Evaluation of the Brooklyn Historical Society’s Voice of Crown Heights Oral History Community Program
Client: Brooklyn Historical Society | Location: Brooklyn, NY | Funding: Institute for Museum and Library Services
We measured the effectiveness of the Brooklyn Historical Society’s public programs in encouraging listening skills and sparking conversations about community issues through the lens of oral histories.
OVERVIEW
Created through a unique partnership between Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn Movement Center, and Weeksville Heritage Center, the Voices of Crown Heights programs created opportunities for listening and conversation about community issues through public programs grounded in local oral histories.
We had the exciting opportunity to evaluate not only the effectiveness of these programs on participants, but also the partnership between the three organizations who co-developed and hosted these programs.
APPROACH
To evaluate the Voices of Crown Heights programs, we developed a paper survey that was administered by partner organizations at the end of each program and then analyzed by our team of evaluators.
The partnership was evaluated through phone interviews with staff at each site who were closely involved in the programs to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of the partnership, aspects of the partnership they would change, how the project related to their organization’s mission, and how it might help their organization think about similar projects in the future.
CLIENT TAKEAWAYS
Overall, the partnership and programs received highly positive responses from the community and partner organizations. For example, many program participants found personal relevance and a deeper understanding of the Crown Heights community from attending the programs.
And, beyond developing relationships between the partner organizations and new audiences, partners observed that the programs appeared to bring together groups of people from different parts of Brooklyn who don’t necessarily interact often.
Reflection interviews with staff at partner organizations also suggested some clear areas of improvement for similar partnership projects in the future–for example, more ongoing collaboration across all partners when developing programs, rather than the lead organization working with each partner independently.
