Building Family Audiences Mountain-Plains Museum Association Conference, October 3, 2012

1. Building Family Audiences
Robbin Davis
Director of Visitor Services
Oklahoma History Center
rdavis@okhistory.org
Jason Harris
Director of Education
Oklahoma History Center
jharris@okhistory.org
Amelia Wiggins
Educator for Family
and Studio Programs
Stark Museum of Art
awiggins@starkmuseum.org

2. First Steps: developing a family audience
Finding Parents
• Ask partner institutions to share contacts
• Contact local homeschools, preschools, camps,
mothers’ groups.
• Talk to loyal patrons who are seniors – some
may be grandparents!
• Ask parents eager to get involved to spread the
word!
Advisory Group
• Use an established group of parent visitors as a
sounding board for new initiatives.
• Meet at a pre-set time to do formal evaluation.
• You can also ask them to model for PR photos!

3. First Steps: developing a family audience
Front-End Evaluation
• Implement front-end evaluation to measure new
initiatives, such as the Stark’s Family Guide.
• Front-end evaluation will reveal problems you never
considered.
• USE the results! Don’t just sit on feedback.
Building Family Advocates
• Ask parents who visit the museum regularly about
their experience – most will be happy to share.
• Let them know you’re working to build new
initiatives designed to serve families.
• Ask them to spread the word among their contacts.
• Email them, friend them on FB, keep in contact.
• The ball will begin rolling as they spread news of the
Museum’s family initiatives through word of mouth.

4. Getting the word out!
Schools
• Ask superintendents to approve flyers; most
schools are happy to distribute them
• Build relationships with teachers; they can
become advocates.
• Use existing school programs as an opportunity
to introduce new family initatives, as well.
Pre-Kindergarten groups
• Offer hands-on tours designed for pre-K groups
Scouts
• Market educational family programs to scouts.
• Ask local scout council leaders to distribute
event flyers to their troops by email.

5. Getting the word out!
Daycares and Preschool groups
• MOPS: Mothers of Preschoolers
• Contact local church youth groups and
children’s ministries
• Send flyers to local daycares and ask them to
distribute them. Offer them an educational tour
of the museum for their class.
Homeschool groups
• Homeschoolers are some of our most loyal
patrons – they are looking for local educational
opportunities and will spread the word!
• Homeschoolers have special interests & needs.
Local camps and afterschool
programs
• Boys and Girls Club, Campfire

6. Collaboration
Work with an institution with an
established family audience.
• Don’t need to reinvent the wheel – ask other
organizations to share what has worked for
them, and their contacts!
• Partner with an outside institutions to broaden
the audience of both.
Design programs that bring in
local artists, performers.
• Stark Museum Family Days often feature local
actors, musicians, or artists.
• Building relationships with local performers
will help you reach new audiences.
• Collaborating with local artists is a way to grow
your expertise, engage your audience, and
enliven the collection.

7. Creating new family-focused programs
Family Days
• In 2008, the Stark Museum offered its first Family
Day. 4 years later, it is the museum’s largest event.
• Family Days consistently bring in new audiences.
• Family Days reach underrepresented demographics.
• Presenting Family Days as an ongoing series, with
new content each time, drives repeat attendance.
• Stark Museum Family Days are built around a
theme that links to the special exhibition.
• A balance of entertainment and education:
• Scavenger hunts encourage close observation to detail in the galleries.
With prizes!
• Hands-on art-making that can scale up or down for multiple ages.
• Performances by artists/musicians/actors.. Live animals are also great!
• Small activities throughout that can relieve the pressure of large crowds.
• Refreshments! Snacks and juice boxes for hungry kids.

8. Creating new family-focused programs
Vacation Week Programs
• Families are looking for things to
do during school vacations; make
sure you have something to offer
on break weeks.
Drop-In Days
• The Stark Museum offers drop-in
art days during winter breaks.
• We use leftover supplies to provide
hands-on activities in the lobby.
• Staffed by docents.
• This easy, low-cost program
significantly boosted our
December attendance last year. We
recieved about 50 drop-in visitors
each day it was offered.

9. Creating new family-focused programs
Summer Camps
• The Stark Museum started by partnering
with Shangri La Botanical Garden to
create joint art-and-science camps.
• One session in 2009 grew into nine weeks
of camps and classes in summer 2012.
• Camps are a way to provide in-depth
Museum experiences for children.
Classes for Children
• Art Quest was introduced in Spring 2011
as an art class over 2-3 mornings.
• Serves younger children (1st grade+)
through this half-day schedule.

10. Making your museum family-friendly
Family Guide
• The Stark Museum’s first family
initiative was to write a Family Guide.
• It was geared to grades 3-6.
• It includes both facts about the art and
questions to promote discussion.
• Designed to be easily maintained within
the changing galleries; can be added to.
• 28% of Family Visitors report using it.
• Many, especially younger children, use
the colorful cards like a scavenger hunt
and do not read the text – that’s ok.

11. Making your museum family-friendly
Gallery Interactives &
Hands-On Areas
• The Stark designs a hands-on Education
Area in every special exhibition.
• Education Areas include children’s
books, comfy places to sit, interactives
such as art-making stations, touch
objects, and educational text.
• Education Areas are designed with
families in mind, but are for visitors of
all ages – not just children!

12. Making your museum family-friendly
Integrating Hands-On
Educational Elements
This summer, due to the positive feedback the
Stark Museum recieved from the introduction
of Education Areas, we designed an exhibit
that integrated hands-on, interactive stations
with collection objects.
“Explore Art: Materials and Methods
Revealed” offered visitors of all ages a chance
to make art while viewing art, touch artists’
tools, and watch artists’ techniques in videos.
In-depth evaluation, including visitor interviews
and observation, proved the success of this
approach. * We hope to present the results at TAM 2013!

13. Making your museum family-friendly
Tips for Family Visitors
The Stark Museum offers tips for family
visitors on our website and in a pamphlet.
• We recommend quick visits of 20-60
minutes, with a break at the park outside.
• Read a story about museums first.
• Review “museum manners.”
• Use simple, open-ended questions to
discuss art with children.
What do you see in this painting? How was this work of art made?
• Try a game with the whole family.
Pretend you are detectives searching for clues, or act out a scene in a painting.
• With young children, play Seek & Find.
Search for colors and shapes, or count the animals in the works of art.
• Come back for Family Day!

14. Making your museum family-friendly
Strollers, baby changing
stations, and more!
• Details like baby changing stations,
policies about food and bottle feeding,
and encouraging strollers in the galleries
will go a long way to make families feel
comfortable and welcomed.
• Unfortunately, a negative experience
due to any of these elements can
damage the museum’s reputation as a
place for families.

15. Encouraging repeat family visits
Email: Family event e-blasts
• Collect the email addresses of family visitors!
• Email is a quick and inexpensive way to
connect with families and keep them informed
about upcoming events, camp registration, etc.
• 21% of Stark Museum Family Day visitors
hear about the event through email.
Develop a series of family events
• If you liked this event, there’s more to come!
Over time, families will look forward to the
next Family Day or art class.
• Scheduling events at the same times each year
helps parents remember.

16. Encouraging repeat family visits
Facebook
• More and more parents are on Facebook –
ask them to follow the Museum’s page.
• Ask other organizations’ pages, such as the
local CVB, to share your events.
• Solicit and respond to comments on Facebook.
Posting photos
• Post event photos online (Facebook or Flickr).
Parents love seeing photos of their kids in the
Museum, and it reminds them of their visit
after it’s over.

17. Encouraging repeat family visits
Building lasting relationships
Keep in touch with families personally.
• Ask about them when you run into them at the
grocery store.
• When older children age out of
programs, welcome younger siblings – or
create a teen program!
• Do outreach at community events, both as a
way to promote the museum, and to keep in
touch with local families and happenings.
• Seize opportunities outside of work to ask
about people’s families and introduce them to
programs the museum offers for them.

18. Challenges
Reaching underserved audiences
Barriers for minority and low-income families
may include:
• Less leisure time for museum visits, or
museum hours that conflict with work hours
• Access to transportation to/from museum
• Unfamiliarity with the museum, sense of
unwelcomeness
• Difficulty registering for camps, classes
• Lack of access to computer, internet
• Build ties with schools and community leaders who can
help the museum connect with underserved groups .
• Partner with an existing organization to bring in new
audiences.
• Measure audience demographics to evaluate who you’re
reaching.

19. Challenges
Working with multiple age groups
simultaneously
• Build scalable activities that provide learning
experiences for multiple ages and abilities
(including parents & grandparents!)
• Can a 3-year-old participate in some way?
• Better yet, can a 3-year-old’s view change his
sister’s or his grandfather’s perspective?
• Encourage discussion with interpretive questions.
• Relate content to the personal lives of visitors -
of multiple generations.
• Design activities that can be experienced simply
in two minutes, or in an in-depth way in 60.
• Design activities that are enhanced by group
participation.
Example: Robots from 3-D Family Day

20. Measuring impact
Capturing visitor data
• The Stark uses information cards to capture
email and physical addresses for marketing.
• We also ask event attendees to fill out ½ page
surveys that include demographic questions.
• For Family events, the Stark looks most closely
at ages, first-time versus repeat visitation, and
the schools visiting children attend, which in
our county correlates highly to income level.
• We summarize the data after every event, track
our progress, and use the results to determine
future outreach initiatives.
Stark Museum summer camps are not reaching many students from our
closest school district, so attracting these students is a goal for 2013.
• The Stark also uses surveys to measure
marketing impact.

21. Measuring impact
Evaluating visitor engagement &
learning: Breadth with Surveys
• The Stark uses surveys to ask large numbers of
people what they saw and learned at the Museum.
• We ask visitors why they came and what their
favorite part was.
Typical responses include specific works of art and specific event
activities, and broad ideas like finding inspiration and spending family time
together.
We are interested in both the specific content learned/seen, and also in how
our visitors characterize their larger museum experience.
• Stark Museum camps and youth art classes are
measured with surveys that ask parents to describe
the camps’ educational benefits.
• Surveys administered to campers ask the students
to describe what they learned in specific areas over
the course of the week.

22. Measuring impact
Evaluating visitor engagement & learning:
Depth with Observation and Interviews
• The Stark Museum measured visitor engagement in
viewing and creating art at the February 2012 Family Day
through visitor observation and interviews.
• Visitors were timed and tracked by observers, who noted
where and the number of times they stopped to look,
comment, and gesture in the galleries.
• Visitors were also timed in the art-making area, and
evaluators noted visitors’ engagement in creating,
collaboration within family groups, and evidence of
invention and experimentation.
• Visitors were asked to describe a work of art they saw in
oral interviews.
• Small sample (13 families), and time-consuming (12 staff
hours), but renderd revealing, in-depth results.

23. Measuring impact
Measuring objectives set in advance
• Setting objectives in advance helps gather the
educational team around common goals that
further the institution’s mission.
Family Day objective: Visitors are engaged in viewing and creating art.
Summer camp objectives consist of specific content to be learned.
• Priorities and decisions are determined by
the objectives.
Family Day activities are planned to encourage visitors of all ages to
look closely and to engage with art-making.
• Create concrete, measurable indicators for
each objective to evaluate success.
What does success look like?
Would a successful visit consist of 30 minutes in the galleries?
Would success mean each member of the family participates in artmaking?

24. Measuring impact
Tracking attendance figures
and audience demographics
• Track attendance over time to measure
program growth.
• ( But it’s more than visitor counts –
Can you also show depth of experience? )
• Track who you are reaching, and what
audiences are still underserved.
• Share your data with Marketing, with
museum leaders, in annual reports.
• Use data to brainstorm new approaches
and set new goals.

25. Goals of Family Programming
Building the Habit of museum
visitorship in today's youth
• Museum visitorship is a habit that often starts in
childhood. Those who grow up in museums will
feel comfortable visiting them as adults, and will
take their children to them as parents.
Promoting intergenerational
informal learning
• Museums offer families the unique experience to
learn together in a safe environment that
encourages discovery, experimentation, creativity.
• Design Family Programs to promote
intergenerational exchange.
• An educational program that serves all age levels
allows children to grow up within the
Museum, fostering their development at every
level.

26. Goals of Family Programming
Engaging parents
(and grandparents!)
• Museums can “hook” parents and grandparents
who might otherwise not attend on their
own, by offering programs for their families.
• How do our Family Programs facilitate the
learning, discovery, and experimentation of
adult visitors?
Making the museum a home away
from home or “the third place”
• Reaching out to new visitors and inviting
them into the museum is the first step.
• Building a comfortable, welcoming atmosphere
where they are excited to return time and again
is the goal.

27. Goals of Family Programming
Developing ties to the community
Family Programs build ties between the Museum
and the community:
• By introducting new visitors to the Museum
• By diversifying the Museum’s audience and
inviting underserved populations in
• By providing opportunities for collaboration
with local organizations, schools, leaders, artists
• By asking locals for their feedback and
responding with programs designed to serve
their needs and interests
• By developing the next generation of museum
visitors, who will advocate for their local
museum as adults.

28. Questions? Comments? Conversation.
Robbin Davis
Director of Visitor Services
Oklahoma History Center
rdavis@okhistory.org
Jason Harris
Director of Education
Oklahoma History Center
jharris@okhistory.org
Amelia Wiggins
Educator for Family
and Studio Programs
Stark Museum of Art
awiggins@starkmuseum.org