Case Study: The Morton Arboretum improves member engagement with Highland

The Morton Arboretum - Customer Case Study

The Morton Arboretum worked with Highland to address a membership challenge affecting families with children. Although the Chicago-area institution welcomed more than one million visitors a year and offered attractions such as the Children’s Garden, the Membership team saw that members with children were renewing less often and were not always aware of the Arboretum’s broader spaces and events.

Highland interviewed members with children, mapped the customer journey, and led a one-week Design Sprint to create a first-year membership program called Kid’s Explore More. The program was tested with actual members during the sprint and received overwhelmingly positive feedback, and The Morton Arboretum is now launching it as a six-month test period to measure whether visitation increases. The team said the sprint could shorten the path to a major membership initiative from a likely 2–3 years to about 12–18 months.

The Morton Arboretum

Karin Jaros

Director of Membership