Description of Audience
The primary audience is local community residents living within an approximate two-mile radius of the Walker Art Center (10 zip codes: 55401, 55402, 55403, 55404, 55405, 55407, 55408, 55411, 55415, 55454). A microcosm of the shift in demographics toward increased Twin Cities racial and ethnic diversity, this boundary includes one of the nation's largest Native-American urban populations, many of the Twin Cities' oldest European-American and newest Asian-American and African-American immigrant communities, and some of the most affluent as well as some of the poorest neighborhoods in the area. The secondary audience for some programs includes Walker Art Center and Minneapolis Sculpture Garden visitors from outside the two-mile radius.

Goals of the Project
1. Audience Awareness
To heighten an awareness and appreciation of the Walker Art Center as a contemporary, multidisciplinary art museum and as a vital contributor to the community.

2. Audience Engagement
To actively engage audiences in the artist's creative process and to illuminate ways that contemporary art encourages us to explore the issues that shape our everyday lives.

3. Collaborative Program Planning
To enhance the Walker's capacity to produce multidisciplinary programs by further developing collaborative, cross-departmental planning processes and by incorporating community partners into program planning.

Programs
Grant-supported programs in service to these goals will include residency activities with artists in the media arts, performing arts, and visual arts; an artist-in-residence space for the display of current projects and community meetings; exhibitions of two visual artists in residence; a commission in the Minneapolis Sculpture garden; and a variety of educational programs (such as Contemporary Arts Forum, Print and on-line interpretive materials, Free Thursday public programs) and community-based programs (such as Free First Saturday, Explore membership, and artist-in-residence related programs) that will further link the audiences to the artistic process.

Collaborators
In anticipation of this initiative, Walker curators and programmers began holding monthly meetings with neighborhood organizations in November 1997. This Community Neighborhood Advisory Committee (CNAC) now includes sixteen members, such as the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, Native Arts Circle, and the YWCA. CNAC members wish to partner with the Walker and bring the contemporary arts and artistic process into their communities.

Collaborative Program Planning
Interdepartmental planning meetings for the artist residencies and related programs are now being held by walker staff the first Monday of every month. Planning worksheets will be used to coordinate activity. Evaluation meetings will be held after each residency. Members of the Community Neighborhood Advisory Committee will be invited to the meetings and receive copies of the worksheets. Residencies and programs are also listed in the Program Database used internally by Walker staff, with related activities linked to the residencies.

Marketing
13% of the total grant budget has been allocated for marketing. This will support a number of advertising and marketing strategies geared specifically to the primary audience living within the 2-mile radius: a presence in the daily and weekly publications and broadcast media; paid "advertorials" promoting residency activities and public programs; dissemination of the Walker's Calendar at public gatherings and mailed to residency participants and organizations' mailing lists; distribution of free gallery passes, extension of the Explore membership program.

Evaluation
1. Audience Awareness
Walker has conducted a telephone survey with 200 residents within the 2-mile radius to establish baseline awareness. (This survey will be repeated at midpoint and at the conclusion). At conclusion, we look forward to 10% increases in attendance to galleries, Garden, artistic and educational programs, membership, volunteers.

2. Audience Engagement
Museum Management Consultants (MMC) of San Francisco will conduct 3 site visits: at the beginning, midpoint, and at conclusion. The first site visit was conducted in April 1999. Focus Groups will be conducted with participants in the artist residencies and related activities. Throughout the grant period Walker will conduct audience surveys at all grant-funded events. A survey and on-line "comment book" will be part of the computer station in the artist residency gallery space.

3. Collaborative Program Planning
During the 3 site visits, MMC will conduct interviews with Walker staff, members of the CNAC, and neighborhood-partnering organizations involved in the programming.

Documentation
Following each site visit MMC will submit a written report that analyzes the quantitative and qualitative research. The first report will focus on baseline assessment, the second will focus on opportunities for program improvement and refinement, and the third will focus on outcomes of the initiative.

Dissemination
Local: The evaluation reports submitted by MMC will be shared with staffs at Walker, CNAC member organizations, and neighborhood programming partners. Information will be passed along through partners' community newsletters and community meetings.

Regional: KTCA, the Twin Cities' public television station, has agreed in principle to produce a broadcast which will document many of the artist residencies. Walker will also utilize its local and regional press contacts.

National: Walker staff will share information at the national professional conferences (American Association of Museums, College Arts Association). Information will also continue to be published on this website.