Growing Site By Site By Site

Minnesota Children's Museum today

 

Should we focus on opening our museum in a permanent site with the space and amenities we really want or should we open sooner in a smaller site and assume we’ll move later?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions from groups starting a museum. Mostly I hear it from children’s museums, but it is no different for virtually any new museum. One would think that being asked this question repeatedly over 30 years that I, and other museum planners, would have a good answer. Nope. There are no simple answers to this question. In fact, no single answer could fit every, or even many, museums’ circumstances.

The question itself reveals the complexity and various trade-offs involved in making a decision with far-reaching implications. Realities of capacity and readiness must play a role in whether a museum is able take on a large, permanent home or is better suited to grow site by site. Often opportunity and even serendipity have a deciding, if invisible, hand in what site shows up, where, when, and with what strings. Inevitably, the relativity of time distorts the meaning of permanent. Three years is forever in the life of a 5-year old organization but merely a pause in a 30-year organizational journey.

First Site

Whether a museum operates with no walls, borrowed walls, or permanent walls, in the end each answers the question of it first site its own way. In my experience starting in an unbelievably small space, moving onto a somewhat bigger second space, and then landing in a good-sized third or fourth space is not unusual. Madison Children’s Museum where I was involved during its mobile years and its first two spaces has grown through multiple moves as has Minnesota Children’s Museum where I worked in its second and third sites. Growing site-by-site characterizes how a number of established museums have grown.

• Austin Children's Museum (TX) operated as a museum without walls from 1983 to 1987 when it moved into a 5,000 square foot (s.f.) space. Ten years later it opened in a 20,000 s.f. space in downtown Austin. In May 2012, the Museum broke ground for a 40,000 s.f. building in a mixed-use development northeast of downtown.

• Bay Area Discovery Museum (Sausalito, CA) opened in a 2,500 s.f. pilot site at a shopping center in Marin County north of San Francisco, in 1987. In 1991 the Museum relocated to a 7-1/2 acre campus at Fort Baker (under the Golden Gate Bridge) and occupied 21,000 s.f. In 1993 and 1999, additions increased the space to 31,000 s.f. and then 31,500 s.f.  New construction on an entry building with classrooms and performance space, improvements on interior spaces, and development of exterior play areas took place between 2003 and 2005 increasing indoor s.f. to 52,000 plus 1.84 acres of outdoor exhibits.  

• Chicago Children’s Museum opened in the hallways of Chicago Public Library in 1982 and moved to a 7,000 s.f. space in Lincoln Park in 1986. A move to a 21,000 s.f. space in North Pier followed in 1989. The Museum opened in its current home of 57,000 s.f. at Navy Pier in1995. Plans are underway for an expansion.

• Explore & More Children’s Museum in East Aurora (NY) opened in 1994 with 500 s.f. of exhibit space in a school and added 500 s.f. more in 1997. In 2000 the Museum relocated to a 6,500 s.f. space in an office-park building in a residential neighborhood. Currently planning is underway for new construction of 25,000 -30,000 s.f. of space in a multi-use development at the western terminus of the Erie Canal in downtown Buffalo.

Madison Children's Museum's first walls

• Madison Children’s Museum (WI) shifted from traveling exhibits in public venues to a 500 s.f. basement space in the Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts and Letters in 1980 and was open on weekends and school holidays until 1985 when it moved into a 5,000 s.f. space in the garden level of an old factory building at the edge of downtown. In 1991 the museum opened 8,000 s.f. of space in a renovated bank building on State Street. Twenty years later, it moved 58,000 s.f. in a renovated a 1929 Montgomery Ward Building right off the Capitol Square.

• Minnesota Children’s Museum opened in 1981 in a 6,000 s.f. space in the Itasca Warehouse along the Minneapolis River front. In 1985, it relocated to an 18,000 s.f. historic railroad building midway between Minneapolis and St. Paul. In 1995 the Museum moved into a newly built 65,000 s.f. building in downtown St. Paul. Recently, the Museum announced a 14,000 s.f. addition to its current building and reconfiguration of interior spaces.

Madison Children's Museum 2012

The earliest spaces these museums called home were modest. Some were so small or incidental–like the hallways Chicago Children’s Museum occupied–they were not even measured. Some early spaces received minimal preparation and others were renovated. Getting from a first space to a “permanent” home can take 10 years or 30 years. As these timelines illustrate, even when a museum is in its “permanent” home, its physical footprint is likely to change by growing and reconfiguring space. Facility and site changes are a reality; they reflect museums’ responses to changing contexts and to serving visitors whose interests and priorities change.

Bigger Steps

Site by site growth is not the only model for growing a museum. There are fewer, but increasingly more, museums that open “full-size” in a permanent home. Betty Brinn Children’s Museum (Milwaukee, WI) opened in a new 25,000 s.f. space in 1995 without incubating in a previous site. Creative Discovery Museum (Chattanooga, TN) opened in a new 42,5000 s.f. building in 1995. Stepping Stones Museum for Children (Norwalk, CT) opened in a new 19,000 s.f. building in 2000 and opened a 22,000 s.f. addition in 2010.

In 30 years, the arts, culture, and education landscape where museums position themselves has changed across the country. Children’s museums have become more familiar in towns and cities and are relatively established in the lives of American children and childhoods. Making the case for a children’s museum or science center doesn’t have to start with an introduction to an unfamiliar museum concept.

With the growth of museums, the start-up and expansion process has consolidated and become somewhat formalized. A group starting a museum will often find and identify their own “benchmarks,” museums in communities of similar size or with a similar vision; they will know their histories and growth. Sharing and developing resources for starting museums have also occurred on several fronts. The Association of Children’s Museums published Collective Vision in 1997. It sponsors an annual emerging museum conference and launched Collective Vision On-line Tool Kit in 2011. The Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums has offered an annual Building Museums symposium. In 2012, Minnesota Historical Society published Building Museums: A Handbook for Small and Midsize Organizations by Robert Herskovitz, Timothy Glines, and David Grabitske.

Navigating Site Questions

The site-growth question is not only common, but is also bound up with other long-term strategic choices a museum faces at an early stage in its development when it has few procedures and precedents for guidance. Site questions will always interact with larger questions of a museum’s vision, process, and position. Site and facility are more tangible ways for a board to approach larger, more abstract issues of mission or what the museum is and will become. The very concreteness of site’s size, its address, and expense can mean greater comfort in finding a site than exploring intangibles like experience, quality, or learning value.

Finding a first site–or perhaps any site–also requires distinguishing among size-related considerations like location, quality, or vision. For some museums, questions of site and facility are actually a proxy for other issues like fundraising goals (modest or ambitious?); personal or professional relationships in the real estate, construction, or development sectors; or values related to diversity and access. Finally a sense of urgency to find a site can be so insistent for founders and board members that it dominates the other business of starting a museum, overshadows other possible ways the museum could pursue growth, and at times actually derails a museum project.

Learning from Experience, Proceeding with Confidence

There is no formula for finding the right site at the right time in a relatively simple process. A few guidelines do emerge, however, from scanning the experiences–successful and otherwise–of other museums that have wrestled with finding a site.

• Vision: Maintain a roomy vision for the museum, even if it will take a long time to physically grow into that big vision. Keep the vision.

• Discuss. Engage in lots of lively discussion about site and size. Bring new questions and new information to the discussions. Be honest and respectful in discussing the museum’s capacity to successfully raise funds, create an outstanding experience, and effectively operate a site.

• Evaluate. Develop a really solid set of site selection criteria to help frame what is required of a site and to compare sites. Revisit the criteria periodically because circumstances change. This does not mean changing the criteria every month. It does mean bringing new information, perspectives, and questions to the criteria to test, refine, and strengthen them and the candidates. This builds a strong, shared sense of what they mean–and don’t mean–for longer-term and newer board members. When the real site decision comes up, things can move very fast. 

• Compare. Build a strong list of promising sites well informed by an understanding of the real estate market, neighborhoods, zoning issues, and the health of other culturals. Visit the sites. Always–always– look at multiple sites and compare and contrast.

• Realism. Be realistic about the museum’s challenges and capacity. Be aware of committing to a larger facility than the museum will be able to support financially and will have the capacity to operate well. At the same time, avoid frequent moves. Relocating is demanding. It takes a lot out of a museum staff; it can be challenging to bring visitors along to a new location.

• Setbacks. It’s not unusual to find an “ideal” site that then falls through. In hindsight, the site turns out not to be as good as it seemed at the time: the area didn’t take off or a site of a better size came along.

• Caution. Even the best-managed site processes can become enmeshed in controversial issues that initially seem minor. Be alert to the early signs of a pubic fuss arising about a site, especially if the museum is associated with it. Contact museums that have had to navigate similar situations and learn from their experiences.

• Opportunity. Keep an eye out for opportunity. Listen for the knock.

Nice + Necessary

 

 

                        +

In last week’s Museum Notes about InterActivity, the recent children’s museum conference in Houston, I highlighted a session, Nice to Necessary. Judging from the interest of the three presenters, Rhonda Kiest, Stepping Stones Museum for Children (SSMC), Julia Bland, Louisiana Children’s Museum (LCM), and Sarah Orleans, Portland Children’s Museum (PCM), the large turn-out, and the many comments afterwards, the topic addressed interesting and challenging territory many museums are trying to navigate.

Originally, the session title was longer, Children’s Museums Step Out: Moving From Nice To Necessary. Over the year it contracted to Nice To Necessary, and even N2N. More discussion with Rhonda, Sarah, and Julia and preparing our presentations took us to the heart of the issue. Museums must be nice and necessary. Museums must both align their missions with community priorities and remain welcoming, compelling, and delightful places to visit.

The Importance of And

Abandoning the mutually exclusive nice or necessary option was a giant and productive break-through for us. Museums in general and children’s museums, in particular, are no strangers to the false and time-consuming dichotomies of “fun or educational” I know. I was preoccupied by this for some time. I was relieved when someone pointed out that a pencil can be long and red. It is no less long because it is red and no less red because it is long. Museums are no less fun because they are educational, and no less educational because they are fun. They are no less necessary because they are nice and no less nice because they are necessary.

They must, however, do an outstanding job of both.

Being Nice

Basically museums are very nice. They are pleasant places. Their concern is expressed by their missions and they are careful with resources. Children and families, and school and community groups, visit museums, have a really good time, and want to return.

Children celebrate their birthdays at their children’s museum. Teachers bring their students for a field trip that they know will go smoothly and will sync with the curriculum. Children rejoice at their accomplishments in an exhibit and at showing their parents what they can do.  Parents discover something new about their child, perhaps a new interest. Families come to celebrate a not-so-spooky Halloween or other traditions; they feel good about being together as a family. Parents count on signing their children up for museum summer camps. Families bring friends and relatives who visit to the museum for a special occasion.

Museums offer all of these experiences and more. Museums are–and should be–unwilling to let go of being nice.

Being Necessary

Being necessary is more challenging. Its meaning is harder to pin down than being nice. But our planning and their museums’ work points to a few factors that are basic to being necessary.

Oriented to the Community’s Priorities

What’s necessary is relevant to each community. A museum may not be necessary in the way a fire department is, but it can address community priorities in recognized and valued ways. When a foundation reported that a lack of continuing professional development for educators was a major factor in the decline of quality education in Oregon education, the Portland Children’s Museum established the Center for Children’s Learning (CCL). The CCL conducts research documenting children at play at the museum and in Opal School, the Museum’s K-5 public charter school. CCL also establishes best practices for organizations serving young children and makes research, recommendations, and best practices available through workshops, symposia, and publications.   

Not only is the meaning of being relevant specific to each community, but it can and does change over time reflecting changes in a region, city, town, or neighborhood. The LCM board committed to a major initiative for family well-being in the weeks before Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  In the months after the hurricane, the true magnitude of need for support for young children and their families in the Greater New Orleans area became starkly apparent. From that new perspective, LCM developed the concept of the Early Learning Village, a comprehensive project supported by an extensive network of long-term committed partners to change life outcomes for children.

Demonstrating that a museum is necessary takes time and a disciplined, sustained focus. Stepping Stones Museum for Children has been committed to being a steward of its community since its 2000 opening. In its first decade, SSMC grew its understanding of its community and audience and contributed to collaborative efforts in Norwalk, CT. The Museum has acted deliberately to become necessary on several fronts. It has been working with a network of community leaders and organizations to proactively identify and resolve issues that prevent a child’s growing up healthy, safe, smart, and successful at home, school, and in the community. Forty organizations have aligned and organized to work towards three strategic outcomes focusing on a scorecard that tracks indicators; each organization defines its unique contribution to supporting outcomes.

A Leader of Some Capacity

A museum that is at the table occasionally is nice. A museum that is called to the table or that convenes others at the table is necessary. A museum must be a leader in some capacity to be necessary. In the examples above is evidence of how each of the three museums has shaped a leadership role for itself among other institutions to serve community priorities. With the Center for Children’s Learning, PCM has positioned itself in a leadership role around understanding how children play, learn, create, explore, and interact. The Center’s documentation panels offer insights into children’s natural learning strategies and invite inquiry into their thinking and predictions about effective teaching and exhibit planning.  In developing and sharing this research approach with teachers, researchers, museum educators, parents, and other education experts, PCM through its Center is a national and, increasingly, international resource on children’s learning.

LCM’s Early Learning Village is an on-site network of resources for children and families including museum exhibits and programs. It has cultivated long-term strategic partnerships with existing organizations who have recognized expertise and are successful in related areas child and family development. With LCM's vision, long-running literacy and well-being initiatives, the Museum is, in fact, the convener of major organizations such as Tulane University’s Institute of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health and Louisiana State University’s AgCenter.

SSMC’s leadership role in the partnership, Norwalk ACTS, emerged from clarity about its role as a community steward, extensive experience in various networks, and an understanding of outcome-driven models. A member of the network’s strategic planning team, SSMC leads in shaping a nimble, aligned network with a strong focus on three outcomes and supporting indicators.  

Accountable to Long-term Outcomes

Intending to make a difference is nice. Being able to show that a museum has made a difference in the lives of children, families, and the community is being necessary. Achieving and measuring results is an extremely challenging part of the work. It is also where participants in the InterActivity conference session had questions not all of which were easy to answer. 

Each of the three museums recognizes the importance of being accountable to long-term outcomes and is working diligently in that direction. Each is doing so in its own way and, understandably, at different rates. All, however, are progressing along similar paths. Each has connected a community priority with outcome areas where it hopes to make a contribution: improving the futures of children in the community, contributing to a continuum for support for children, or providing insights into children’s thinking to guide teachers and exhibit designers, etc. They are identifying what is relevant and can be measured, defining measures of success, and finding methods of assessment and evaluation capable of assessing the changes. To build capacity in relatively new areas of museum practice, the museums are also are working with partners, including colleges and universities.

This is an area of continuing, interesting, and important work

Finding the Right Mix

As important as being necessary is, it is essential that the joy not drain from the experiences offered at the museum, presented in the community, or available in schools. Bubbles, birthday parties, face-painting, and teddy bear picnics should not disappear from children’s museums. Rat basketball should not be nixed from science centers. Nor should Halloween haunted houses be abandoned. Every museum must bring its passion creativity, and, yes, understanding of its community to uncovering their mix of nice + necessary. 

A tool for exploring the nice - necessary dynamic is posted at the right of this page as is another related resource, Connecting the Dots. Check out a previous blog entry, Public Value: From Good Intentions to Good Work which includes additional resources.

Stakeholder Mapping

 
Every museum I know has a long list of partners critical to reaching it audiences, delivering solid content, getting its message out, and raising funds. Among the partners, friends, supporters, and sponsors are schools, arts organizations, media, libraries, business clubs and social clubs, community centers, colleges and universities, and hospitals.

While having lots of partners is considered a standard, if not best, practice, few museums have a shared, systematic, and strategic way of knowing, and managing them. At best, a museum has a working list of its partners. Maybe it has a list of partners and constituents pulled together for interviews and focus groups early in its strategic planning process. More likely a museum has a mix-media creation of lists of active (and dormant) partners, current sponsors, a few paragraphs from grant proposals, and a roster of advisors

Regardless of how they are organized or referred to, partners, sponsors, advisors, and friends are among a museum’s stakeholders. These are the people, groups, constituencies, and institutions who are likely to affect or be affected by a museum, its plans, or projects.

A stakeholder analysis assesses the likely effect of stakeholders on the success of a proposed action that might be a project–or a museum. David Ebitz recently presented a stakeholder analysis for museum educators in the Journal of Museum Education. Another approach is a practical stakeholder-mapping tool that I have used with several museums. It’s basically a stakeholder analysis for an entire museum with some additional features. Here are the basic steps for stakeholder mapping.  Tips on the process follow a walk-through of these 6 steps.

• Identifies the museum’s internal and external stakeholders;
• Clusters stakeholders with similar interests;
• Characterizes the nature of their interest in the museum;
• Represents stakeholder groups in relation to one another and the museum;
• Develops stakeholder messages to guide and align communication; and
• Selects approaches to stakeholder engagement.

Identify the museum’s internal and external stakeholders. Bring out lists of existing partners, supporters and friends, both individuals and groups that are likely to effect or be effected by the museum. Think about partners that are programmatic, project, or strategic; that are local, national, or international. This is not a brainstorming exercise to make a longer list, but an exercise to make a better list. Consider stakeholders from across sectors such as health, arts, business, media, and education. Be sure to add internal stakeholders including staff, trustees, volunteers, members, and the museum’s audience. You will have a mix of specific people and groups (museum members, the Public Housing Authority, the Chamber of Commerce, etc.) and categories (private schools, parks, etc.). Once the list is fairly complete, review it, talk about who’s on it. Think about stakeholders who could be in more than one group; are superintendents “education leaders” or “educators”? 

• Move on when the list of internal and external stakeholders relates to the museum’s accomplishing its work and reflects the community.

Cluster stakeholders with similar interests. Begin the big sort. Think about the needs, concerns, wants, and authority of stakeholders. How do these interests converge with the museum’s? This question helps connect the museum’s benefit to the stakeholder’s interests and brings, at least modestly, an external perspective on these relationships. Create about 5-7 stakeholder groups based on similar interests within a group and on distinct interests among groups. Focus especially on  groups that share strong interests with one another. More extensive and detailed analysis of stakeholders is possible, but not necessary or probably realistic. Still, this is a good point to ask what additional information the museum should have about stakeholder groups to understand and engage with them more effectively. 

• A typical stakeholder group might be staff, board, and volunteers.
• Move on when most or all of the stakeholders fit into 5-7 groups.

Characterize the nature of their interest in the museum. Working with the preliminary clusters, zero in on the nature of each stakeholder group’s interest. These are likely to be relationship based, and are less likely to follow existing partnership categories such as programmatic or media. Stakeholders might cluster around an interest in opening doors, providing opportunities; being advocates or champions; or simply being “wonderful friends.” Make meaningful distinctions among the interests of all the groups. Since clustering stakeholders is related to interests they share, revisiting clusters may be helpful; shifting specific people or groups from one cluster to another is to be expected. 

• A stakeholder group might be the “Museum Team” including board, staff, committees and task forces, and volunteers. The interest of the Museum Team could be: contributing personal interest and expertise to advance the museum. 
• Move on when the stakeholder groups feel firm and identifiable, their interests are explicit, and they have names based on their interests.

• Represent stakeholder groups in relation to one another and to the museum. Assess the possible impact of each stakeholder group on the museum and the museum’s impact on that group. Think of sorting stakeholders according to primary or secondary groups by assessing the impact, or influence, of the interest. Roughly characterizing the size or intensity of the impact is one way to do it. Locate each stakeholder group in one circle of a set of concentric circles according to their impact. This is an opportunity for lively discussion on where stakeholder groups should be placed and why. Should the museum’s core team or its audience be at the center? A variation in this step is for several small working groups to each locate stakeholder groups on the map; then compare and discuss. 

•  In the Museum Team example, this group is placed at the center of the stakeholder map because its interests are inextricably linked to the museum. This group has the most responsibility and greatest impact on the museum. 
• Move on when stakeholder groups have been located on the map.

 Develop stakeholder messages to guide and align communication. With stakeholder groups formed around their interest, named, and mapped, compose a message to highlight their significance to the museum. Messages convey a high value on all stakeholder groups; they provide guidance and consistency across the organization for approaching and interacting with members of stakeholder groups. Be clear, complete, and concise. Try to frame the message for each group in parallel ways. Consider voice; the message might be in the second person, “Your ,…” 

• In the Museum Team example, its message is, ”Your skills, expertise, perspectives, and commitments shape and improve the museum’s thinking, practices, and offerings and expand its resources.” 
• Move on when a message has been composed for each group.

Select approaches to stakeholder engagement. A stakeholder map could simply be a diagram if it didn’t point to actively and intentionally engaging  strategic group members on behalf of their, and the museum’s own, mutual interests. The last step focuses on developing and strengthening relationships between the museum and its stakeholder groups, and their members. Engagement strategies work to benefit both the group and the museum and draw on what the museum already does well interacting with a group. Going forward, a museum’s plans, strategic and project, annual development, program, and marketing plans, should reflect an understanding of the stakeholder groups. Using the engagement strategies from the stakeholder map, each plan lays out specific ways to connect with stakeholder groups critical to the plan's success. 

• Before moving on, think about how to make this tool even more useful to the museum's purposes. For instance, could setting a target or outcome for each stakeholder group help?

A Few Tips on Process

• If possible, connect stakeholder mapping to a larger context or purpose: the museum’s strategic planning, gearing up for an expansion, reorganizing the structure, branding the museum, etc.
• Bring together a mapping team of about 7 people from across the museum.
• Plan on 2-3 sessions of 1-1/2 to 2 hours over several weeks. Extending much beyond that could end the process.
• Between sessions, share the mapping process with staff; incorporate their knowledge of stakeholders and build ownership.
• The mapping team  might find itself weeding out stakeholders at any step. Early on individuals or groups who are listed might turn out to be inconsequential. In firming up the groups, ask whether these are key stakeholder groups and key groups and individuals within them.

• When completed, share the stakeholder map with all staff and with the board. Walk them through the purpose, the process, and how departments and teams can and will be expected to use it.
• Members of the mapping team should conscientiously use and refer to the stakeholder map to help themselves and others across the museum internalize it. 

Mapping Stakeholders for Museums at All Stages of Development 

The Children’s Museum of Sonoma County (CMSC) developed a stakeholder map to help build awareness, develop interest, and cultivate support as it planned for a children’s museum in the Santa Rosa area (CA). In developing its map, CMSC recognized individuals and organizations that also work with and on behalf of children and families as stakeholders in the museum’s vision. In thinking about locating stakeholders on its map, CMSC decided that children are at the very heart of the museum, its vision, and mission. The museum placed them at the center.

A disposition to actively engage the community on behalf of young children is a hallmark of the Early Learning Village (ELV), a project of Louisiana Children’s Museum (LCM) in New Orleans. At the core of the ELV is a network of committed, long-term, strategic partners with a shared interest in children’s healthy social, emotional, cognitive, and physical development. Other stakeholder groups are essential to building capacity, deepening the ELV’s community knowledge, inviting new perspectives, and delivering varied experiences. A stakeholder map was not only able to display and organize this complex array of stakeholders around New Orleans and across Louisiana, but it also provided the ELV partners with a shared map for actively reaching out to and working with the community.

Since opening in 2000, Stepping Stones Museum for Children (SSMC) (Norwalk, CT) has viewed itself as a steward of the community. At every stage of its growth, SSMC has worked to grow and to align its community partners with its strategic interests. Understanding and appreciating their interests and perspectives has been essential to engaging and approaching them in effective, appropriate ways whether it is enlisting their expertise, cultivating support, or helping to reach and engage underserved children and families. Stepping Stones identified five constituencies that assisted it with its recent 22,000 square foot expansion and renovation and in stepping ahead.

Map It

Museums have and need stakeholders. To accomplish their goals and serve their communities well, museums must know and grow the individuals and groups who share and influence their interests. While museums are interested in increasing their stakeholders, expanding the variety, and cultivating relationships with them, they also must be concerned with managing them in targeted and strategic ways that are respectful of a stakeholder’s time and interest and also protect the museum’s image and resources. Stakeholder mapping is one tool. If you have used a different tool to manage your museum’s stakeholders, I hope you’ll share it. If you use stakeholder mapping, please let me know how it works for you.