Engaging Places works with museums, historic sites, cultural organizations, public agencies, and national associations facing complex decisions about interpretation, visitor experience, community engagement, preservation, and sustainability.

Our projects help clients clarify purpose, identify priority audiences, strengthen visitor experiences, interpret complex histories, align resources, and make practical choices about the future. The examples below show how our work connects stories, spaces, people, and strategy to create meaningful and sustainable public value.

Featured Case Studies

Rancho Los Cerritos: Aligning a Layered Historic Site into a Clearer Visitor Experience
Engaging Places helped Rancho Los Cerritos strengthen an already high-quality visitor experience by clarifying how its stories, spaces, programs, and future facility decisions could work together more intentionally.

Virginia State Capitol: Strengthening Civic Learning at an Active Seat of Government
Engaging Places helped the Virginia State Capitol assess how tours, exhibitions, programs, visitor services, and public access could better support civic understanding and participation.

Mercer Museum: Building Community Engagement into Exhibition Development
Engaging Places created a framework to help the Mercer Museum use community engagement, prototyping, and visitor research to make its dense collections more meaningful to Bucks County residents.

AASLH Professional Development Framework: Building Capacity Across the History Field
Engaging Places and Conny Graft Research and Evaluation helped AASLH create a professional development framework organized around outcomes, audiences, standards, evaluation, experimentation, and digital learning.

National Road Museum: Helping a Small Museum Plan for Sustainable Growth
Engaging Places helped the National Road Museum create a practical long-range plan that aligned mission, audience, organizational capacity, collections, staffing, interpretation, and phased growth.

Representative Clients and Projects

Strengthen Visitor Experience

Agecroft Hall and Gardens
Gamble House
Betsy Ross House
Rancho Los Cerritos
Haas-Lilienthal House
Rosen House at Caramoor

Interpret Complex Histories

Cliveden Kitchens
Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage
John Dickinson Plantation
New Castle Court House
Aiken-Rhett House
Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello Second and Third Floors

Engage Audiences and Communities

Mercer Museum
Woodend, Audubon Naturalist Society
Molly Brown House Museum
Sandy Spring Museum
Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum

Plan for Sustainability and Growth

National Road Museum
Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs
Butterworth Center and Deere-Wiman House
Historic Sands House
Fisher House

Build Civic and Field-Wide Capacity

Virginia State Capitol
AASLH Professional Development Framework
AAM MAP Education Assessment development
National training workshops for AASLH
History Leadership Institute

Ready to Discuss a Project?

Because our consulting is highly customized, Engaging Places accepts a limited number of projects each year. We welcome inquiries from organizations that see a strong fit between their needs and our approach. Contact us at Max.vanBalgooy@EngagingPlaces.net.