Communicating the Value of Museums

By Dr. John H. Falk

I have always been impressed by how effective most museum leaders are at communicating the value of their museums when talking with traditional supporters. When presenting to museum-friendly boards, cultural foundations, or engaging with long-standing donors, museum leaders can eloquently describe how they support their historic, topic-specific missions. Almost effortlessly, art museum leaders can describe how their exhibitions and programs support art enrichment and appreciation, science museum leaders can talk about how they support science literacy and future STEM careers, history museum leaders can describe the importance of understanding the past and engaging with people's local history, while natural history museum leaders wax passionately about the need to stem environmental crises and children's museum leaders speak to the importance of supporting children's development and learning.

Collectively, all of these topics are unquestionably important, and each continues to deeply resonate with a small, but passionate group of museum supporters — most members of the museum's board of directors, historic funders, and most particularly, the museum's smallest but most ardent and vocal group of visitors. For decades, not only were these groups sufficient to support the museum, but their values and beliefs closely echoed the beliefs and priorities of most museum staff, which was highly reinforcing.

However, times are changing, and these groups of supporters and funders are dwindling and aging. As a consequence, a single-minded dependence on this traditional approach to museum messaging is increasingly falling short — both of generating sufficient revenues to sustain the organization and, equally importantly, of fulfilling the museum’s mandate and commitment to broadening and diversifying audiences.

I am not advocating abandoning the museum’s historic focus on content and literacy, but I am arguing that this focus alone is no longer sufficient, and that an additional, alternative framing of the value of museums is required. What is needed are new ways for museums to talk with stakeholders and audiences who don’t start from a belief that the museum’s historic frame of reference is necessarily essential, individuals who, in fact, might even be skeptical of these traditional ways of valuing the museum. I am advocating an entirely new approach, one now supported by rigorous research with thousands of museum visitors from dozens of museums, including art, history, and science museums. This research provides a useful framework that makes it possible for museum leaders to talk about the value of museums in ways that speak directly to these latter stakeholders, using vocabulary not framed around content but rather basic human well-being-related values. I am referring to research that allows museum leaders to confidently talk about the core human values and benefits that museums support, benefits that cost-effectively generate significant economic value within communities.

Research in Brief

Until recently, efforts to directly measure and quantify the social and economic value created by museums have been hampered by an inability to fully grasp the scope and scale of both the intangible and economic benefits museums support. Historic efforts at defining the intangible value of museums have tended to focus on things like content-related learning, interest, and/or changes in community literacy (e.g., Deloitte, 2024; Falk, et al., 2016; Falk, et al., 2018). These studies, though, have arguably focused on the trees rather than the forest; they have focused on the outcomes museum staff have hoped to achieve rather than on the real benefits the public who visits museums say they actually experience.

Most museum visitors, and here I’m talking about 90% of museum visitors, say the reason they visit museums is to see and do things unavailable to them in their everyday lives. They report that their museum visits have multiple benefits, including catalyzing wonder, increasing interest and curiosity, building social bonds with family and fostering a greater sense of belonging, while enhancing perceptions of physical safety and serenity. And yes, people also say they learn things, but learning was generally seen as an added benefit, not the primary value they were seeking. And the good news is, museums have long been successful at supporting just these broader, non-learning types of visit outcomes, outcomes that directly correlate with some of humanity's most basic, biologically and culturally valuable and essential needs, outcomes that can be described as falling within what I have identified as the four primary dimensions of human well-being — physical, social, intellectual and personal well-being (Falk, 2019; 2022; 2025).

As for economic measures, museums have spent too much time listening to economists, who frankly know nothing about why people go to museums. As a consequence, museums have tried to justify their economic value on how much they increase tourism dollars (e.g., Lawton & Rowe, 2010; Oxford Economics, 2017) or add to community tax revenues or employment (e.g., Lawton & Rowe, 2010; Phillips, et al., 2025). Sure, museums do help generate tourism dollars and provide marginal gains in a community’s revenues and employment, but for good reasons, few government officials have found these arguments totally compelling. This is because governments do not see museums as necessarily the primary or even the best solution to these problems; tourism dollars and increased revenues and employment are not why museums exist. They exist to support the intangible benefits described above. So why not demonstrate that these intangible benefits have real economic value, that museums make a significant economic contribution to the value of a community just by doing what they were designed to do (cf., Falk, et al., 2025)?

My colleagues and I have now conducted four separate studies on the value of museum experiences, together involving more than 8,000 visitors to over four dozen museums, including art, history, and science museums, large, medium, and small museums, as well as museums from every corner of the U.S., as well as Finland and Mexico City (cf., Falk, et al., 2023a; 2023b; 2025a; 2025b). Visitors to each museum were randomly approached and invited to participate in the study, and if they agreed each was sent a survey one month after their museum visit and asked to either indicate whether or not they had experienced each of 16 possible well-being-related outcomes — 4 outcome measures for each of the four dimensions of well-being, and if they had experienced enhanced well-being, for how long those benefits lasted — benefits lasting 1-2 hours, a day, a week, two weeks, or a month or more — or asked to assign a monetary value to each of the same set of 16 possible well-being-related outcomes for each of these same five possible durations.

For each of the 16 outcome measures, the vast majority of individuals (more than 98%) reported having experienced positive benefits from their museum visit, with most reporting multiple benefits lasting long beyond the limited 1 to 2 hours of their actual museum visit. On average, museum visitors responded that their couple-hour visit resulted in benefits lasting a week or more on average, with many reporting that they perceived that the benefits of their museum visit lasted multiple weeks or even a month or longer. Not only did people perceive that they derived enhanced personal, intellectual, social, and physical benefits, but they also indicated that each of these benefits provided an economic benefit worth hundreds of dollars. Although the exact approach to measuring this value has differed between studies as we have attempted to get ever-better at determining these economic benefits, the numbers consistently converge around a value of somewhere in the range of $540 in economic value per visit.

Although a value of $540 in benefit for each adult visitor is truly impressive, the real power and value created by the museums involved in these studies lies in their collective value, as each institution serves not just a single visitor but tens to hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. On average, each of the various museums involved in this research annually delivers hundreds of millions of dollars in well-being-related economic value to their users. Ultimately, though, value cannot be judged merely by the gross benefits created since it takes money to create this value. A cost-benefit analysis showed that the average ratio of benefits created relative to the costs of creating that value was on the order of 1,000%, or roughly $10 of benefit achieved for every $1 spent.

In conclusion, these studies collectively show that museums, as evidenced by the dozens of museums participating in these studies, cost-effectively deliver significant personal, intellectual, social, and physical well-being-related value to their users. By enhancing the lives of each of these tens of thousands of users, museums significantly enhance the societal and economic well-being of the broader community.

From Research to Practice: Four Communication Strategies

The research opens specific avenues for how museums can communicate their value to stakeholders who don’t start from traditional cultural appreciation.

Speak to Universal Human Needs. The results provide a way to talk about the benefits of museum-going in non-content terms — terms that speak directly to the public’s and funders' most basic needs. Visiting an art, history, or science museum results in people enhancing their personal, intellectual, social, and physical well-being. More concretely, individuals who visit museums come away from the experience feeling calmer and more relaxed, having discovered new things about themselves and their place in the world, having fostered stronger family ties and relationships, and feeling like they have done something worthwhile. These are outcomes all people aspire to achieve. Reframing the outcomes of museum experiences in this way changes the perception of why someone would want to visit the museum — it is not for some esoteric outcome but rather to achieve benefits that lie at the heart of the human experience.

Position Museums as Community Infrastructure. The case can be made that these well-being-related outcomes are as essential to a quality community as basic services like roads and hospitals. Creating more livable cities — cities that feed the personal, intellectual, social, and physical needs of people — are essential quality of life characteristics of healthy, vibrant communities. In this framing, museums are not mere niceties but civic necessities. Like green spaces and clean air, quality museums make cities places worth living in. This case can and should be made to both funders and individual donors, accompanied by a commitment to measure and validly and reliably track success.

Lead with Cost-Effective Impact. The financial case is direct. Findings demonstrate that the museum-going public perceives that the benefits they derive from visiting a museum have real economic value — a value that exceeds by more than an order of magnitude the market costs of visiting a museum. The data shows that these benefits are cost-effectively generated, allowing museum leaders to assure both public and private funders that the museum will use their resources both effectively and prudently.

Frame Non-Participation as a Missed Opportunity. The fact that not all members of a community currently benefit from utilizing a museum has historically been viewed as a problem, but it can also be viewed as an opportunity. Given the potential benefits that museum-going supports, the case can now be made for the potential benefits that could accrue to a community if more people understood how valuable a visit to a museum could be and took advantage of that opportunity. With greater support, museums could both broaden their audiences and deliver greater value to society. The findings from this research strongly suggest that doing so not only makes sense socially but also economically.

What Practice Has Confirmed

These four strategies are not theoretical. In 2025, the first cohort of the Value Articulation Intensive — a collaborative program between Museums as Progress and myself — put them to work. Participants who deployed the frameworks tested them in live conversations with a provincial government ministry, foundation officers, and institutional leadership teams.

The pattern that emerged confirmed what the research predicted, with important refinements. The well-being outcomes resonated most readily with stakeholders whose priorities already aligned with well-being language — the framing connected to concerns they held but lacked a research-grounded vocabulary to express. The economic value data required more careful calibration: stakeholders accustomed to precise fiscal projections needed the well-being case and the economic case presented as complementary components, not collapsed into a single dollar figure.

Directors who engaged in this process discovered that value articulation is not a messaging exercise. It requires understanding what specific stakeholders actually need to hear, building propositions grounded in the research, and testing them in real conversations — then refining based on what lands. The research provides the foundation. Sustained practice reveals how to make it heard.

References

Deloitte, Access Economics. (2024). Estimating the Social Value of Scitech. Perth, AU: Scitech.

Falk, J.H. (2019). Born to choose: Evolution, self and well-being. London: Routledge.

Falk, J.H. (2022). The value of Museums: Enhancing societal well-being. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Falk, J.H. (2025). Leaning into value: Becoming a user-focused museum. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Falk, J.H., Claudio, N. & Meier, D. (2023a). Measuring the public value of Finnish museums. Technical Report. Beaverton, OR: Institute for Learning Innovation.

Falk, J.H., Claudio, N., Myllykoski, M., Seppälä, S., Sivonen, P. & Tamminen, J. (2025). Towards a valid measure of the economic value of museum experiences: An example from Finland. Social Indicators Research, 177, 533-556.

Falk, J.H., Dierking, L, Claudio, N. & Kline, E. (2025a). Measuring the social and economic value of history museums. Technical Report. Beaverton, OR: Institute for Learning Innovation.

Falk, J.H., Dierking, L, Claudio, N. & Kline, E. (2025b). Measuring the social and economic value of the Banco de Mexico's museums. Technical Report. Beaverton, OR: Institute for Learning Innovation.

Falk, J.H., Dierking, L.D., Swanger, L., Staus, N., Back, M., Barriault, C., Catalao, C., Chambers, C., Chew, L.-L., Dahl, S.A., Falla, S., Gorecki, B., Lau, T.C., Lloyd, A., Martin, J., Santer, J., Singer, S., Solli, A., Trepanier, G., Tyystjärvi, K. & Verheyden, P. (2016). Correlating science center use with adult science literacy: An international, cross-institutional study. Science Education, 100(5), 849–876.

Falk, J.H., Koke, J., Claudio, N. & Meier, D. (2023b). Measuring the social and economic value of art museums. Technical Report. Beaverton, OR: Institute for Learning Innovation.

Falk, J.H., Pattison, S., Meier, D., Livingston, K. & Bibas, D. (2018). The contribution of science-rich resources to public science interest. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 55(3), 422-445.

Lawton, C. & Rowe, L. (2010). Maine Museums: An Economic impact Study. 2010. Prepared for the Maine Arts Commission. Arts Commission Documents. Paper 4.

Oxford Economics (2017). An Economic Impact Study for the American Alliance of Museums.

Phillips, S., Basden, T. & Bray, H. (2025). Evaluating the Social Impact of Scitech on the Western Australian Community. Perth, AU: Scitech.

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