JMM Insights: Thank you for Your Feedback

This week’s edition of JMM Insights comes from the Programs team.


During every JMM public program, we ask the audience to complete a survey about their experience and encourage everyone to share their thoughts with us. While these surveys may seem like a mere formality, they are, in fact, crucial to our work in planning programs. They help us understand who is watching our programs and in what they are interested. They also help us determine whether an event met our larger, museum-wide goals around prompting discovery and inspiring action. With the rapid changes brought about over the past year and our inability to gauge an audience’s reactions through conversation or simply “reading the room,” these surveys have become even more important.

The above image is from the exhibition opening for Jewish Refugees and Shanghai from 2019.

When we first began offering virtual programs in the spring of 2020, we were unsure of many of the key elements related to what an online program should entail. At what time did our participants want to view programs and for how long? Were they interested in livestream events or pre-recorded content? What topics and types of programs did they want us to offer? We created a new survey, based on our existing, in-person program survey, to help us answer these questions and more. The feedback we received was essential in planning a program schedule that fit the needs and wants of our program participants. As we experimented with technology and platforms, we closely monitored our surveys for guidance. When we realized that a significant number of individuals regularly mentioned difficulty registering for programs, we restructured our registration process to make it more user-friendly and added a question to our surveys to measure whether the new process made an improvement. 

The above image is a screenshot from the program, Count Us In. 

The surveys have proved especially useful for planning programs within a series. For the partner series, Jews of Color, Jewish Institutions, and Jewish Community in the Age of #BlackLivesMatter, we were able to use the feedback we received early on to help inform later sessions and guide developing comparable future program series. As we concluded the programming to accompany our Jews in Space exhibit, we were curious to know what kinds of programs our audience wanted us to offer next. We added additional questions to our survey about preferences for upcoming programs which contributed to our decision to offer our current series, Exploring Global Jewish Life. 

The above image is a screenshot from the program, Party for the Planet.

Perhaps most importantly, the surveys are a reminder of the human element of our work. They allow us to hear participants’ voices during this time when we cannot see or speak directly with you. They let us know there are people behind the computer screens for whom programs can have a deep and personal meaning.  It is humbling and rewarding to read survey comments in which participants express their appreciation for a program or how its inspired them in some way.  We’d like to share a selection of participant survey quotes below that resonated with us.

Thank you for continuing to provide your feedback and if you have any additional feedback or suggestions please consider reaching out to us directly. 

Community Voices:

“This was an outstanding program in every way. I can’t wait to view it again in the archive. The speaker had so much personal and professional depth that she shares so freely and naturally. The Q and A was very well moderated. The tone throughout was respectful and encouraged further reading and thought. Many thanks to everyone who made this happen!”


“The topics and speakers were all excellent and very informative and thought provoking. I learned a great deal of valuable information and have been inspired to look at what I need to change about myself and my community.”


 “Thank you for recognizing the importance of today! We have a responsibility to think globally and to welcome new-comers to our country.”


“This program was a very creative and very well-done Earth Day activity for young kids and families. I’m so glad my kids were able to participate. I enjoyed it as well. We’re very familiar with reusing and recycling. But I hadn’t connected it to music with her in a while. She and her little sister enjoyed playing their instruments all afternoon. Thank you!”


Upcoming Program:

Register here.

The Associated’s 2022 Campaign Kick-Off
Monday, September 13th at 5pm Eastern

Join Associated system leaders at 2022 Campaign Kick-Off for an important conversation about the rise in antisemitism and our system’s response to combatting it.

Register here.


Reminder: Executive Director Sol Davis is holding weekly office hours to meet you! Make an appointment for a virtual visit and share your thoughts, ideas, and aspirations for JMM.
Click to schedule an appointment now!


Esther’s Place Online:
September Bundle

To mark the start of the new school year, check out this month’s bundle which features a collection of items related to local and state history.

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Programs and Events

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