Evolving the Impact Strategy for a Children’s Museum
Client: Creative Discovery Museum | Location: Chattanooga, TN | Funding: Institute for Museum and Library Services
We revisited the impact strategy for the Creative Discovery Museum in preparation for assessment of two new children’s museum exhibitions.
OVERVIEW
In 2023, we partnered with the Creative Discovery Museum to reevaluate the impact strategy for young audiences and their caregivers. Guided by an Impact Framework that was developed in collaboration with us in 2017, the museum has consistently used evaluation to assess the impact of its programs and exhibitions.
Reevaluating the museum’s impact strategy was initiated by the museum’s evaluation team in order to incorporate the ideas of new museum staff and in anticipation of evaluations for two new IMLS-funded exhibitions, Little Farmhouse and UnEarthed.
APPROACH
Revisiting CDM’s Impact Strategy included:
Two in-person workshops focused on articulating and measuring impact
A revised Impact Framework for the museum
Ongoing professional support for the museum’s evaluation team as they developed evaluation plans for Little Farmhouse and UnEarthed (e.g., reviewing evaluation indicators, instruments)
CLIENT TAKEAWAYS
As an organization, CDM has made a commitment to evaluation, including creating a permanent position for an in-house evaluator since 2017. Their commitment is further evidenced by the fact that they chose to intentionally revisit their Impact Framework and revise it to reflect changing museum priorities and incorporate the voices of new staff and partners.
Staff was able to operationalize the revised Impact Framework right away by developing evaluation indicators for the Little Farmhouse and UnEarthed exhibitions that are aligned with the audiences and outcomes outlined in the Framework. They were then able to use these indicators to design timing and tracking and interview instruments that they used to collect data from visitors in the exhibitions.