Strategic & Interpretive Planning
When a large, national art museum embarked on a major construction project, staff realized they had a unique opportunity to redefine its relationship with visitors. With the Institute's help, they became one of the first large museums to create a comprehensive interpretive plan, asking provocative questions such as:
- How can the museum become more relevant to its audience?
- What elements in an exhibit support visitor's quests for important, personal experiences with art?
- What would it mean to embrace a philosophy of becoming visitor-centered?
As a result, the institution's museum staff and board, as well as its community engaged in meaningful, candid conversations that will directly impact exhibition and program planning for years to come.
Organization-wide Strategic & Interpretive Planning enables you to connect your mission to your audience – a crucial concept for today's museums, parks, community groups, and more. Learning organizations that enter into this process with the Institute's guidance report significant benefits:
- Improvements to collaborative skills
- Adoption of a clear, shared vocabulary
- Respect for each member's contribution
- A direct connection between each new project and the mission
- Enhanced creative thinking
- Broadly recognized sound business practices
Examples of recent ILI strategic and interpretive planning projects include:
- Rethinking Orientation at the Baltimore Museum of Industry - Through an IMLS Museums for America grant, an ILI team is leading the BMI staff through a master interpretive planning process to guide the development of a new orientation gallery, hands-on learning activities and outdoor signage.
- Two Pennsylvania historic sites are working with ILI to develop master interpretive plans to guide renovations, new exhibits, and a full range of educational programs. The Joseph Priestley House and the Somerset Historical Center have engaged ILI to facilitate planning sessions through 2008.
- Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH. Recently ILI has worked with the museum in a variety of capacities. Initially engaging with the museum's education department in clarifying its mission and aligning its programs to that new strategy, ILI is currently working with them on a museum-wide interpretive plan that will inform how education and curatorial departments work collaboratively to develop a strategy for the reinstallation of their gallery spaces.
