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Sometimes, in these polarized and tumultuous times, it feels like no one can agree on anything. As we found in the Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, even the idea of museums cultivating hope for a better future was seen by some audiences through a political lens.

But maybe we are not as divided as we think. Perhaps there are some shared values we can consider to help rebuild our connections to one another and strengthen our communities.

To find out, we asked frequent museum-goers an open-ended question about hope and the future. This question appeared immediately after our direct, closed-ended questions on hope.

Actually…we had two questions to ask, and the luxury of a large sample. We programmed both questions, and half of the sample randomly received one version, and half the other.

VERSION 1:
Imagine your community in 10 years. What do you hope for your community? What do you hope for museums? And what do museums need to do to be a vital part of that community you imagine?

VERSION 2:
Imagine your family and close friends in 10 years. What do you personally hope for those family members and close friends? And what do museums need to do to be a vital part of your lives, supporting those hopes?

Who responded?

One of the things we consider when analyzing open-ended responses from a survey is who is motivated to answer the question in the first place (versus those who choose to skip it). This helps us understand if different segments of respondents felt more strongly (good or bad) than others about what we are asking.

There were two interesting patterns that emerged:

Community Version:

Liberals were nearly 50% more likely to answer the community version of the question than conservatives: 43% of liberals who saw this question wrote something in, versus 31% of conservatives. This fits in with larger patterns we have seen over the past several years, with liberals consistently more likely to indicate community-oriented answers in our museum surveys than conservatives.

Wrote in answers:

• Liberals: 43%
• Conservatives: 31%

Family/Friends Version:

Adults over the age of 60 were the most likely to write something in, 38%, and young adults (under 40) without children the least likely, only 28%. This result, admittedly, we have less insight on.

Wrote in answers:

• Over 60: 38%
• Under 40 without children: 28%

To find out what people shared, we hand-coded a demographically-balanced, but randomly selected, sample of 8,000 responses. (1) We looked at how the responses differed between the two question versions, what values people don’t quite agree on, and what values most of us seem to share.

The most common themes respondents shared centered around civility, helping communities thrive, and the value of people working together. There was quite a bit of articulation that respondents wanted museums to reduce barriers to access (particularly cost), and they also wanted their communities to value and support museums, libraries, and the cultural sector more.

“I hope we are all invested in our places and working to make our world better through where we live. It is a more practical way to make an impact on a smaller scale (not changing the whole world), but still an impactful way! Our museums are a center point for culture and our communities. I hope to continue seeing them thrive in such an important role.”

Personal Hopes for Family and Close Friends

These responses, compared to the community hopes, were much more inward looking and personal. Many of these responses focused on health, happiness, and security.

“I hope that those I love are healthy in body, mind, and soul. That they are free to live authentically and without limitations on their ideas, expressions, or dreams. That they experience equality, love, peace, and joy. That their lives are meaningful and deeply connected to themselves, others & the Earth. Museums have the potential to show us that this is possible.”

Where We Don’t Quite Agree…

There were a handful of topics that some respondents clearly cared more about than others, most of which were not surprising as we have seen similar patterns in quantitative survey results this year and in the past.

• Planet, nature, and climate. Liberals were far more likely to mention concerns about climate change, and hopes for solutions, than conservatives.
• Inclusion. Similarly, liberals were far more likely to mention DEAI than conservatives…by a factor of 5x.
• Value of community, people working together, and civics. As we saw in the 2023 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, there were political differences in responses about community and civics. Liberals were much more enthusiastic to share their ideas on these topics (and how museums can help) than conservatives. We also continue to see young adults (under 40) without children much more enthusiastic about these ideas than adults over 60…by a factor of 2.5x.

The good news is that there were a number of things that most people seem to agree on. These areas can provide us with excellent starting points for rooting our work in ways that support individuals and our communities. These include:

• The value of learning and education.
  

  “I hope that they are able to be lifelong learners who are confident, mindful, resourceful, and content. Museums can be a place to learn and a resource for building and maintaining mindfulness, resourcefulness, confidence, and contentment through accessible and relatable programs and resources.”

• A desire for less polarization and more civility.
  

  “Everyone gets along peacefully.”

• Individual happiness.
  

  “I hope that my family and friends are happy, healthy, secure, and feel loved. Museums can play a role through providing enjoyment, mental / emotional outlets, and intellectual discourse.”

• Individual health.
  

  “I hope they are happy and healthy and are learning about the world and its beauty, history, and how to keep it going and civilized.”

Because those shared values are such a vital starting point for museums engaging people effectively with many different worldviews and life experiences, we’ve included this as a line of inquiry in the 2025 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers.

Personally, however, we found coding these responses overall to be rather delightful. Most people want to envision a future where those they love, and their communities, are thriving. And many expressed hopes that we will find creative solutions to the problems we face, both globally and locally. That gives us hope as well, because if museums (and other institutions) can build on those shared values more effectively, those creative solutions will be far more possible.

“In ten years, I hope that museums will lead the way to healing using creativity, beauty, and knowledge.”

Annual Survey of Museum-Goers Data Stories are created by Wilkening Consulting on behalf of the American Alliance of Museums. Sources include:

• 2024 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, n = 90,178; 202 museums participating
• 2024 Broader Population Sampling, n = 2,154
• 2017–2023 Annual Surveys of Museum-Goers

(1) See 2024 ASMG: Purpose and Methodology (Update) Data Story to learn more about our coding methodologies.

*Data Stories share research about both frequent museum-goers (typically visit multiple museums each year) and the broader population (including casual, sporadic, and non-visitors to museums).

More Data Stories can be found at wilkeningconsulting.com/data-stories.

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“I was impressed by this survey lifting cultivating hope as a significant role of museums — even while exhibits prominently evoke situations of lament. BRAVO!!!”

“It is not a museum’s job to force emotional responses on visitors. Do not manipulate us.”

“I don’t really see this as a museum’s purpose, but I do feel hopeless often.”

For many of us who work in the museum field, the idea of “hope” feels like a positive outcome of a museum visit, and thus worthy of cultivation.

Fortunately, most museum-goers agree! As we saw in our introductory Data Story on hope, four out of five agreed that the cultivation of hope was important.

But how important?

When we analyzed results more fully, we found that while 40% of frequent museum-goers are very enthusiastic about the cultivation of hope in museums, a similar number are actually more ambivalent. Additionally, a small but vocal minority of museum-goers disagreed with the idea entirely.

• Resistant
  • Frequent Museum-Goers: 18 percent
  • U.S. Adults: 13 percent
• Ambivalent
  • Frequent Museum-Goers: 43 percent
  • U.S. Adults: 42 percent
• Enthusiastic
  • Frequent Museum-Goers: 40 percent
  • U.S. Adults: 45 percent

In this Data Story, we will explore more about these differing attitudes and delve into open-ended responses to understand the “why“ behind the results.

The Enthusiastic

“Since the pandemic and political chaos that floods the TV and social media, we have a society filled with anxiety. A place of solitude and hope for the future on any subject is welcomed.”

“Very important, for the future generations. I personally feel like I don’t have much fuel left.”

If there was a common theme among enthusiastic respondents, it was that hope is needed more than ever in these tumultuous times.

Repeatedly, they mentioned mental health, emotional well-being, and that a feeling of hope was necessary for motivating people to work towards positive solutions.

For the most part, these enthusiastic respondents fall into the more “open” category of respondents we have been tracking: they are significantly more likely to be curious, empathetic individuals who want to be challenged, support climate action, and have inclusive attitudes. Additionally, people of color were much more likely to be enthusiastic about hope in museums: half fell in this segment versus 38% of white people.

There was a cautionary note from some enthusiastic respondents, however: warnings against false hope. They wanted the cultivation of hope to be realistic and backed up with proactive changes…not a “sentimental” hope that assumes others will take responsibility for solutions.

The Ambivalent (and sometimes perplexed)

“To me, it’s an odd word choice. Hope is always important, I guess, but it’s not why I go to museums. I go to be inspired and awed.”

“I haven’t thought about it too much, but in the context of the times, I think this is important to begin considering.”

Respondents in this segment were generally open to the idea of museums cultivating hope, but for many, the idea was a surprise.

It simply had not occurred to them and they had to take a moment to consider it. After that consideration, they indicated either a limited degree of support or outright ambivalence.

Generally, for most in this segment, hope is a perfectly fine outcome of a museum experience. But it isn’t the primary goal and they are also perfectly fine if it doesn’t happen.

For some, however, it was simply perplexing. They used words like “odd,” “vague,” or “strange.” A few also said that they didn’t feel this was the job or responsibility of museums…but not in a way that indicated they opposed the idea.

“I do not put this burden on the museum.”

The Resistant

“I don’t want the museum to manipulate my emotions in any way.”

“YOU’RE A MUSEUM! It’s not your job. NO MORE WOKE!”

For those who were resistant to the idea of museums cultivating hope, that resistance was often framed through lenses of politics and manipulation.

That is, they felt “hope” was coded language for “woke” ideologies (with “woke” being used as a pejorative term) or that museums were trying to tell them how to feel.

These knee-jerk, emotional responses sometimes yielded strong language. Additionally, these “resistant” respondents were over 2x more likely than “ambivalent” respondents, and 4.5x more likely than “enthusiastic” respondents, to hold anti-inclusive attitudes. They were also significantly less likely to hold community-oriented attitudes or think that museums should connect people to humanity.

This indicates that more “resistant” respondents are lumping together a collection of values, including hope, that they consider inappropriate for museums…likely because they fear that the hopes museums might cultivate in visitors would be hopes that these “resistant” individuals do not share. This suggests there is a fundamental trust issue at the heart of their resistance.

Overall, however, most museum-goers do want to emerge from museum experience with a feeling of hope for the future. And given their overall openness to imaginative experiences as well, museums can be fantastic places to help people imagine creative solutions and feel empowered to make a difference in their communities.

Additionally, follow-up questions in the 2024 Annual Survey indicate that, regardless of how individuals feel about hope in museum settings, there are common values that most of us share when we think about the future. We’ll explore those shared values in our final Data Story on hope.

“I am choosing ‘other’ [for this question] because I think it is even MORE important than ‘very important.’ The world is a mess. I believe art and all museums can give us [hope] and will save us all.”

Annual Survey of Museum-Goers Data Stories are created by Wilkening Consulting on behalf of the American Alliance of Museums. Sources include:
• 2024 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, n = 90,178; 202 museums participating
• 2024 Broader Population Sampling, n = 2,154
• 2017 – 2023 Annual Surveys of Museum-Goers

*Data Stories share research about both frequent museum-goers (typically visit multiple museums each year) and the broader population (including casual, sporadic, and non-visitors to museums).

More Data Stories can be found at wilkeningconsulting.com/data-stories.

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“Bombarded”

“Exhausted”

“Frustrated”

Over the past several years, we have noticed that respondents to the Annual Survey of Museum-Goers are increasingly sharing negative feelings. Sometimes these negative feelings are in response to content they disagree with.

But much of this increased negativity is a response to perceived changes in their daily lives, including:

• The constant “bombardment” of the political and news cycle
• Eco-anxiety or despair over climate change
• Struggles with work and family obligations
• Financial challenges
• Increased political polarization

This negativity seems to be an expression of what many researchers have identified as a growing crisis in mental health.

In the 2022 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, most people expressed that museums support their wellbeing.(1) In the 2024 survey, however, we specifically considered the importance of hope in motivating museum-goers to take a more positive and proactive approach to the future.

To find out what the public thinks about museums and hope, we asked a series of five questions.

Three “indirect” questions:

What makes these “indirect” questions? To the respondent, they don’t read as questions about hope, but other things. That’s important because it means that people who don’t feel that strongly about the cultivation of hope in museums tend to skip over the “hope” answers, instead choosing other answers that are more important to them … and they can do so without feeling judged about their answers.

1. What are the most important ways that museums should share and engage you with their content?

Out of the nine potential answers we provided, we are interested in this one:

Promoting hope by helping me imagine a better future

Frequent Museum-Goers: 16%

U.S. Adults: 19%

2. When you think of an ideal museum visit, what do you want to experience?

Out of eight potential answers we provided, we are interested in this one:

Feeling greater hope by helping me imagine a better future

Frequent Museum-Goers: 14%

U.S. Adults: 17%

3. Thinking about how imagination can support learning in museums, which of the following outcomes would you like visitors to experience?

Out of the seven potential answers we provided, we are interested in this one:

Helping visitors imagine a better future, giving us something positive to work towards

Frequent Museum-Goers: 49%

U.S. Adults: 48%

See anything interesting here?

We did!

Respondents were far less enthusiastic when we explicitly included the word “hope,” and more enthusiastic when we dropped the word.

Which means that those who did choose hopeful answers, well, we can feel pretty confident that they support this work in museums.

A “direct,” non-museum question

This question was intended to ask directly about hope … but not in a museum context. We wanted more general thoughts about hope, from their everyday lives.

• Feeling a greater connection to humanity
  • Frequent Museum-Goers: 41%
  • U.S. Adults: 34%
• Art – seeing beauty in the things humans have created
  • Frequent Museum-Goers: 68%
  • U.S. Adults: 40%
• Nature – seeing beauty or wonder in animals, plants, environments, etc.
  • Frequent Museum-Goers: 78%
  • U.S. Adults: 59%
• History – understanding how people in the past faced challenges and overcame them
  • Frequent Museum-Goers: 60%
  • U.S. Adults: 46%
• Seeing people helping others
  • Frequent Museum-Goers: 62%
  • U.S. Adults: 54%
• Finding respite and escape, allowing me to recharge
  • Frequent Museum-Goers: 48%
  • U.S. Adults: 39%
• Feeling there are things I can do to address challenges or problems
  • Frequent Museum-Goers: 43%
  • U.S. Adults: 34%
• Being part of a community of people working to make things better
  • Frequent Museum-Goers: 54%
  • U.S. Adults: 36%
• My religion or faith
  • Frequent Museum-Goers: 32%
  • U.S. Adults: 37%
• None of these
  • Frequent Museum-Goers: 1%
  • U.S. Adults: 4%

Good news! Virtually everyone said they could find hope in something, and many of the answers we provided are rather museum-y, focusing on the things museums often share.

A “direct” museum question

Finally, we wanted to know what they think about hope in a museum setting, asking respondents “how important it is to you that museums work to cultivate hope among visitors?”

• Very important
  • Frequent Museum-Goers: 37%
  • U.S. Adults: 43%
• Somewhat important
  • Frequent Museum-Goers: 43%
  • U.S. Adults: 43%
• Not very important
  • Frequent Museum-Goers: 13%
  • U.S. Adults: 9%
• Not at all important
  • Frequent Museum-Goers: 5%
  • U.S. Adults: 8%

Overall, there is good news here as well, as at least four out five respondents gave positive answers.

Feeling lost in the numbers? We were too! To help, we sorted respondents into three segments, based on the patterns of their individual responses to all five questions.

• Resistant: answered negatively to all museum-related hope questions.
  • Frequent Museum-Goers: 18%
  • U.S. Adults: 13 %
• Ambivalent: these respondents like the idea of hope being cultivated in museums, but are not necessarily seeking it out. They typically gave lukewarm responses to hope questions, or gave conflicting pro/against responses.
  • Frequent Museum-Goers: 43%
  • U.S. Adults: 42%
• Enthusiastic: these respondents loved the idea of hope being cultivated in museums, and chose positive answers to all hope questions.
  • Frequent Museum-Goers: 40%
  • U.S. Adults: 45%

While about equal numbers are enthusiastic or more ambivalent about the cultivation of hope in museums, there is a minority opinion that pushed back, responding negatively.

In the next Data Story in this series, we’ll explore these different perspectives in more detail, including the somewhat surprising finding that some people view cultivating hope for a better future to be too political for museums.

Stay tuned.

Annual Survey of Museum-Goers Data Stories are created by Wilkening Consulting on behalf of the American Alliance of Museums. Sources include:
• 2024 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, n = 90,178; 202 museums participating
• 2024 Broader Population Sampling, n = 2,154
• 2017 – 2023 Annual Surveys of Museum-Goers

(1) For two Data Stories on wellbeing, go to: https://wilkeningconsulting.com/?s=wellbeing&post_types=post.

*Data Stories share research about both frequent museum-goers (typically visit multiple museums each year) and the broader population (including casual, sporadic, and non-visitors to museums).

More Data Stories can be found at wilkeningconsulting.com/data-stories.

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Museum-goers agree: museums are wonderful places to use their imaginations and learn. But museums are not the only places that do this. After all, we all use our imaginations in our day-to-day lives in a myriad of ways.

We wanted to learn more about imaginative learning experiences, and asked museum-goers this open-ended question:

Aside from museums, what other kinds of things or experiences inspire your imagination? This could be from your day-to-day life, when you do something for fun, in your work, on vacation, or any other time. Why do those things inspire your imagination, and why is that type of experience important to you?

Out of our randomly chosen coding sample, nearly half of respondents (44%) took time to write in a response. We hand-coded those 3,491 responses to see what they shared.

So many things inspire their imaginations!

Respondents were generous in sharing what kinds of activities inspire their imagination… over 80% shared one or more things, and we ended up coding 15 different categories.

Two things, however, were mentioned far more than anything else:

Reading

“Reading a variety of topics helps inspire my imagination.”

Nature

“Being in nature or experiencing nature—fountains, seeing natural light, sounds of birds. It’s calming but inspires curiosity and imagination.”

Other responses that were popular included:

• Outdoor activities (e.g., walking, recreation)
• Travel, especially international
• Music and concerts
• Arts, crafts, writing, and other creative activities

Overall, the activities shared fall squarely within the missions of museums. They all had art, history, nature, science, culture, and creative expression at their heart.

About a quarter of respondents went on to give attributes of their imaginative experiences. These are descriptors that could apply to any number of different activities but expressed more about what made the experiences compelling.

Three stood out:

Social experiences.

These respondents emphasized that, for them, sharing the experience with others was important. Typically, they mentioned family, but it could also be friends, neighbors, or strangers.

“The most important thing is to do things that connect me more with my family (wife and children), doing things that make us laugh but also teach, that allow us to have a good topic of conversation after the activity, but above all, laugh a lot.”

Immersive.

The imaginative experiences needed to take them to a different time and/or place or were multi-sensory. Younger respondents were more likely to mention this, and respondents over the age of 60 were less likely.

“I play D&D regularly, which sparks my imagination and energizes me, creatively. I love spending time with my friends, imagining another world and spending a few hours a week immersing ourselves in it. It gives us a chance to be people we wish we could be, or imagine entirely different groups of people and cultures.”

Facilitation.

For some, having a teacher or guide to lead the experience gave them structure to learn new things, be surprised, or have support to try things on their own.

“I like trying to do an art class, creating something with guidance—I struggle to be inspired or have self-confidence to do it solo, as I know my art is not great, but I enjoy the process of it, especially with others in the room.”

Just under a quarter of respondents shared what kinds of outcomes they felt from their imaginative learning experiences. But those that did so overwhelmingly had positive things to say. Outcomes included:

Mind-broadening and introspection.

Using their imaginations not only opened up their minds to different ideas and perspectives but gave them room to be thoughtful and consider (or reconsider) their own ideas.

“Podcasts, documentaries, books, and movies. All these things can show a new perspective or knowledge to me, make me think how to connect to existing knowledge, or sometimes it just broke my perception and built a totally new idea.”

Connecting with others.

Most respondents shared they felt more connected to community members or people with different worldviews and life experiences, as well as a general connection to humanity.

“Engaging with my hobbies like writing, painting, and cooking also help to inspire me. I think these inspire me because they connect me to other people and their imaginations which then in turn helps me to better connect to the human condition as a whole, becoming a more compassionate, understanding, and empathetic individual in the process.”

Respite, relaxation, and wellbeing.

Finding these outlets of imagination are good for us! These respondents shared how they use their imaginations to relieve stress and feel more fulfilled.

“I enjoy outdoor experiences where I can connect with nature and clear my head. That is really the only time when I can quiet all the stress that is constantly clouding my thoughts and truly relax and think clearly.”

Throughout virtually all of the responses, however, was an implied thread: imaginative learning opens people to new things, ideas, or perspectives, and that the activities they shared are catalysts to those experiences. That these experiences are vital to their lives, their wellbeing, and their relationships with others.

Given they already think of museums as places of imaginative learning, those are powerful outcomes that museums can explicitly support and encourage, especially in turbulent times when hope may feel distant or challenging.

Which brings us to the next topic: hope for the future…and how we can use imagination to envision a more positive future for the humans on this planet.

“[Imaginative experiences] inspire because they evoke emotions, make me wonder, and inspire me to share with my kids. It’s important to keep our minds going and growing. I want my kids to have open minds and be loving and caring humans.”

Annual Survey of Museum-Goers Data Stories are created by Wilkening Consulting on behalf of the American Alliance of Museums. Sources include:
• 2024 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, n = 90,178; 202 museums participating
• 2024 Broader Population Sampling, n = 2,154
• 2017 – 2023 Annual Surveys of Museum-Goers

*Data Stories share research about both frequent museum-goers (typically visit multiple museums each year) and the broader population (including casual, sporadic, and non-visitors to museums).

More Data Stories can be found at wilkeningconsulting.com/data-stories.

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“Simply being out in the world … there’s so much to notice and experience that just gets passed by (or entirely lost) … Seeing new animals, plants, or even a shooting star when out at night, can all contribute to imagination and inspiration. People need wonder in their lives; otherwise, it’s too easy to become rigid and fearful of others and any kind of change.”

Fostering imaginative experiences is at the core of what many museums do. Imagination is tightly linked with creativity, innovation, and understanding different points of view or experiences (past, present, and future).

Virtually all museum-goers are open to the imaginative experiences we develop and share in museums. But enthusiasm varies. And a tiny sliver of museum-goers admit they don’t want to use their imaginations in museums.

In our first Data Story on imaginative learning, we explored the imagination questions we asked both museum-goers and a broader population sample of U.S. adults. We sorted respondents into three categories:

Resistant: Imagination

• 3% of frequent museum-goers
• 5% of U.S. adults

Ambivalent: Imagination

• 52% of frequent museum-goers
• 58% of U.S. adults

Enthusiastic: Imagination

• 45% of frequent museum-goers
• 37% of U.S. adults

In this Data Story, we explore the traits of these three groups.

The Enthusiastic!

“These experiences help me to imagine the lives of others and to build more empathy and connection with my community members. They also inspire me to value my own culture and experiences more highly.”

“My family, my communities, the future, the state of current world affairs, the promotion of health and prosperity. I desire to be the best version of myself and be able to adapt to multiple situations, with respect to all cultures.”

These respondents loved the idea of imaginative learning, but there were other traits they shared. Compared to other respondents, they are:

• Visiting the most frequently
• Most positive/least critical about museums
• More likely to identify as curious
• More likely to view museums as integrated into their community
• More likely to want empathetic experiences that connect them to humanity
• Much more likely to hold inclusive viewpoints: two-thirds fall on the “inclusive” side of the inclusion spectrum (versus just over half of the overall sample)

Additionally, museum-going people of color were significantly more likely to fall into the enthusiastic segment: half versus 44% of white people.

The Ambivalent

“New discoveries are inspiring. My daughter loves dinosaurs, so I’ve been learning a LOT about dinosaurs the past few years. I’m constantly inspired when I hear about new dinosaur finds and how previously held assumptions are changing.”

These respondents like the idea of imaginative learning in museums, but were more restrained in their responses, only choosing a few answer choices rather than all/virtually all (as the enthusiastic did).

For the most part, these respondents don’t really think about museums and imagination that much. That is, they are not looking for imaginative learning experiences. But when asked about imagination in museum settings, they respond positively. It’s a bit of an “oh, I’ve never thought about it, but I like the idea!” response.

Comprising about half of museum-goers, their responses are similar to the overall results. Thus:

• Compared to the “enthusiastic” respondents, they visit less frequently, are less positive about museums, are less curious, and have less inclusive viewpoints.
• But compared to those who are more “resistant” to imaginative experiences, they visit more frequently, are more positive about museums, are more curious, and are more inclusive.
• And they generally shared a wide variety of ways they find their imagination sparked in their everyday lives.

Which puts them squarely in the middle.

The Resistant

“I’m really a fact-based person.”

These folks explicitly responded negatively to our imagination questions, saying they didn’t want to use their imagination when visiting museums and/or they didn’t want any of the imaginative learning outcomes we listed.

The good news is that there are very few of these respondents: only 3% of frequent museum-goers and 5% of U.S. Adults. Because of that, we’ll sum up their perspective by saying they are generally critical of museums across multiple lines of inquiry, skew significantly less inclusive, and are less frequent visitors overall.

Overall, however, we see a lot of room for museums to explicitly talk about and encourage imagination and imaginative learning. Museum visitors want to feel empowered to take themselves to a different time and/or place and be creative. And the good news is that they overwhelmingly tell us that museums are perfect places for just those experiences.

But museums are not the only places that encourage imagination. We’ll explore what else inspires the imagination of frequent museum-goers.

“Aside from museums, I also enjoy going to parks. It also rejuvenates my mind and also inspires me to think of ways of taking care of nature.”

Annual Survey of Museum-Goers Data Stories are created by Wilkening Consulting on behalf of the American Alliance of Museums. Sources include:
• 2024 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, n = 90,178; 202 museums participating
• 2024 Broader Population Sampling, n = 2,154
• 2017 – 2023 Annual Surveys of Museum-Goers

*Data Stories share research about both frequent museum-goers (typically visit multiple museums each year) and the broader population (including casual, sporadic, and non-visitors to museums).

More Data Stories can be found at wilkeningconsulting.com/data-stories.

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“I think it’s important to my well-being to continually be learning and growing in my mind, and imagination helps that. If I don’t have imagination or growth, I think I would be bored and depressed with this life.”

Visiting a museum is an act of imagination. We use our imaginations to imagine what the past was like, how animals live, the experiences of others, and to explore different places.

We also use our imaginations to imagine things in new ways, whether through art or science.

Museum-goers emphatically agree that museums spark our imaginations: 97%!

Each individual, however, uses their imagination in different ways and attributes different outcomes to those imaginative experiences.

In the 2024 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, as well as a broader population sample of U.S. Adults, we wanted to learn more about the role and impact of imaginative learning in museums, and asked respondents a series of questions on the topic. In this Data Story, we’ll share these overall results, and explore more deeply in follow-up infographics.

We first asked respondents: How would you like to use your imagination while learning in museums?

Our answer choices presented an expansive approach to imagination, and respondents were supportive: the average respondent selected four of the answer choices, and only 3% of frequent museum-goers admitted “I don’t really want to use my imagination when visiting museums.”

Immersion in beauty

• Museum-goers: 75%
• U.S. adults: 58%

Mental “time travel” to the PAST

• Museum-goers: 70%
• U.S. adults: 68%

Personal stories that build empathy and connection

• Museum-goers: 61%
• U.S. adults: 54%

Innovative thinking through STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math)

• Museum-goers: 47%
• U.S. adults: 55%

Mental “time travel” to the FUTURE

• Museum-goers: 45%
• U.S. adults: 52%

Problem-solving exercises

• Museum-goers: 39%
• U.S. adults: 47%

Brainstorming or idea-building activities

• Museum-goers: 38%
• U.S. adults: 47%

I don’t really want to use my imagination when visiting museums

• Museum-goers: 3%
• U.S. adults: 5%

Additionally, parents and guardians were the most enthusiastic about these answer choices, especially the more STEM-oriented answers around innovative thinking, problem-solving, and idea-building.

To follow-up, respondents were asked what outcomes of imaginative learning experiences in museums they wanted visitors to experience. They said:

Recharge us mentally, as we experience awe, wonder, or beauty

• Museum-goers: 76%
• U.S. adults: 56%

Inspire curiosity to wonder and learn on our own

• Museum-goers: 75%
• U.S. adults: 59%

Broaden our minds to imagine life experiences different than our own

• Museum-goers: 74%
• U.S. adults: 59%

Develop greater understanding of the experiences of people from the past through historical imagination

• Museum-goers: 72%
• U.S. adults: 60%

Promote critical thinking by imagining different possibilities and using evidence to understand what is most likely or the best choice

• Museum-goers: 59%
• U.S. adults: 53%

Build excitement about the new ideas and creativity the experiences spark

• Museum-goers: 59%
• U.S. adults: 52%

Help us imagine a better future, giving us something positive to work towards

• Museum-goers: 49%
• U.S. adults: 48%

None of these

• Museum-goers: 1%
• U.S. adults: 4%

Again, respondents were supportive, with the average respondent choosing nearly ve of the answer choices (and only 1% of frequent museum-goers saying “none of these”).

To help us understand how enthusiastic respondents were about imaginative learning in museums, we sorted respondents into three categories:

• RESISTANT: these respondents answered negatively to one or both of the questions.
• AMBIVALENT: these respondents like the idea of imaginative learning, but are not necessarily seeking it out. They typically chose one to four answer choices to each question.
• ENTHUSIASTIC: these respondents loved the idea of imaginative learning, and chose five or more answer choices to both questions; in fact, 85% of this segment chose ALL of the answer choices in one or both of the questions.

Resistant: Imagination

• Museum-goers: 3%
• U.S. adults: 5%

Ambivalent: Imagination

• Museum-goers: 52%
• U.S. adults: 58%

Enthusiastic: Imagination

• Museum-goers: 45%
• U.S. adults: 37%

Clearly, imagination is popular and generally welcome among our visitors. Nearly half of frequent museum-goers fall in the “enthusiastic” segment. The more ambivalent respondents are also happy to go along with imaginative learning, responding positively (just less enthusiastically). We’ll explore these three segments more in our next Data Story.

Overall, however, this suggests that we can be very proactive talking about imagination in museums. The more we talk about and support imagination, helping visitors to feel good about their own imaginative learning, the more effective we can be in their learning experiences and outcomes.

“Imagination is very important to me…it keeps me interested in the many layers of life’s complexity and quality, opportunities. It inspires me beyond ‘what is’ to ‘what could be.’ It is soul food for my right brain.”

Annual Survey of Museum-Goers Data Stories are created by Wilkening Consulting on behalf of the American Alliance of Museums. Sources include:
• 2024 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, n = 90,178; 202 museums participating
• 2024 Broader Population Sampling, n = 2,154
• 2017 – 2023 Annual Surveys of Museum-Goers

U.S. demographic data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

*Data Stories share research about both frequent museum-goers (typically visit multiple museums each year) and the broader population (including casual, sporadic, and non-visitors to museums). See the Purpose and Methodology (Update) Data Story from September 5, 2024 for more information on methodology.

More Data Stories can be found at wilkeningconsulting.com/data-stories.

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Across the country, millions of children get up and head to their home classrooms. These homeschooled children are primarily learning from their parents and guardians in a rather different environment than children in formal education (like public, private, and charter schools). And they are also a niche audience that many museums specifically serve.

In the 2024 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers we asked parents and guardians of school-age children what types of schools their children attended. Overall, here’s what we found:

• Public school: 72%
• Charter school: 7%
• Private school: 19%
• Homeschool: 11%

Parents and guardians could choose more than one answer, since siblings could be enrolled in different types of educational environments.

The latest data from the National Center of Education Statistics(2) (2021) says 6.8% of households with children homeschool at least one child. Note, however, they are counting all households with children, including those with very young children and infants. This suggests that if the households with children 4 and younger were removed from the calculation, the percentage of homeschooling households with school-age children would likely be in the 8 – 10% range…close to what we found.

In total, 1,178 museum-going homeschooling households responded to our survey…a truly robust sample of this specific audience.(1) Let’s explore what they shared with us.

Characteristics of Homeschooling Families

For the most part, homeschooling families are a lot like families whose children participate in formal education. In fact, a quarter of homeschooling families also have children in public, private, or charter schools, indicating that for some homeschool households, homeschooling decisions are made on a child-by-child basis.

Families choose to homeschool for a variety of reasons, and they hold diverse values.

That said, overall there were significant differences that set homeschool families apart:

• Education. Homeschooling parents and guardians generally have lower levels of educational attainment: they were a third less likely to have a graduate degree, and 70% more likely to have not completed college.
• Political Values. These households were 2.6x more likely to identify as conservative, and only half as likely to identify as liberal, than other parents and guardians. Overall, 35% identified as conservative and 25% liberal.
• Religious Values. While we didn’t explicitly ask about religion, homeschool respondents were nearly twice as likely to cite their religion or faith as giving them hope, suggesting stronger religious ties than other respondents.

There were no meaningful differences by race and ethnicity.

We don’t ask about income or employment status in our research, but data from the National Center of Education Statistics indicates that households that homeschool tend to have lower average income, likely because they are more likely to have a stay-at-home parent or guardian.

Thus, it wasn’t a big surprise to see that homeschool families were much more likely to say their membership makes visiting museums cost-effective, and to cite the cost of museum visits as a barrier to more frequent visitation.

“Cost: at the time it was affordable enough for us to attend.”

“Creates an affordable outing for me to take my kids to.”

Museum Visitation and Motivations

To our surprise, homeschool families don’t visit museums any more frequently than families participating in formal education. Visitation rates are about the same.

This doesn’t preclude some super-users of museums among homeschooling households…just that they are outliers (the same is true for families with kids in formal education).

Generally, their motivations are similar as well in that virtually all parents and guardians are focused on their children’s experiences. That said, homeschool families are even more likely to have laser-like focus on learning experiences for their children (80% versus 66% for other families). But they are somewhat less likely to visit for family time.

Homeschooling families tend to be a bit more critical of museums overall, being somewhat more demanding of additional content and less likely to say museums are doing a “great job” than other families.

“We are interested in genealogy and local history so we are hoping to learn how our membership can assist with that as well as local history for a homeschooling high school elective.”

“[Museums should] offer classes specifically for homeschool children.”

Community Orientation

Homeschool families were generally less enthusiastic about response choices that had a community theme. That is, they were significantly less likely to say:

• Museums contribute to the quality of life in their community
• That visiting museums makes them feel more a part of the community
• That being part of a community of people working to make things better gave them hope

This greater sense of separation from community may be deliberate for at least some homeschooling families. According to the National Center of Education Statistics, the top reason for homeschooling children is concerns about the school environment and other students.

Inclusion

Perhaps the most significant difference between homeschool families and families with children enrolled in formal education is their attitude towards inclusive content. Homeschooling parents and guardians are about 2.5x more likely to fall in the “anti-inclusive” segment than other parents and guardians, as seen below:

Additionally, homeschool parents and guardians were far less likely to identify as an ally of the LGBTQ+ community, only 20% versus 34% of other parents and guardians.

Some of the comments from less inclusive homeschooling parents and guardians were strongly worded. While we have chosen not to share the more offensive comments, the following two quotes provide a glimpse of the sentiments of a significant portion of homeschool parents and guardians.

“Being able to visit AND take my kids without being afraid of extreme wokeness or being told how racist, etc. Things are out of control. Can we please go back to educating society
without this craziness?”

“Any attempt to be inclusive this day and age there are people left out. I don’t want to visit a museum to have varying agendas pushed down my throat.”

Learning Learning Learning

Consistently, homeschool families hammered home how important the learning experience was for their children. In particular, they were significantly more likely to want museums to take a fact-based approach and minimize interpretation and what they articulated as “opinion.” Instead, they wanted to use those facts to draw their own conclusions.

“We used to love the museum–stick to presenting facts, not controversial social or political opinions.”

That said, they were not necessarily seeking a dry recitation of facts. Strong majorities of homeschool families wanted:

• To develop greater understanding of the experiences of people from the past through historical imagination
• To inspire curiosity to wonder and learn on their own
• To see things that inspire awe or wonder

“To see and experience beauty, so we can be expanded in our views of what is possible and have our wonder awakened.”

“Hands-on experiences, this is especially true for kids or tactile learners. Focus on truth and beauty, these things inspire wonder and awe which can lead to a lifetime of curiosity.”

So what have we learned about homeschooling families? Some of the results surprised us, including that homeschool families, on average, don’t visit museums any more frequently than other families. Other results fit into our expectations, including their even greater focus on child learning as well as their “just the facts” approach to content.

There are two areas of concern, however: their lower levels of community connection and their generally less inclusive attitudes. This suggests that, when planning homeschool events, museum educators need to consider more thoughtfully how they are sharing content that reflects different life experiences and worldviews, as at least some homeschooled children may not have been exposed to those ideas yet. Audiences and Inclusion: A Primer for Cultivating More Inclusive Attitudes Among the Public provides guidance for doing just this work.(3)

That said, keep in mind that parents and guardians have many reasons they choose to homeschool, and we need to be careful to not make assumptions. While the majority of homeschool families may fall on the anti-inclusive side of the spectrum, a third fall on the inclusive side. Some parents and guardians choose to homeschool because schools are not inclusive enough, or perhaps because their children are gender diverse or transgender and they want to provide a more supportive environment. And others homeschool because their children are medically fragile.

Bottom line, millions of families are choosing to homeschool, making reaching this audience, and these children, important for many museums. Additionally, museums can do a great deal to help these children learn more about their communities and the world they live in.

Annual Survey of Museum-Goers Data Stories are created by Wilkening Consulting on behalf of the American Alliance of Museums. Sources include:

• 2024 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, n = 90,178; 202 museums participating
• 2024 Broader Population Sampling, n = 2,154
• 2017 – 2023 Annual Surveys of Museum-Goers

*Data Stories share research about both frequent museum-goers (typically visit multiple museums each year) and the broader population (including casual, sporadic, and non-visitors to museums).

1. We did not ask this question of parents and guardians in our broader population sample of U.S. adults, only of frequent museum-going families.
2. See the National Center for Education Statistics “Homeschooled Children and Reasons for Homeschooling” for more information on homeschooling families.
3. You can download a copy at the AAM or Wilkening Consulting websites.

More Data Stories can be found at wilkeningconsulting.com/data-stories.

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Over the past few years, the way history is taught in school has received a lot of scrutiny. In some places, state legislation and school boards have placed restrictions on what is taught, while other states have legislated a culturally responsive or inclusive curriculum.

Given these shifts, we wanted to learn more about what parents and guardians were thinking about K-12 history education, and dropped in a few questions in the 2024 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers.

First, parents and guardians of school-age children were asked what types of schools their children attended. They could choose more than one, since siblings could be in different types of educational environments. Here’s what we found:

• Public school: 72%
• Charter school: 7%
• Private school: 19%
• Homeschool(1) 11%

Those who chose public, charter, or private schools then received a question asking if they deliberately visited museums to fill in gaps they didn’t feel their child’s school covered adequately, asking about art, STEM, and history education specifically. Those three disciplines posted similar numbers, while a third of parents said no, they were happy with the school curriculum.

• Art education: 47%
• STEM education: 41%
• History education: 44%
• No, I’ve been happy with what schools are doing: 34%

Overall, those who were happy with schools were more likely to have younger children (more in the K-2 range), so they likely were not perceiving curriculum gaps…yet.

Respondents who chose STEM were more likely to have elementary-age children, with fewer parents and guardians of tweens and teens saying they visit museums for STEM content. This suggests that parents and guardians of older children are not finding that the science content in museums is fitting their child’s curricular needs effectively, presenting an opportunity for science museums to consider.

In contrast, respondents who chose art and history were more likely to have children in middle and high school, when those curricular gaps become most obvious.

The final question was only seen by parents and guardians who said they were seeking out history experiences.(2) We asked:

Thinking of history education specifically, what kind of history content do you want museums and historic sites to share? What do you think is missing or needs addressing from what is taught in your child’s classroom?

We then hand-coded every single written-in response to this question, nearly 2,000. They fell into three main categories.

1. Straightforward

About a third of respondents gave rather straightforward responses that supported the value of history, but didn’t veer into controversy. Common themes include:

Schools don’t spend enough time on history

These responses either lamented that schools emphasized other subjects over history or that schools didn’t have time to go in-depth on history topics.

“Elementary schools in my state gloss over social studies in favor of math and language.”

“School classrooms only skim the surface of history. Museums do an outstanding job of filling gaps and adding depth.”

Museums make history come to life

Most of these responses suggested that museums were the best educators for history due to the immersive, interactive, personal, object-based experiences we share…making museums better than books, classrooms, and screens.

“Museums help kids see and touch things in person instead of in a classroom setting, in a book, on a screen. They get that experience of witnessing it right in front of them in some tangible form. They’ll remember it more when they get to do that.”

Local history

Local history doesn’t make it into textbooks, and most history organizations are all about local history. So the value of local history also received a shout-out.

“Local stories. How are communities developed.”

2. The less inclusive

While only 2% of responses were explicitly anti-inclusive, about 12% used coded language or tropes and platitudes that are more likely to come from less-inclusive people.

Because explicitly anti-inclusive comments tend to be unkind, we are not sharing any of those.

Coded language

Over the past several years we have developed a list of certain words and phrases that we have learned are used to privilege a more narrow, typically celebratory, history that also tends to focus on the experiences of Europeans and white people. These include:

• “Important,” “significant,” or “real” history
• “Just the facts, so we can make up our own minds”
• “Don’t judge people of the past by today’s values”
• “History cannot/should not be erased” or “revisionist history”

“Only historically accurate content. Nothing rewritten or from a different perspective. Just stick to the facts and not present your own spin or opinion on things. Leave it up to the guests to draw their own conclusions.”

Tropes and platitudes

These comments tend to be stock phrases and ideas that sound innocuous and tend to have little context around them. We put them in this category because less inclusive people are much more likely to use them than inclusive people. These include:

• “Good, bad, and ugly” or “warts and all” approaches to history
• Learning from mistakes of the past/history repeats itself
• Inspiration of learning from sacrifices or successes of others

“They need to know the good and the bad that happened before us so history doesn’t repeat itself.”

3. The inclusive

The largest segment of respondents implored museums to provide the inclusive content schools could not provide. In fact, we received nearly 15x more explicitly inclusive comments than explicitly anti-inclusive responses.

On top of that, about twice as many people gave responses that leaned more inclusive and expansive than leaned less inclusive.

BOTTOM LINE: the response FOR inclusion was overwhelming.

More expansive history…but not explicitly inclusive

Over a fifth of responses supported a more expansive understanding of the past, but didn’t explicitly use inclusive language. These respondents were much more likely to come from inclusive respondents. Examples include:

• A desire for multi-cultural content
• The importance of uncomfortable and difficult history, typically with supporting context that demanded a more critical and thorough approach to the past
• A need for more complete history with multiple viewpoints

“Increased global content. History in primary and secondary education is incredibly focused on US and some parts of European history.”

“Approaches to history that are critical of heroic stories, approaches to history that pay attention to everyday objects and everyday experiences (not presidents and wars and political regime changes).”

Explicitly inclusive responses

Most of the inclusive responses were explicit about the need for diverse stories and perspectives. These included a smaller number of comments lamenting history censorship and teaching restrictions.

“There needs to be more inclusive history content of cultures and societies that are not as well covered in standard history lessons, and content of past issues in our history should be addressed and not hidden or whitewashed over.”

“Any topic that is considered controversial in public schools should be addressed! The list seems to get more exhaustive every day. Teachers fear retribution if certain topics are taught. Teach those.”

There was also a fundamental shift in comments from inclusive people that we had not seen before: they were taking the language of anti-inclusive people and using it to promote inclusive history. That is, we saw far more respondents specifically say they support critical race theory, say revising history was a critical part of historiography, and calling history censorship “indoctrination.” They are also looking to history museums to champion a more inclusive history.

And history museums should, because exploring all the evidence of the past is morally the right thing to do–even if it is controversial. Bravery in this moment matters…and in this case, the brave choice is one that is also supported by a majority of the public. (3)

“History is written by the winners. And that’s what kids learn in school. I’d like to visit museums that share different perspectives that they don’t get exposed to at school. Get controversial. Ruffle up some feathers. The kids need to learn that just because the winners ‘won’ and wrote the story doesn’t automatically mean that they were ‘good’ or ‘heroic’ or something we should look up to and be inspired by, or that their story is the only one that matters.”

Annual Survey of Museum-Goers Data Stories are created by Wilkening Consulting on behalf of the American Alliance of Museums. Sources include:

• 2024 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, n = 90,178; 202 museums participating
• 2024 Broader Population Sampling, n = 2,154
• 2017 – 2023 Annual Surveys of Museum-Goers

*Data Stories share research about both frequent museum-goers (typically visit multiple museums each year) and the broader population (including casual, sporadic, and non-visitors to museums).

1. A side benefit of this line of inquiry is a robust national sample of homeschool families. Stay tuned for a Data Story about them
2. We intend to cycle through art and STEM over the next two Annual Surveys.
3. See the Data Story “Inclusive Attitudes: Shifts Over Time“

More Data Stories can be found at wilkeningconsulting.com/data-stories.

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Over the past several years, race and gender have received extraordinary attention. “Me too” conversations, racial reckonings, and conflict over how gender is expressed have resulted in shifts in inclusive attitudes…some towards a more inclusive viewpoint, and others less so.

Since 2021, we have been tracking how museum-goers feel about inclusive content in museums.

We use a battery of three questions to assess individual attitudes on inclusion, as there is no single question that helps us sort this out accurately. To learn more about the three questions we use, see our 2021 Data Story “The Spectrum of Inclusive Attitudes: Methodology.”

Overall, the news is good: most people want museums to share inclusive content, and inclusive attitudes strongly outnumber the anti-inclusive.

Frankly, it’s also been a bit of a roller coaster ride.

Let’s first examine frequent museum-goers and their attitudes.

Back in 2021, we found that just over half of museum-goers fell on the “inclusive” side of the spectrum, and about a quarter fell on the “anti-inclusive” side.

2021 – FREQUENT MUSEUM-GOERS

In 2022, we were surprised to see that attitudes had shifted quite a bit towards inclusion: nearly 2/3 falling on the more inclusive side and a small dip in anti-inclusive sentiment.

2022 – FREQUENT MUSEUM-GOERS

Over the past two years, however, we seem to have reverted back to 2021 norms, and 2022 increasingly looks like an outlier year.

2023 – FREQUENT MUSEUM-GOERS

2024 – FREQUENT MUSEUM-GOERS

We saw a similar shift of attitudes when we asked a representative broader population sample of U.S. adults the same questions.

Broader Population

For the broader population, inclusive attitudes have not fallen back to 2021 levels, unlike attitudes of frequent museum goers. Indeed, at least a small amount of growth toward inclusivity was maintained there.

So, what’s going on?

Honestly, we don’t know for sure. We can’t go to an individual person and ask why their attitudes are shifting, much less thousands of respondents.

We think, however, this pullback from 2022 may be a result of fatigue. Fatigue from the intense emotions these topics evoke. Fatigue from the political cycle. Fatigue from the many challenges we each face on a daily basis.

When people are tired, they look for respite, comfort, and norms that may make them feel more comfortable. But comfortable for whom? And at whose expense?

And if such fatigue prompts a turn away from inclusive attitudes, how might we do this work effectively? Sharing humanity’s history, experiences, and cultural and artistic expressions is at the heart of what museums do.

The 2025 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers and Broader Population Sampling will field these questions yet again, so we can continue to track this journey we are all taking together.

In the meantime, we encourage you to check out some of our resources for sharing inclusive content public, including: Audiences and Inclusion: A Primer for Cultivating More Inclusive Attitudes Among the Public and our Data Story “Beware! The False Consensus Effect.”

Annual Survey of Museum-Goers Data Stories are created by Wilkening Consulting on behalf of the American Alliance of Museums. Sources include:
• 2024 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, n = 90,178; 202 museums participating
• 2024 Broader Population Sampling, n = 2,154
• 2017 – 2023 Annual Surveys of Museum-Goers

*Data Stories share research about both frequent museum-goers (typically visit multiple museums each year) and the broader population (including casual, sporadic, and non-visitors to museums).

More Data Stories can be found at wilkeningconsulting.com/data-stories.

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“The museum helps create community.”

“A museum is NOT a part of the local community! Its context is historical and global.”

“The museum should have more programs and exhibits that address important issues and topics in my community.”

Many of us who work in the museum field think a lot about how we serve the community. Typically, we are thinking about our geographic community (though there can also be communities of interest that are not geographically based).

Frequent museum-goers, however, don’t explicitly think about how museums serve the community nearly as much. And when they do, their attitudes vary widely, as the above examples demonstrate.

In this Data Story, we are going to take a look at how the perception that museums connect people to community appears to affect engagement and visitation. We’ll also explore the variety of perceptions museum-goers have about community engagement.

In the 2024 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, we asked respondents two questions that had community-oriented answers. For both questions, respondents were thinking of museums in general, and could choose as many answers as they liked.

1. What inspires you to make a return visit to a specific museum?
   18% of respondents chose “to feel connected to my community and/or support a community organization.”
2. When you think of an ideal museum visit, what do you want to experience?
   17% chose “greater connection to others/more a part of my community.”

We then sorted respondents into three categories:

• Those who chose BOTH community-oriented answers: 7% of respondents
• Those who chose ONE of the answers (but not both): 17% of respondents
• Those who did not choose EITHER answer: 76% of respondents

The first, most obvious, conclusion is that most museum-goers are not expressing a strong connection between museums and community. So, overall, there is a bit of a disconnect between what we think about a lot as practitioners…and the perceptions of most visitors.

But when we compare these three different categories of respondents, things get a bit more interesting.

Museums connect us to community!

“This is an exceptional museum…such an asset to our community.”

“I love the museum and everything you do for the community.”

While only 7% of respondents chose both community answer choices, these respondents were unquestionably the most engaged museum-goers. They:

• Visit museums much more frequently than other respondents
• Have more motivations for visiting
• Are much more likely to identify as curious
• Are most likely to think museums are doing a “great job”
• Are much more enthusiastic about imaginative learning
• Are much more likely to want museums to cultivate hope among visitors
• Are 50% more likely to hold inclusive attitudes
• And are significantly more likely to be under 40 without minor children (and significantly less likely to be 60 or older)

Respondents who chose one or the other of the two community-oriented answers, 17% of respondents overall, also skewed these ways. They simply didn’t veer from the norm as much as those that chose both the answers.

Not thinking about museums and community

Over three-quarters of respondents didn’t choose either answer, but compared to their community-oriented peers, they were significantly less engaged with museums. They:

• Visit less frequently
• Are not quite as strongly motivated
• And are generally not as enthusiastic about a lot of the other things we were assessing, such as imaginative learning, hope, and inclusion

This doesn’t mean they are negative museum-goers. Not at all! For the most part, they are engaged, frequent museum-goers.

This is more about comparison. The individuals who think museums connect us to community are just even more enthusiastic about museums.

But are there people who don’t want museums engaged in community?

Well, yes, but it is a relatively small percentage. In the 2023 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, when we asked about museums and their role in civic life, we saw about one in five respondents push back and share that they felt this was “political,” was “not your job,” or that they considered community engagement a distraction from the mission. Some felt “community” was coded language for inclusive efforts.

“The museum has unfortunately become a community center.”

“Community engagement…often detracts from the mission. Drop the ‘woke’ and pick up the painting.”

Additionally, we sometimes see museum-goers express the idea that museums are something that is completely outside of their daily lives (and community), thus supporting their need for respite and escape from the day-to-day grind.

While we acknowledge that respite is something virtually all of us need, it isn’t realistic, or even possible, for museums to be fully divorced from contemporary events locally, nationally, and internationally. After all, visitors bring their own life experiences and perspectives into museum spaces…and view museum content through those lenses. A museum that ignores contemporary events and experiences risks losing its relevancy.

Fortunately, we do know that most museum-goers are open to museums and community engagement and outreach…they are just not explicitly connecting the two. This suggests there is a significant articulation gap.

“For all of its apparent concern for the community, I’m not sure the museum is effective at communicating why their permanent collection and exhibitions are so important.”

“Not sure I would know how community members are helped.”

If we want to be vital community anchors, we need to:

• Understand how the community wants us to support them as humans and community members
• Do the work effectively
• Communicate broadly how we do it
• And share why it supports the mission and matters to community members; that is, measure the impact

When asked, however, museum-goers do have thoughtful, creative, and mission-based ideas that museums can implement to support their hopes for their community. We’ll explore these in a future Data Story.

But there is something great to celebrate here: when museum-goers see their local museums as vital community hubs, engagement increases significantly!

This suggests that community engagement efforts result in not only delivering more impact to more people, but increasing relevance (and visitation) on a much more frequent basis as well.

It’s a virtuous circle that helps our communities be more neighborly, thriving, and inclusive places, helps community members learn and grow individually, and helps museums share their missions more effectively.

Annual Survey of Museum-Goers Data Stories are created by Wilkening Consulting on behalf of the American Alliance of Museums. Sources include:
• 2024 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, n = 90,178; 202 museums participating
• 2024 Broader Population Sampling, n = 2,154
• 2017 – 2023 Annual Surveys of Museum-Goers

*Data Stories share research about both frequent museum-goers (typically visit multiple museums each year) and the broader population (including casual, sporadic, and non-visitors to museums).

More Data Stories can be found at wilkeningconsulting.com/data-stories.