❮ Projects page Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance

Spatial Analysis Project:

STAMP (Students at Museums in Philly) is a citywide collaboration with 17 cultural organizations, community partners, and schools. The goal is to increase engagement in arts and culture by Philadelphia teens ages 14-19 by breaking down barriers that would otherwise prevent teens from attending museums, including cost of admission, feeling unwelcome, and a lack of teen programming.

The primary purpose of this analysis is to increase participation in the program. We have over 14k sign ups, and about 4k actual users. We wish to increase the percentage of signups that actually walk into a museum. By understand the spatial difference between users and signups, and whether users are clusters by certain museums, neighborhoods, public transit routes, or schools we can better inform and tailor our marketing and outreach.

Data available:

During sign-up, teens provide a number demographic data points including age, home address, school, ethnic background, gender, and current level of arts participation and interests. The information they provide can be linked to their individual number in the SwipeIt system which captures STAMP attendance. When teens visit a museum, their pass is swiped, capturing the time, date, and location of use. So far over 14,000 students have signed up, and over 4,000 have used their card at least once.

• The 17 participating site locations (geocoded)
• School locations and catchments shapefiles (via OpenDataPhilly)
• American Community Survey demographic data (via the U.S. Census Bureau)
• SEPTA stop and route shapefiles (via OpenDataPhilly)

Maps and Reports that will be created:

• Maps and tables of both signups and users by the self-identified demographics (including school, ethnic background, gender, and current level of arts participation and interests) and neighborhood - the goal being an understanding how signups and users differ.
• Analysis pertaining to the 17 museums that the Cultural Alliance could use to create a one sheet report for individual museums, including total STAMP usage and demographics, and top neighborhoods per organization.
• An analysis of transit accesses, looking at the proximity of students to SEPTA routes. (To pair with this work we may survey on students on how they get to participating organizations)

How the maps and reports will be used:

STAMP’s focus as the program grows is lowering the barriers to new participation and encouraging deeper engagement for those who already participate. By seeing where participants come from, we can make better decisions about how to market and reach out to eligible youths. The findings would inform how to market the program and improve community outreach. Should outreach focus on specific schools (leveraging teacher relationships), neighborhoods (recruiting additional community partners to transport students), or museums (assessing why some appeal more to youths)?

Additionally this analysis furthers our advocacy work by creating a narrative around STAMP and the ways it contributes to a well-rounded education for youths around the city. This narrative is crucial for local politicians, funders, and education advocates whose job it is to improve our city’s education services.