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Work

Discover stories of organizations that found clarity and momentum through partnership with Forest & Trees. Our case studies reveal how clients moved from uncertainty to inspired, actionable solutions.

Reshaping Visitor Experience at the Brooklyn Museum

Forest & Trees worked with the Brooklyn Museum to run a workshop with the goal of doing some big picture thinking and ideation around the idea of 'radical hospitality' and how they might create and foster it for their visitors. Our work helped the Visitor Experience team bridge high-level strategy with practical implementation, resulting in a prioritized project roadmap that energized the team and led to continued collaboration.

Brooklyn Museum entrance with banners and classical architecture

THE CLIENT

Brooklyn Museum

For 200 years, the Brooklyn Museum, an art museum in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, has been recognized as a trailblazer. Through a vast array of exhibitions, public programs, and community-centered initiatives, it continues to broaden the narratives of art, uplift a multitude of voices, and center creative expression within important dialogues of the day.

Translating a Strategic Plan into an Action Plan

THE CHALLENGE

The Brooklyn Museum's visitor experiences and engagement team had just received their 10-year strategic plan and needed help translating it into action. With the new plan came a focus on the concept of "radical hospitality" and the need to have it ripple through audience touchpoints.

The workshop needed to:

  • Incorporate the strategic plan, radical hospitality concepts, and racial equity

  • Transform high-level strategy into actionable projects

  • Engage a team of 7 people

  • Achieve meaningful outcomes in just 5 hours

  • Allow the Director to participate rather than facilitate

THE SOLUTION

Strategic Workshop Design

Hand holding a tablet displaying an agenda for a workshop. The screen has a dark background with white text, listing items such as introductions. The title reads 'Brooklyn Museum: Visioning Workshop.'"

After initial discovery with the Director and review of relevant documentation, we designed and facilitated a workshop consisting of 7 targeted exercises that:

  • Connected their work to the strategic plan

  • Identified current and potential challenges

  • Developed visitor empathy

  • Created a prioritized project list

  • Established explicit next steps

Whiteboard with colorful sticky notes organized into categories about communication, transparency, management, and systems challenges.
Image showing a presentation with slides on a visioning workshop. Topics include visitor experience, $100 test, challenges, strategic planning, passion projects, and scheduling possibilities over time frames. Each slide has text, diagrams, and charts relevant to workshop activities and objectives.

Activating "Radical Hospitality"

OUTCOMES

By bringing together strategy, visitor experience, and team dynamics in a carefully structured workshop, we helped the Brooklyn Museum's Visitor Experience team achieve significant results across multiple dimensions: 

 Strategic Alignment & Planning

  • Created a prioritized project roadmap aligned with the museum's 10-year strategic plan

  • Generated actionable priorities that bridged high-level strategy with practical implementation

  • Enhanced understanding of how team's work connected to broader organizational goals

Team Engagement & Dynamics

  • Director participated as a peer rather than facilitator, enabling fuller team participation

  • Team benefited from the off-site location and fresh perspective

  • High engagement throughout the workshop led to strong team alignment

Visitor-Centric Approach

  • Deepened team's empathy and understanding of visitor needs

  • Incorporated considerations for new audience segments

  • Integrated "radical hospitality" concepts into planning

Tangible Results

  • Generated clear, actionable next steps for implementation

  • Received enthusiastic feedback: "It was such a great workshop, very helpful!"

  • Led to follow-up consulting work on identified projects

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