Science Museum Visitors - Who They Are, Why They Join

Last Saturday, at the ASTC annual meeting, we finally released the results from our international study of science museum visitors.  This data has been thought-provoking and challenging, and it also provides exciting opportunities not only for science museums, but also for other types of museums, including history-based museums and art museums.

 

Over the next few weeks and months, we will be releasing the bulk of this data via this blog.  So check back often – you will be able to find the posts related to this data by clicking on the category “science museum visitors.”

 

So let’s get started.

 

First off, who responded?  We had well over 14,000 respondents from fifty museums and science centers in four countries (US, Canada, UK , and Australia - although the  vast majority of respondents were from the US, the respondents from the other countries responded similarly to the American sample).  As the survey invitation was sent by each museum to their e-mail list, the respondents represent the Core Visitors of science museums, not the general public or even the very casual visitor.  Respondents had an established relationship of some kind with the museum, such as a membership, and had signed up to receive e-mails from the museum.

We also built off of previous work we have done field-wide, including our studies of children’s museum visitors and outdoor history museum visitors, our upcoming release of data from Connecticut Cultural Consumers, and additional research we are fielding on Museum Advocates.

 

The majority of respondents, 66%, were parents of minor children.  Grandparents were about 1/6 of respondents, while adults with no minor children in their lives were about 1/5 of respondents.  Additionally, 73% of respondents were female.

 

Why do they visit?

 

For 60% of respondents, visiting was to provide learning opportunities for my children.  45% said that their children liked to visit.  And 44% said they visited for family time.  There is definitely a theme here that we will come back to in the next few weeks of posts.

 

Why do they join and/or give to the science museum?

 

There was not one, single reason why a majority of respondents joined the museum, but instead a number of reasons, indicating that individuals have different motivations for their support.

Nearly half of respondents indicated budget-minded reasons for support, with 48% saying they gave to pay for the services they receive, and 46% to save money.  These respondents tended to be young moms in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.

 

But nearly as many, 44%, said they joined to help children’s organizations, and 43% to help the museum improve, indicating a strong philanthropic reason for support.  These respondents, however, tended to be older than the young moms.

 

Only 2% joined because they “were asked,” a number that is consistent with what we have found in our other studies.  We are glad to see this low number on this response, as it indicates that members do not feel that a membership request is simply a financial transaction.  Instead, there is value inherent in that membership, regardless if the motivations are budgetary or philanthropic.  We believe that museums could probably be asking for these gifts a whole lot more.

 

We would love to hear your thoughts and questions about these topics.  To share or ask questions, simply click on “comments” below.  (If you are reading this from your e-mail subscription to the blog, please go to our blog's website to add a comment.)

 

Coming up in our next Science Museum Visitors post:  where Core Visitors to science museums think they excel . . . . and where they fall a bit short.  

Comments

[Paolo Amoroso]

The "ASTC annual meeting" link URL contains a typo, i.e. an extra "http//".

[Susie Wilkening, Reach Advisors]

Thanks for catching that! All fixed . . .

[Kirsten Ellenbogen]

Thanks so much for sharing this study. I have a copy of the power point slides - are all of the findings presented in the slides from museum members or people who otherwise had an email address on file with the museum? What percent of the responses were members of their local museum?

[Susie Wilkening, Reach Advisors]

Hi Kirsten -

Great question. Yes, all of the respondents were on an e-mail list that the participating museums maintained. 72% identified themselves as members, 28% as non-members. So all respondents had some sort of connection with the museum, ranging from simply being on the e-mail list all the way to being a very engaged, supportive, member, donor, volunteer, and/or active visitor.

We will be posting more of the results over the next few months as well!

Susie

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