idea of what we wanted to know from a particular visitor study, and Kera Collective helped us get to the heart of our actual needs by facilitating our process of formulating actionable research questions and methodologies. They were incredibly collaborative during the course of our study, and it was clear that they cared deeply about us getting the results that would be most helpful in our work moving forward. Their report was clear and had concrete recommendations that we can put into practice. The team at Kera really knows museums, they know visitors, and I would work with them in a heartbeat.

Our repeat engagement with Kera Collective has been an invaluable catalyst for creating impactful programming and building evaluative capacity for our staff. Through our work together, our team developed robust evaluation metrics that guided multiyear internal assessments of our programs – gaining the support of funders and ensuring relevance to the audiences we serve. As a leader, the focus on impact has supported my strategic decision making especially within the context of reshaping our programming in face of the pandemic.

The Kera Collective team was instrumental in helping our museum client get the most out of the visitor evaluation process—pre and post testing. One of the most helpful pieces of advice was for the museum to consider in advance if the results (however they turned out) would be actionable. Afterward, Kera Collective was adept at interpreting the results in a way that laid out practical options for improving the visitor experience.

Kera Collective was the ideal partner for our team’s first formal program evaluation. They held our hand every step of the way and ensured we understood our options at each decision point. I was constantly grateful for their deep understanding of the museum education field. We were able to talk in specific terms about our program and goals, and they were right there with us. This was particularly evident in the Logic Model, a tool they created with and for us that will have a lasting impact on our work. I have no doubt that our program will be stronger not only because of the outcomes of the study, but also because of the time we spent working alongside our Kera colleagues. It was our first formal evaluation, and the experience has motivated me to make sure it will not be our last.

While all our interpretive planning and design work depends on understanding visitor perspectives, Arlington National Cemetery required special consideration. The collaborative Kera Collective team crafted thoughtful questions to elicit input from different visitor groups, including veterans and family members of soldiers buried at this sacred place. Kera Collective’s care and technical skills in getting visitor input guided our design in sensitive and meaningful ways.

Working with the team at Kera Collective since 2016, I have seen first hand how they can adapt and fine-tune their evaluation approach to your given project while recognizing the previous work you've accomplished, leading to more robust evaluation results. This has enabled the Science Museum of Virginia to better understand how our community-focused programs on climate resilience and environmental literacy are truly impacting our audiences as well as our own team members and organizational partners. I look forward to many more projects together!

The Museum of the City of New York had worked with Kera Collective on evaluating education programs in the past and when we had our first major exhibition evaluation ahead of us, we turned immediately to them. As anticipated, their highly professional and collaborative work on formative and summative evaluations on New York at Its Core proved invaluable: the visitor feedback and evaluations on the exhibition in development helped us make important decisions and improvements on what turned out to be an AAM-award winning exhibition. The audience studies and interviews after the exhibition opened consolidated our learning and have continued to help us shape our practice in the years since.