Creating a Guide to Impact for The Revolutionary City

Impact-Driven Strategy
Written By Cathy Sigmond

Client: Historical Society of Pennsylvania | Location: Philadelphia, PA | Funding: William Penn Foundation

 
 

We facilitated an impact planning process for five Philadelphia history organizations partnering to develop public programming to honor and celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

OVERVIEW

From 2022-2023, we facilitated planning and impact strategy for The Revolutionary City, which brings together five leading Philadelphia history organizations: the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Museum of the American Revolution, the University of Pennsylvania (including the Kislak Center for Special Collections and the McNeil Center for Early American Studies), and the American Philosophical Society. 

Together, these five organizations will create a digital portal that activates historic primary sources from the American Revolution, exhibitions, and programs, to engage the public, educators, and scholars with the upcoming 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Our impact strategy work took place ahead of the collaborative’s grant application to the William Penn Foundation to fund the activities.  With a project as ambitious, far-reaching, and complex as The Revolutionary City, remaining focused on impact is critical to forging a shared vision that connects the project’s many parts and partners over time.

APPROACH

 Our approach included three distinct but interrelated elements:

  • Visioning Sessions with a cross-disciplinary team of staff from the partner organizations, taking them through the steps of Impact-Driven Strategy to articulate a cohesive vision for their planned activities to recognize the 250th Anniversary   

  • Audience Research that included six focus groups with three history-interested audiences: the national general public, the Philadelphia-based general public, and educators 

  • A summary of several existing recent national studies focused on the public’s perceptions of history

CLIENT TAKEAWAYS

Our work together culminated in a Guide to Impact, an action-oriented tool that The Revolutionary City can use to focus, prioritize, develop, and deliver programs and products to maximize impact on its audiences. The Guide synthesizes the concept and scope of The Revolutionary City’s joint activities, identifies venues for those activities, summarizes both original audience research and national research studies, and provides organizational structure and communication goals.  

The Guide to Impact is meant to assist The Revolutionary City partners in always keeping impact at the center of their work. Its various parts, like the Guiding Purpose and Audience Composites, will inform every aspect of the project’s development, from program and exhibition development to marketing and communications.

Cathy Sigmond

Cathy brings many years of experience in education and experience design to her role as Head of Strategy at Kera Collective. 

Having previously worked in a variety of educational settings, Cathy is driven by her constant fascination and delight at how people make discoveries about the familiar and the unfamiliar. 

Cathy loves helping to shape experiences that spark curiosity and make a difference in people’s lives. She particularly enjoys the rapid, iterative nature of design-based research and the deep insights that come from qualitative research, especially on projects exploring interactions with the digital and built environments. 

Cathy shares her passion for experience design research widely and regularly guest lectures for graduate programs, including the Fashion Institute of Technology’s Exhibition and Experience Design Program and the Pratt Institute’s School of Information. Cathy served as the co-chair of the Museum Computer Network’s Human-Centered Design special interest group from 2018-2021.

Outside of work, you can usually find Cathy playing soccer, thrifting, or making her way through her large cookbook collection. 

Cathy’s favorite museum experiences are immersive; she will always vividly remember walking through the giant heart at the Franklin Institute, being surrounded by birds at the Peabody Essex Museum, and hearing centuries-old instruments come to life at the Museum of Musical Instruments. 

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