Research – American Alliance of Museums

Culture and Community in a Time of Crisis: Join a National Audience Research Collaboration

By Elizabeth Merritt

As museums navigate the coming months and plan for reopening, they find themselves both deluged with too much information and sorely lacking critical data to inform their decision-making. Your news feeds are probably flooded with stories …
For the Love of Front-End Research: How to make new ideas audience-centered using visitor studies

By Elizabeth Bolander

The “Eureka!” moment when you come up with a fabulous idea to implement at your museum is a great one, but it is also sometimes accompanied by trepidation: What if visitors don’t respond to the idea? How can I get my colleagues on board? …
Using the Annual Survey of Museum-Goers as a Catalyst for Change

By Trevor Jones

Who visits our museums? What are their motivations, and what do they expect from the experience? Alternatively, who is not visiting, and why not? These are critical questions for the future of individual museums, and for the entire field. …
Taking a Museum Education Study from Research to Practice

By Emily Holtrop and Stephanie Downey

People often talk about going “from research to practice,” but in reality, this is fraught with challenges, not just among museums but in any field. One primary challenge is that research institutions operate in a realm of theories, …
More Evidence for the Power of Creative Aging

By Bill Tramposch

One of the most fruitful areas of the creative aging movement is the one that explores the arts and aging. The evidence for the positive effects of arts on wellbeing is mounting rapidly and to such a degree that it has spawned a new …
Museums and Public Opinion

By Robert Stein

The news for museums is excellent. National public opinion polling shows that Americans overwhelmingly appreciate and recognize the work of museums as educational and economic assets to their communities. Even more, Americans broadly …
Museums as Economic Engines

By Robert Stein

Museums play an essential role in cultural and social life across the US. They tell our stories, preserve our heritage, interpret the past, and explore the future. In this way, museums enrich our lives daily—feeding a hunger for knowledge …
Landmark Museum Governance Survey: CEOs and Board Chairs Identify Areas for Improvement

By American Alliance of Museums

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 8, 2017 ARLINGTON, VA–Eighty-seven percent of museum directors and board chairs rate their organizations as effective in fulfilling their missions, but there remains significant room for improvement when it comes …
Stand for Your Mission

By Robert Stein

Every nonprofit has its own unique history, culture, and mission, and, therefore, its own view regarding advocacy. But, no matter where you are on the continuum—from doing no advocacy to doing a lot—the path toward greater impact through …