visitor studies and evaluation
Museums build relationships with visitors and communities by first understanding them. What do they do? feel? know? need?
This understanding doesn’t come from an evaluation report gathering dust on a shelf. It comes from an organizational culture that embraces evaluative thinking in day-to-day practice.
Erin's work with the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum has been creative, thorough, accurate and timely. Regardless of the task, Erin's deliverables have consistently exceeded my expectations.
With Erin's help, my staff and I now have a detailed and understandable roadmap to help us move in the direction our patrons want to go. Our strategic plan has become an invaluable tool in decision making for all of us; we refer to it often-it's our touchstone!
I look forward to the possibility of engaging Erin in future projects as the need arises for evaluation, grant writing or project management.
Be intentional in the logic behind our programs. (What will it take to really get X to result in Y?)
Be analytical, as a team, about what we observe and what the data says.
Make specific, concrete changes to our practice, based on data.
Build internal ownership of data through staff-driven evaluation practices.
Identify and answer critical questions through well-designed evaluation.
Create powerful analytical tools by connect data systems together (think admissions, gift shop, web traffic, online sales, member/donor info).
Use data to understand when visitors are ready to engage more.
Track the key metrics of visitor engagement that matter most to their institutional goals.
Based in the San Francisco area, I specialize in evaluation and visitor studies for museums. In 7 years as a museum evaluator, I've covered a broad range of evaluation (needs assessments, logic modeling, formative/summative evaluation), using qualitative and quantitative methods. I’m always game to dig into a new .csv file, but what really gets me excited is helping museums integrate evaluation into their culture, routines, and decision-making.
Things I do well:
