In article <[log in to unmask]>,
[log in to unmask] says:
>
 I have to make a recommendation about how
>     much money, what percentage of the total project budget for each
>     exhibition, should be set aside for evaluation (front-end and
>     formative).
>
>     What do other institutions do? Do you have any policies about how much
>     money to spend on evaluation? What percentage of your exhibition
>     budgets have you spent on evaluation in the past?
>
>     Ballpark figures are more than acceptable!

Linda,
I had a similar question when I started evaluating for a museum. No one really
had
any figures for me then, but there should be better figures available now that
there
are so many in-house evaluators and project managers that use evaluation.
Here's my 2% worth:

The technically correct answer is, "As much as it takes to answer the questions
you
truly need to answer to safely proceed in your project." Your question is like
asking,
"What percentage of the budget should go towards drywall, or nails, in the
renovations?"
If there is an architectural plan that lays out the amount of floor space,
etc., then
this question can be answered fairly accurately by an estimating process.

I suspect your museum does not have a detailed marketing plan that outlines
what information
you currently have, and what you need to get, to achieve your clearly stated
visitor goals. If I am wrong,
please excuse me. If you know the research questions, then any local research
provider can give you an idea
of the per capita cost of surveying, interviewing or studying people (I'm not
familiar with costs in your
part of the world). For in-depth qualitative work, it may be up to $500. a
head. Closed-question
surveys might cost $20. a head (this includes research set-up, analysis and
reporting. The field work cost varies
tremendously depending on whom you have to study.

If there is no plan, then you will have to go with empirical averages:
institutional buildings consist
of 1 pound of nails for every 50 pounds of lumber, for every 100 pounds of
drywall, etc. Not a very accurate
value, and maybe difficult to get, but essentially valid, assuming you are
building a typical building.

You have to ask yourself if you are building a typical museum with your
redevelopment program. Or will it
"push to envelope", advance the state of the art", or otherwise have expensive
computer interactives. If so,
the standard values may not apply.

To end the suspense, it seems to me that projects spend from .5% to 3% of their
budgets on evaluation. This may
be misleading, since museum staff also give time to the evaluation process, and
the total cost of a project, including
hidden costs, is rarely available, given typical government accounting
procedures. So, if your project is a repeat of
the same old thing, with no controversy likely, spend nil to 1% on evaluation.
If it is risky, the team is new at this,
or there has been a political promise to achieve a certain public response, I'd
spend 3 to 5% of the budget on audience
research. There is also a size effect: small projects don't necessarily have
small evaluations, so the % may be higher
than for a mega-project with a lot of fabrication cost. Again, it costs what it
costs, and a plan to guide you is a much
better way to go.

Good luck!