34: Museums, Communities, and Change: Balancing rigor, safety, and utility in a study to understand equity centered projects across diverse cultural organizations

In 2023, the Smithsonian’s Reckoning with Our Racial Past (RWORP) initiative partnered with the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) to provide professional development training for professionals from cultural organizations interested in embedding equity in their institutional processes and practices. Based on this work, we developed an evaluation study to conduct case sample analyses of museum organizational change efforts across various contexts, work types, and professionals in diverse roles: Museums, Communities, and Change (MCC). Using MCC as a starting point, we will invite discussion about how researchers and evaluators contribute to such work in the cultural sector. Prompts will elicit the sharing of experiences, strategies, and issues encountered. They might include issues of transparency and sharing of findings, while maintaining promises of confidentiality or recognizing and balancing the interests of their institutions, other stakeholders, and the common good, while also protecting the integrity of the study.