Membership Rates Among Museum-Goers

Museum-goers. They go to museums. Regularly.
​
These are the folks who make a habit of visiting museums and who respond to museum surveys. They like us.

But does visiting museums regularly mean being a member? Or even a donor?

Here, it is as straightforward as it is complicated. That is, it breaks down evenly, as you can see in the graphic:

​Yet these three groups of people present more complex reasons for why they are, or are not, members or donors.

• Do not give. Overall, these individuals are the least engaged museum-goers. They visit less often and are, generally, less positive about museum experiences and the impact of museums. Roughly, there are two groups I flagged in here:
  1. An admittedly small segment comprised of young adults without children. Of all the standard life stages I examined in my analysis, this segment was the most likely to fall into this category (which is why I picked a young woman to represent them in my infographic). But those young adults … in their responses I actually see more engagement with museums and their community than with others in this non-member group. Thus, it's our jobs to create a membership program that meets their needs.
  2. And then there are a whole lot of families and older adults who simply do not visit enough/are not engaged enough to join (and have lower levels of community engagement as well). We have to figure them out too, but they may be a tougher sell because, for them, their issue is with the museum product itself.

 

• Members (but not donors). To be honest, I see a lot of transactional members in this category. They visit museums often, and have a lot of repeat visits. They are more positive about museums than those that don't give … but more negative than donors. Oh, and this. They are WAY more likely to be parents of children 5 and younger (and somewhat more likely to be parents of children 6 - 10). Yep, transactional families who, typically, drop their memberships by the time their children reach middle school, if not sooner. These transactional families are turning out to be a big focus of my analysis, so you'll be hearing more about them (and if we can engage them more deeply … that is, if they even want us to).

​​

• Donors (and typically members). These are our biggest fans. Especially the ones that identify as both members and donors (I did have a few donors who did not identify as members). They are not as likely to be repeat visitors to a single museum as the transactional members are, but they go to more museums. Additionally, their reasons for visiting are more intrinsically motivated. They love to learn, and seek out learning opportunities because they enjoy it. Those that are parents also hope to extend that love of learning to their children (but were outnumber 2:1 by the transactional member families). Ultimately, however, this group inherently understands the value of museums in their life, and so they support museums.

Of course we all have questions about how we can move those that do not give at all into membership tracks, and how we can cultivate a greater intrinsic motivation to learn among transactional families. I am thinking about that as well, and as more of my analysis unfolds over the next several weeks/months, I hope to have some answers (and likely a lot more questions). 

The 2017 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers was fielded in January/February 2017. 25 museums across the country participated, with n = 6,162; half of respondents came from children's museums and science centers, half from art or history museums. The questions for this survey were inspired by ongoing conversations within the museum field (who visits museums, why they visit, what do they value about museums, and what motivates them) and ongoing research in the fields of education and psychology around lifelong learning and intrinsic motivation.

If you would like your museum to participate in the 2018 Annual of Survey of Museum-Goers, enrollment is now open!