The American Association for State and
Local History’s Performance Management program now offers its services
to historic houses (in addition to museums). After three years of piloting
Performance Management with ten historic houses in the Philadelphia area,
the program is ready for use by the field at large.
The AASLH Performance Management program is based on measurement of visitor satisfaction and opinions via a visitor survey, digging deeper to determine root causes of issues and weaknesses identified by visitors, fixing the problems, and then planning to re-measure three to five years later to make sure problems have been corrected.
Developed in partnership with the
Center for Nonprofit Management of Nashville, the Performance Management program
provides client institutions with a final report that identifies strengths and
weaknesses and helps staff plan for positive institutional change in areas such
as educational programming, tours and visitor services, marketing, and strategic
planning. The report also offers valuable support material for marketing efforts
and grant applications and other funding requests.
An important benefit of the AASLH
Performance Management program is that it provides participating institutions
with benchmarks so they can compare
their visitor survey results with institutions of similar size and
scope.
Performance Management is offered
twice a year to a limited number of institutions (Group A begins in January;
Group B begins each June). A Performance Management group for history museums
will begin in June as well. Institutions interested in signing up for either the
June historic house group or the June museum group are encouraged to contact
AASLH now. The program is almost a year in
length.
AASLH member institutions receive the complete Performance Management package for $3,500 – well below the cost of hiring an outside firm to conduct a scientific and tested visitor survey. For some museums, the fee can be paid over the course of two fiscal years since the program is almost a year in length. Institutions in need of grant support in order to participate are encouraged to discuss the Performance Management program and its benefits with local/statewide foundations or a statewide museum grants program. AASLH believes Performance Management would be an excellent project to submit for a funding request.
To read more about Performance Management, visit http://www.aaslh.org/perfmanagement.htm
Please contact me if you have questions.
Cherie Cook, Project Director
Performance Management Program
AASLH
cook @ aaslh.org (remove spaces)