WITH OUR POWERS COMBINED: INCREASING AUDIENCE REACH FOR SMALL MUSEUMS THROUGH COLLABORATIVE EDUCATION & OUTREACH INITIATIVES

Outreach and education are common goals among all museums; however, budget is often a factor for many institutions as to how successful outreach efforts are in their surrounding communities. Large institutions with larger budgets can have a greater reach and impact on their communities, while smaller budgets at small institutions can be a limiting factor in their efforts. Collaboration between neighboring institutions can help to alleviate this issue. The Western Science Center and the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology are two smaller institutions in the Southern California area that partnered together to increase their outreach efforts throughout the region and share operational costs for outreach opportunities that would have otherwise been too expensive for the institutions on their own. Together we have collaborated through the following measures: 1) splitting costs of off-site exhibitions; 2) attending and promoting each institution’s events, 3) providing information and specimens for exhibits at both institutions; and 4) cross-promoting through outreach marketing initiatives such as the National Fossil Day “instaswap”, along with other projects still in development. Through a combination of collaborative education, outreach, and exhibit design, both institutions have raised regional awareness about our respective programs, alleviated costs, and increased attendance outreach numbers. For example, both institutions partnered to attend Los Angeles Comic Con, which would normally be too expensive to attend alone. By attending together, the cost was reduced to $375 for each institution and we added 1200 people to our outreach numbers. By working on initiatives together rather than apart, the Western Science Center and Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology are achieving our wider goal of increasing geoscience literacy and comprehension in Southern California.