Field Trip: Chicago Natural History Museum Digs for New Members
THE FIELD MUSEUM of Natural History in Chicago is as well known for research as it is for its exhibits. Beginning next month, the Field will explore uncharted territory with a survey to map out members’ characteristics.
According to director of membership Susan Webb, the survey-the museum’s first-is but one of the Field’s new expeditions since it hired Kobs Gregory Passavant to build its membership earlier this year.
“We received a mandate two years ago to double our membership in five years,” she says, noting the goal of 35,000 members is still quite a reach.
The museum has done two mailings so far this year to generate membership, and a third is slated for next month. Webb describes the results so far as good, but not fabulous. “It’s at least at the levels of the past couple of years and sometimes higher,” she says.
The February mailing was sent to close to 100,000 names from house files as well as lists exchanged with other local museums and cultural institutions. It earned better than a 6% response rate.
The Museum of Science and Technology ranks high among productive lists for the Field, as does the Chicago select from the National Audubon Society. Art museum files have gotten poor results.
The second mailing went to a smaller list (70,000 names). At press time it was too early to quantify the results since, as Webb says, Field mailings tend to have “long legs.”
Webb notes the copy for the mailings became less about supporting a great institution and more about what museum membership can do for the member.
“The Field is an entertainment site,” says Kobs Gregory Passavant’s senior vice president and director of client service Kevin Leo. “It’s not just a drafty, dusty old place with stuffed animals. “
Like many museums and cultural institutions, the Field thought its membership was upper middle class, older, wealthier, with children in college, if not on their own.
It’s a base Webb acknowledges is dwindling. The new members the survey should help quantify further seem to be younger, less affluent, with smaller children, who are looking for something for the family to do on a weekend.
