Amplifying community voices &

Utilizing community-centered data

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Audience research & visitor studies

We bring nearly 20 years of experience conducting audience research and visitor studies in informal learning settings, such as museums, zoos, parks, historic sites, and aquariums. We use multiple methods and approaches, including surveys, interviews, and timing and tracking, and are committed to finding methods that are creative, interactive, and aligned with your visitors’ experience. We answer questions such as who is visiting, why they are visiting, how they experience your site, and what key takeaways they walk away with. We are particularly interested in how underserved audiences experience museums, with the goal of creating more accessible, inclusive, and welcoming spaces.

Program Evaluation

We conduct program evaluation in a variety of learning settings, from informal contexts to K-12 to higher education environments. We use program evaluation to support team learning and reflective practice, to grow and strengthen your programs, and to develop and document outcomes in a way that aligns with community needs, interests, and values. We use program evaluation as a tool to reflect on your institutional goals and practices, and to better engage your audiences, rather than focusing only on outcomes. We work at all stages of a program, from concept and needs assessment, to formative evaluation, to documenting impacts.

Logic modeling & evaluation planning

It can be challenging to develop a shared understanding around the overall vision for your project or program, how all the pieces fit together, and how you imagine change to occur. We believe in spending significant time at the beginning of a project to reflect on your assumptions of how it will work and what you hope occurs as a result. This can be a time to unearth gaps and needs, as well as to identify and celebrate strengths. Building a logic model or theory of change creates a road map for your project or program, provides a guide for evaluation, and can be an ongoing document for reflection and project growth. We do not use logic models as a “template” or “step by step” guide, but as a tool for building and communicating shared understanding across key stakeholders

Evaluation capacity building & training

We believe that the best people to conduct evaluations are those who understand the community context in which the program or project is taking place. Particularly in communities where research and evaluation conducted by external teams has been harmful and exploitative. We aim to build a “culture of evaluation” in which reflective practice is a natural part of your workflow and engages people at all levels of your organization. We feel our best work can be as “behind the scenes” coaches who train, mentor, and support you and your staff in evaluative thinking and practices. This can take the form of informal coaching and mentoring, staff trainings and workshops, or more formal and long-term evaluation capacity building for your organization. We focus on the goals of evaluation, as well as how to design a study, develop tools, gather data, analyze data, and make meaning out of your results.

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Our Approaches

Reimagine Research Group uses multiple approaches to address the evaluation needs of our clients and project partners. We do not embrace a “one size fits all” model. Rather, we work collaboratively to determine your evaluation needs, key questions, relevant audiences, study design, methods, analysis frameworks, and dissemination strategies.

We believe that evaluative processes are important at all stages of a project or partnership, not just something that comes at the end to assess outcomes. We support processes that are emergent and responsive to your changing needs and new understandings, and we evolve with you as new insights are uncovered.

It has been a true pleasure working with Jill and Shelly on a project with Haudenosaunee partners in our community. They listened to our aspirations and worries and designed a project specific methodology that moved our project forward and gave us the feedback we needed at the time we needed it….their expertise working with Native and non-Native partnerships is extraordinary. Jill and Shelly are valued thinking partners.

Stephanie Ratcliffe

Executive Director
The Wild Center (Tupper Lake, NY)

For over five years, Jill Stein has been a resource and thought partner for the High Desert Museum on several collaborative projects with Native organizations and knowledge holders and supported us in building evaluation capacity across our institution. Jill and Shelly Valdez’s collaborative, thoughtful, and responsive approach to evaluation has been crucial in supporting us as we seek to deepen relationships with partners and shift our institutional practices.

Michelle Seiler-Godfrey

Program Development Manager
High Desert Museum (Bend, OR)

Since we design each project to suit your specific needs and context, we recommend that you contact us for a free 60-minute consultation to discuss your research or evaluation needs and how we might best work together.

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