August 2022

ABA in conversation with: Samantha Erenberger, American Museum of Natural History

Many cultural organizations are exploring new ways for technology to support audience and visitor experience; however, there are more opportunities for new technology to make a difference in internal operations. Tech is helping administrators of cultural institutions see the true picture of their internal affairs and making data-driven decisions.

To delve further into how member institutions are using technology to drive decision making and share some insights, we spoke with Samantha Erenberger, Associate Director for Development Operations and Analytics at the American Museum of Natural History (an ABA member). Samantha shared how she is making headway into streamlining the data analysis technology at the museum and to make her organization more data-savvy.

Below you can find the summary of our conversation with Samantha, which has been lightly edited for clarity.

What are some of the data reporting activities your team does and what are your long-term goals?

It is exciting to be an analyst in development because fundraising and institutional advancement is central to the data that an institution generates. We have constituents, members that generate financial data. We also have to understand their behavior on a larger scale for ticketing and engagement. As a team, we focus on the programming and database for development information. We use Raiser’s Edge for fundraising. I also need to have a very firm sense of the technology we use to collect data for the operational side of the museum. I really try to have my finger on the pulse of everything that is going on in terms of museum operations and engagement. All that information can help the institutional advancement team know how to their job better.

How are you envisioning the future of data at AMNH? Any exciting changes you expect or hope to make?

I have big visions that are slowly being pushed into place thanks to a supportive team. Data warehousing can be a bit archaic because having a single data warehouse involves creating, connecting, cleaning, and storing all your data sources in a secondary level of organization. Integrating a new data source or removing it can be cumbersome. 

What I am really excited about is rather than using data warehouses, using a new layer of connector level data integration — almost like a mesh that can connect to all your data sources, and instead of transforming them in a warehouse, allows you to just maintain live connections between different data sets. They are a little bit easier to maintain as they need to have an ability to connect through an API to help you extract the data. It is really exciting to get a lot of flexibility in what we think of as data and as data sources and to be really able to incorporate all of those. We are starting to learn more and leverage Microsoft Customer Insights which can connect to multiple data sources. The new technologies like Customer Insights are using AI to match your records, so the cleaning step can be optimized by being able to match people using multiple metrics.

I understand you have built a data-oriented community inside the museum that talks about the latest tech. What new technology are you most excited about in terms of its application to the arts?

Personally, Customer Insights is the preference as it allows for easier analysis of data. As a larger organization, there are a bunch of technologies that allow everyone to become data fluent. The more data fluent people get, the more actionable decisions can be made which are based on data. 

Data visualization software are essential as they can be used to quickly communicate and provide standards, metrics, and KPIs — software like Tableau and Data Studio. Dashboarding and visualization tools are essential for any organization. We have been able to implement data visualization and dashboarding tools at a high level, most of the leadership has access to the metrics and dashboards. The need for this was generated by the senior management. It is not yet used as widely, but most of the leadership is data-savvy and are relying on the tools created to make data-driven decisions.

What are your lessons learned in terms of essential reporting to support donor cultivation and member insights?

It is essential that data be communicated at regular intervals to all the stakeholders, especially when others do not have insight into the data. Others may not have the same level of visibility into data, so developing tools like dashboards helps them access data for quick and easy decision making. Making sure that data is communicated regularly with people is essential to making them data fluent. The more everyone is in-the-know of the data, the more enabled they are to drive their own processes.

Samantha gave some additional advice for arts organizations getting started with data analysis and reporting: 

• Nothing is too small to start with: you can always start small, with running a report that comes from your system. 

• Some of the best analysts are people who are just curious: computer programming and coding are tools which can be learnt. One needs to be curious and be willing to learn and develop new skills. 

• Break your own myths and see what is actually true: it is good practice to test out various theories and old practices, because what may be true for someone else may not be the right practice for your organization.

Samantha Erenberger is the Associate Director for Development Operations and Analytics at the American Museum of Natural History. She graduated with a degree in theater, and then shifted into the managerial side of cultural institutions, specializing in accounting and financial reporting. She has been with the AMNH for 6 years. To know more about her professional journey, find her on LinkedIn.

To view the video of our conversation with Samantha, click below: