Amy:  we just went through the MAP program with AAM on public/community
perception and had to do quite a few "external feedback" excersizes,
including "on the street" interviews, telephone interviews, focus
groups, and visitor questionaires.
We hired a professor of Marketing from the local college to help us
develop these activities. It worked really well and we got excellent
feedback.  The professor also helped us analyze all the activities and
put it into a whole, which was extremely helpful.


Linda McAllister, CFRE
The Florida Air Museum at Sun 'n Fun
Office:  863-644-2431 ext. 142
Cell: 863-712-2415
[log in to unmask]
www.sun-n-fun.org

-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Amy Cunningham
Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2005 5:35 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Strategic planning- audience and community input

Hello,

Our historical society is beginning a new strategic planning process and
I would like to hear how other museums have used external feedback to
inform the process.  I am especially interested if any of you have used
surveys or questionaires to learn more about your audience (and
potential audience)'s perception of your institutional strengths and
weaknesses and seek their ideas for future endeavors.  What did you ask?
How did you distribute it?

Right now, we are leaning towards using a written and web based survey
to our membership and creating another survey for the more general
community. 
 The survey will not stand alone- we will be conducting some focus group
meetings and interviews with more specific sectors of our audience
(teachers, geneaologists, donors, legislators, business leaders, etc.)as
well.

We are conducting our strategic planning process mostly in-house with a
board/staff steering committee and some outside help for a retreat and
other meeting facilitation.  I would be interested to hear from any of
you who have done the same and lived to tell...

Thanks!
Amy Cunningham

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