In this article, Katie Chandler and co-authors Jen Kretser and Stephanie Ratcliffe explain how early audience research and evaluation shaped The Wild Center's strategies and messaging as it developed a new exhibition focused on climate change solutions.

When thinking about their audiences, museums too often hyperfocus on what to provide for audiences or how to attract them. They think of exhibitions, programs, marketing efforts, and membership drives. However, before jumping to what the museum plans to do or how it will do it, it’s wiser and more helpful to take a step back and consider why doing it is important and who it is for. By thinking through both the “why” and the “who,” museums can locate their purpose and make deliberate decisions with their audiences in mind, rather than heading down a rabbit hole with no clear direction.

In the fall of 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, Kera Collective did a small pro bono study for the Museum Education Division of the National Art Education Association, and the results were published in the Journal of Museum Education the following year. The study was initiated as layoffs were occurring across the museum field. We suspected that more museum educator jobs were being cut or reduced than other positions in museums, so we sent out a survey to educators to gather data. Our suspicions were confirmed. You can read the full results in our article but suffice it to say the data indicated:

At Kera Collective, we average around 20-30 active projects at a given time, of varying size and scope. As a small team, people often ask us how we handle so much work at once. The short answer? We prioritize staying organized.

Lina Bhatti wrote a blog post for the Association for Art Museum Interpretation (AAMI) where she delves into her experience at a folk museum in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Exhibitions are a core part of what most visitors experience when they visit museums in person. But, I often wonder, can exhibitions actually achieve some of the more lofty goals that museums might want to accomplish, such as long-term changes in visitors’ attitudes or behaviors?

I think about time a lot. As the owner of a small consulting company, I can’t help it. Questions like, “When do you need it?,” “Do we have time?,” or “How much time will that take?” are in regular rotation.

In recent years, the museum field, like much of the nonprofit world, has faced a reckoning when it comes to salary transparency and equity, sparking change across the industry.

In light of recent posts about museum workers leaving the field (like this one from Seema Rao and this one from Paul Bowers), I’ve been inspired to write about my own recent career transition from museum education to research and consulting. My hope is that these ideas resonate with any museum educator, or really anybody considering work in another field, who feels uncertain about articulating how their skills can transfer to another profession.

There is a beauty in seeing history that is actively lived in, structures that are actively used rather than sitting behind a glass wall in a museum, tethered away from the lands where they were constructed.

Over the last two years, we galvanized around a refreshed approach and believed this should be reflected by a new name and look. We worked with the talented and inspiring women at Wild Awake Creative to develop the Kera Collective identity so that it reflects who we have come to be and what we see for our future.

As we begin 2022, nearly two years since the pandemic began, what I’m most struck by is that the world I operate in is a fundamentally changed one.

As we exit 2021, I’m reflecting back on where I began the year, when I noted that “in 2020, the museum field as a whole showed itself to be out of step with society. . . [and] irrelevant.” At that time, I had begun having regular conversations with Emlyn Koster, a thought leader with three decades of experience as a nature and science museum CEO.

In her new Centering the Museum anthology, Elaine Gurian recalls our joint 2003 article that began: “Consider a world in which every museum, as either an extension of its mission or as its raison d’être, is geared to respond to contemporary events and issues” Imagining the future of museums has never been a more pressing need.

Using data collected from museum educators, Stephanie and Amanda document and contextualize what they consider incongruous, detrimental impacts on museum education due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Emlyn recalls how Liberty Science Center, located across the lower Hudson from Manhattan and where he was President & CEO from 1996-2011, assisted the next-of-kin and surrounding community in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on and after September 11, 2001.

A discussion between SLAM’s Chief Diversity Officer and Fellowship Director, Renée Brummell Franklin, and Kera Collective Founder Stephanie Downey.

Spurred by the art-dominated sections on Museums in The New York Times, Emlyn reflects on this sector’s pressing need for a balanced profile between people/society and non-human life/nature.

Whether or not public programs are again canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Earth Day each April 22 warrants the engagement of the museum sector. Emlyn Koster explains why.

Emlyn Koster urges the museum sector to combine operational recovery efforts with strategic pathways towards a more holistic societal and environmental future.