MAKING ROOM If you’re seeking to be relevant to new communities, you can’t build new doors by yourself. You have to find outsiders from those communities with whom you can collaborate. You have to build the doors together. Don’t look for just any outsiders. Look for those “almost comes”—people who might be inclined towards your

OUTSIDE INSTITUTIONS Some institutions don’t have their own rooms to come home to. Their work lives outside. They are always guests in other communities. They are always outsiders, asking to come in. Cornerstone Theater works this way. The theater company co-creates all of its productions with people in different communities across the country. They often

OUTSIDER GUIDES The most productive way for insiders to learn more about new communities is to engage a guide. As in any good tour, the guide doesn’t just give you an entry pass. They fill you in on customs and culture, secrets and stories, along the way. For many institutions, these guides take the form

OTHERIZING OUTSIDERS What happens when institutions remain deaf to the needs of outsiders? In the worst cases, an outsider comes in, and an insider is completely unequipped to welcome that person on their own terms. PhD candidate Porchia Moore experienced this firsthand. She was standing in an elegant room of an historic house museum with

INSIDE-OUTSIDERS Inside every room, there are outsiders who have found their way in the door. They may not look like the others in the room, but they are often just as passionate about what it offers as everyone else. Remember Betty Reid Soskin, America’s oldest park ranger? Betty first got involved with the National Park

GO OUTSIDE Most of the stories in this book are about how you can change what’s on the inside of the experience you offer. How you can build more doors into it. How you can work with new participants to reshape your room to be more relevant to them. But the most direct way to

THE PEOPLE IN THE ROOM Open-hearted insiders are essential to efforts to engage outsiders. The way outsiders experience our work is as much about the people in the room as the contents of the room itself. The people in the room don’t change the fundamental experience. They don’t make the art hang differently. They don’t

DUMBING IT DOWN If you try to make your work relevant to new people, you will be accused of dumbing down your work. It is entirely possible to dumb down your work to its detriment. It is possible to shirk the complicated bits, smooth over inconvenient data, or ignore voices of dissent in the peanut

SOME DOORS ARE INVISIBLE I run a museum in the middle of a vibrant downtown, with a big sign and banner outside. We get good press and have thousands of local enthusiasts. But every day, many people walk through the lobby quickly and unseeing, using it as a pass-through from one part of town to

START AT THE FRONT DOOR People define for themselves what they value, and thus, what they deem relevant. But that doesn’t mean relevance is a pure trait, fixed within each person’s identity. You can make something relevant to anyone. Imagine you’re at a conference and you’re about to split into breakout groups. Everyone counts off