Audience Research: Uncovering Opportunities for Community Progress

Museum professionals often find themselves confronting the limitations of traditional audience research. Whether through evaluation or market research, familiar practices yield familiar challenges, including:

  • Demographic data that fails to illuminate why people truly engage with our institutions

  • Feedback primarily from current visitors, leaving potential audiences unheard

  • Research outcomes that don’t clearly inform strategic decision-making

  • A disconnect between the institution’s offerings and genuine community needs

These challenges aren’t just about data collection — they reflect a deeper question about how we approach understanding our communities and our role within them.

What if the key to overcoming these obstacles lies not in refining our current methods but in fundamentally reframing the questions we ask?

Are you asking the wrong questions about your audience?

At Museums as Progress, we reframe audience research to focus on community goals and progress. This approach allows you to:

  • Understand diverse motivations driving behaviors

  • Identify new opportunities for engagement and impact

  • Align offerings with genuine audience and community needs

  • Move beyond demographics to support meaningful progress

Progress-Space Research transforms how your museum creates value and drives community impact. By focusing on people’s goals rather than surface-level characteristics, you can uncover strategic opportunities that traditional research misses. This leads to deeper engagement, stronger relationships, and greater impact aligned with what truly matters to your community.

Before and After: Impact of Progress-Space Research

Progress-Space Research

Question: How do caregivers cultivate a child’s interest in nature?

Method: One-to-one listening sessions

Finding: Programs provide strong support for safety-minded caregivers; More can be done for caregivers focused on academic outcomes.

Action: Partner with local schools to align museum offerings with curriculum, emphasizing nature-based STEM activities.

Outcome: Increased school group visits, with teachers reporting improved student engagement in science classes.

Traditional Research

Question: Who visits our museum?

Method: Demographic survey

Finding: 60% of visitors are 50+

Action: Target marketing to people under 50

Outcome: Slight increase in visitors under 50

Comparison of Research Methods

Evaluation

  • Focus: Specific programs, exhibits, or visitor experiences

  • Timeframe: Often shorter-term and project-based; Resulting data is valid for a shorter period

  • Application: Improving existing offerings or formative ideas

  • Limitations: May miss broader context and non-users

Outcome: Improved offerings

Market Research

  • Focus: Audience or community demographics, preferences, and opinions

  • Timeframe: Current market conditions and near-future trends; Shorter lifespan for insights

  • Application: Targeting marketing efforts and program development

  • Limitations: Often misses underlying motivations; Can produce unreliable data based on how people wish to be perceived rather than actual behavior

Outcome: Targeted outreach

Progress-Space Research

  • Focus: Community goals, progress, and the museum’s role in supporting them

  • Timeframe: Longer-term community progress; Resulting data is valid for years or decades

  • Application: Informing overall museum strategy and community engagement

  • Limitations: Requires more internal alignment on which goals are most valuable to the museum (which to prioritize); requires different skill sets from researchers (e.g. Listening for interior cognition)

Outcome: Community-aligned impact

Each method can be valuable to cultural organizations, and we don’t suggest one is inherently better. Different objectives call for different approaches to learning, and the best approach is to consider each of these as part of a well-balanced learning toolkit.

Mapping the Path to Community Progress

Progress-Space Research isn’t just about asking different questions — it’s about seeing your community’s goals in a new light. Our approach to opportunity mapping is rooted in the work of Researcher Indi Young. This approach visually represents the complex landscape of thoughts, feelings, and actions that shape how people pursue their goals and reveals:

  • Hidden barriers and enablers influencing their choices

  • Unexpected connections between different aspects of their journeys

  • Areas where your museum already provides unique, meaningful support

  • Which mindsets and moments your museum is not currently supporting and may wish to invest in

Let’s explore an example Opportunity Map for the goal, “Cultivate a child's curiosity about living things and nature."

Above: An annotated opportunity map describing the goal, "Cultivate Child’s Curiosity About Nature". The map shows mental processes and how the museum supports two neighborhoods of mental attention: “Exploring Nature Together” and “Fostering Learning at Home”. Click the image to enlarge or visit the Miro board to view it in detail.

Understanding the Opportunity Map

The map illustrates caregivers’ experiences as they nurture a child’s interest in nature. Here’s how to interpret it:

  1. Goal: The overarching objective at the top, chosen for its relevance to your institution’s purpose and current challenges.

  2. Neighborhoods of Mental Attention: Sub-goals or focus areas that categorize the larger goal into manageable sections.

  3. Towers of Mental Attention: Vertical stacks representing clusters of specific moments the institution can support.

  4. Summaries (Windows of Attention): Distilled insights from listening sessions, reflecting actual past experiences rather than opinions or preferences.

  5. Capabilities and Supports: Gray boxes below towers show how the organization currently supports different mindsets, revealing areas of strength and opportunity.

Understanding this landscape allows you to identify strategic ways to support your community’s goals beyond traditional exhibit design or program planning. Opportunities that emerge from this map include:

  • Developing resources that bridge museum visits with at-home exploration

  • Addressing common barriers, like concerns about mess or lack of outdoor access

  • Collaborating with schools or community organizations to reinforce learning

  • Creating experiences that cater to the diverse needs within the community

Opportunity Maps transform abstract data into actionable insights, helping you align your museum’s offerings with what truly matters to your community. They provide a foundation for innovation, strategic planning, and meaningful impact that other research methods often miss.

Projects, Workshops, and Services

Align Your Strategy: Prioritization Services

Focus your efforts and resources on the community goals that matter most to your institution.

Collaborate and Learn: The Opportunity Research Lab

Join a community of museums tackling shared challenges through collective research.

Tailored Insights: Custom Research Services

Get in-depth, personalized research to address your museum’s unique challenges and opportunities.

The Opportunity Research Lab

The Opportunity Research Lab

The Opportunity Research Lab is a collaborative initiative where MaP members and participating museums collaborate to conduct practical, community-focused research. These studies address real challenges cultural institutions face today, providing valuable insights to inform decision-making. By contributing data to these studies, Museum Members can access tailored insights, regular updates, and private briefings designed to help them make more informed, community-centered decisions.

Community Goals & the Purposes of Membership

This study, led by Museums as Progress (MaP) and FIVESEED, helps cultural institutions understand the unique community goals they can support. This research aims to describe fundamental member goals, uncover new benefit opportunities, and fuel creative solutions for increased participation. Open to nonprofit cultural organizations in the United States with membership programs, this project offers participants insights into their members’ motivations and needs, informing strategic decisions for more effective community support.

The Retention Puzzle: Membership Professionals’ Perspectives

Membership revenue, though small, provides outsized value to museums due to its unrestricted nature. Member retention is crucial, as acquiring new members costs 3-5 times more than retaining existing ones.

This exploratory study delves into the complex challenge of member retention in museums. Our research reveals how museums currently approach retention, from enhancing member experiences to surveying preferences and provides a foundation for future retention strategies that resonate with both institutions and members alike.

Status: Underway

To participate in a study or get early access to project insights, register your museum.

Prioritization

Prioritization

Effective community engagement starts with a clear understanding of who you’re trying to support and why. Our prioritization approach aligns your team on key community goals, preventing unfocused initiatives and driving meaningful impact.

The Prioritization Workshop

A series of focused, private sessions ideal for teams entering a strategic planning phase or those preferring intensive, expert-led guidance.

The Prioritization Collaborative

This peer-to-peer learning experience unfolds over several months and is best for teams seeking a more gradual, collaborative approach and the opportunity to learn from other institutions.

Custom Research

Custom Research

Uncover the goals driving your community and transform how your museum creates value. Our custom research services go beyond demographics and visitor preferences, revealing strategic opportunities to support genuine community progress.

Through Progress-Space Research, we help you:

  • Uncover hidden opportunities for meaningful engagement

  • Align your offerings with what truly matters to your audience

  • Drive deeper impact and strengthen community relationships

Contact us to find out how Progress-Space Research can drive your museum’s impact and relevance.

Where are you on the path to community progress?

Take the Assessment

Our quick self-assessment will help you identify where you are in your audience research journey. Answer six questions about your current practices to receive personalized suggestions about what steps you can take next.

Have a question about community research?