SenseMaker uses the art of storytelling via collecting and analyzing micro-narratives to quantitatively inform researchers about human experience and social issues while also providing explanatory narrative. Animating Democracy observes that SenseMaker can be a useful evaluation tool for arts practitioners seeking to understand social change.
Resources
The Annotated Guide to Tools & Resources provides tools, frameworks, and resources to help you develop and implement your evaluation. It’s a repository of useful, practical materials that can help you create an evaluation plan; design your evaluation approach; develop or adapt tools and instruments; and otherwise move your evaluation forward.
This Guide was originally assembled from many sources and fields and annotated by evaluator Suzanne Callahan of Callahan Consulting for the Arts. We continue to add resources. Your suggestions are welcome!
Do you have a useful tool or resource to add? Contact animatingdemocracy@artsusa.org.
Resource Format: book / article, case study
In this 11-page paper based on experience and examples, Jackson lays out in understandable terms a practical and reasonable approach for arts practitioners who are grappling with evaluation of their programs. The piece serves as a reality check for arts practitioners regarding what they can and cannot claim as effects of their programs.
The 171-page book, Singing Our Praises, demystifies evaluation by highlighting glowing examples of how arts presenters have used it to learn about their success. Case studies tell the stories of presenters, artists and funders as they learned about the concept of participatory evaluation and put it into practice. These voices from the field provide real-life experiences, but they also reflect some of the more universal issues that will arise for other arts practitioners.
Resource Format: website
The Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP) is a research center at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice. SIAP conducts research on the role of arts and culture in American cities with a particular interest in strategies for arts-based revitalization. Since 1994, SIAP has focused on developing empirical methods to study the links between cultural engagement and community well-being. This excellent web site includes a number of papers generated by the center reflecting these interests.
Publication Date: May 29, 2014
Resource Format: practical tool
The Social Movement Development Model is a tool that can be used for planning and for evaluating the impact of social change work, identifying the kinds of changes feasible for a project, or for developing new ways of thinking about how social change projects are situated in broader social justice movements.
Resource Format: practical tool
Continuum: Awareness, knowledge, understanding | Behavior, participation (action, activism, advocacy) | Capacity (social capital, skills, practice, resources)
Sparkwise, a new kind of digital dashboard developed by design and innovation firm, Tomorrow Partners, uses visually compelling platforms to share the stories of impact of films and visual media. Measuring the impact of films and visual media is made easier by this all-in-one platform that tracks social media, publicity, and community engagement. Free, cloud-based, and open source, Sparkwise transforms measurements of impact into videos, maps, and graphs that make sharing impact easy and accessible for media artists, funders, stakeholders, and audiences.
This 20-page report was produced by Innovation Network – a nonprofit organization that shares planning and evaluation tools and know-how by providing consulting, training, and online tools to help organizations create lasting change in their communities – with support by Annie E. Casey Foundation and The Atlantic Philanthropies. The report examines the current state of advocacy strategy and evaluation practice. It includes a section on the importance of interim measures of success and a list of indicators for advocacy activity.
Publication Date: September 28, 2013
Storytelling and Social Change Guide is a compilation of over 75 interviews with grantmakers, communication specialists and storytellers to show the various ways that grantmakers can successfully execute their vision in “narrative strategies.” Produced by Working Narratives, an organization that works with movements to tell stories to evoke change, this guide is a useful resource in understanding the lengths grantmaking plays in furthering advocacy and creating communication within funding systems.
Publication Date: May 14, 2019
Americans for the Arts announces a new publication, the Teaching Artist Companion to Aesthetic Perspectives: Attributes of Excellence in Arts for Change, developed by Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts in collaboration with WolfBrown.
Resource Format: case study
The Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation used evaluation and visual engagement techniques to document how “The End of the Line,” a documentary addressing the problem of overfishing our oceans, has impacted the debate in the UK surrounding sustainable fishing practices in England. The foundation conducted multiple entry/exit surveys at movie theaters in London collecting both qualitative and quantitative data, measured social media and press coverage, and conducted follow-up focus groups with the initial survey takers to determine the lasting impact of the film.
Resource Format: book / article
“Scaling Impact” provides a useful discussion on the issues evaluators face when assisting organizations scale up their initiatives. Scaling is the process of replicating or adapting an intervention to a different activity site or for a new organization. Evaluation tools are used throughout the scaling process and to share the results with other organizations.
Resource Format: practical tool
BRITDOC’s Impact Field Guide & Toolkit is a series of modules that guide users to develop an evaluation approach for creative projects. Originally designed for use with documentary films, the guide and toolkit provide relevant information for other arts-based projects. The guide and toolkit includes 9 in-depth case studies, step-by-step instructions and exercises for developing an evaluation strategy, and helpful resources, including an Impact Evaluation Plan template.
BRITDOC’s approach to evaluation is based on four “impact dynamics”:
Publication Date: June 26, 2014
Resource Format: website
The Lear Center’s Media Impact Project provides a deeper understanding of media’s influence on social trends and individual behavior. Through an evolving inventory of reports, publications and tools, the Media Impact Project works to:
Publication Date: September 1, 2011
Resource Format: case study
Continuum: Awareness, knowledge, understanding
The Idea Book for Liz Lerman and the Dance Exchange’s The Matter of Origins: Evaluation Findings presents research measures and findings by Michigan State University (MSU, 2011) from an evaluation of Dance Exchange’s Matter of Origins project. Findings spark thinking about rigorous, creative ways to evaluate informal science education through the arts.
Publication Date: October 14, 2008
Resource Format: book / article
In “The Metrics Syndrome,” Arlene Goldbard asks practitioners to take a deeper look into the apparent need for metrics-evaluation and make sure that this quantitative evaluation is, in fact, advancing the work. She suggests that community and cultural work has fallen into belief that every good endeavor can and should be backed up with hard numeric evidence to prove its success. In fact, as she explains, this notion is in direct conflict with values inherent in community cultural development.
Publication Date: October 11, 2013
Filled with resources, blogs, current events and much more on arts in the prison community; the Prison Art Coalition is a valuable tool to create awareness and promote the arts for the incarcerated.
Publication Date: January 1, 1996
Resource Format: book / article
The Social Impact of Arts Programs and How They Measure Up, a product of Comedia Publications Ltd., addresses key issues in contemporary arts practice, with particular attention to Australia, including the social purpose and value of participatory arts, through case studies and related research. The paper aims to develop a methodology for evaluating the social impact of arts programs and to begin to assess that impact in key areas by:
Resource Format: practical tool, website
Theory of Change is both a theory of methodology that originated in evaluation of social change initiatives and a method for fostering social change. The Theory of Change method is described as a work in progress intended to help practitioners develop their own way of talking about their initiative’s theory and to use their terms more effectively. This method of planning social change requires participants to be clear on long-term goals, identify measurable indicators of success, and formulate actions to achieve goals.
Resource Format: book / article, case study
This seven-page article from The Broker magazine aims to help policymakers, practitioners, and scientists make better use of research and evaluation (specifically in the fields of poverty reduction and international development) and uses relatively advanced language. It consists of three sections: evidence-oriented evaluation, realistic evaluation, and complexity evaluation. The introduction explains the important point of how evidence-oriented evaluation has been the dominant approach to date but theorizes a trend away from that modality towards realistic and complexity evaluation.
Publication Date: January 1, 2007
Resource Format: book / article
Towards a Periodic Table of Visualization Methods for Management describes the effort of defining and compiling existing visualization methods in order to develop a systematic overview based on the logic, look, and use of the periodic table of elements. First, authors Ralph Lengler and martin Eppler describe the current fragmented state of the visualization field. Then, identifying the criteria for research and collection of 100 visualization methods, Lengler and Eppler propose a framework for imagining the field of data visualization as a periodic table.
Resource Format: book / article, case study
Finding Voice, an ongoing program supported by the Tucson Pima Arts Council (TPAC) and Every Voice in Action Foundation, helps refugee and immigrant youth develop literacy and second language skills by researching, photographing, writing, and speaking out about critical social issues in their lives and communities.
Resource Format: case study
In 2003, Understanding Neighbors, a collaborative project between Out North Contemporary Art House, the Interfaith Council of Anchorage and Alaska Common Ground, brought together nearly 100 citizens in a month-long series of dialogue sessions to address the question: “What is the social, moral, and legal place of same-sex couples in our society?” Artists Peter Carpenter, Sara Felder, and Stephan Mazurek created eight performance and vid
Publication Date: March 6, 2015
Resource Format: practical tool
Changing World’s Literacy and Cultural Connections (LCC) is an in-school program to enhance instruction in arts, literacy and cultural awareness. Through the program students learn new ways to write, produce art, and make connections between themselves, their classmates and people from other cultures. The program is especially unique for its focus on culture as the fulcrum for literacy and fine arts instruction.
Publication Date: February 14, 2014
Resource Format: case study
This study offers findings regarding community engagement and impact for public art projects developed through the Community + Public Arts: DETROIT (CPAD) program. CPAD was founded out of the Community Arts Partnerships office of the College for Creative Studies (CCS/CAP) in 2008. It brings the arts, communities, and youth together to produce high-quality public art projects and events that allow neighborhoods to express and develop their unique character and potential through the arts.
Publication Date: August 2, 2012
Resource Format: practical tool
Through the use of computer-generated maps, Maxson offers an innovative tool and visual aid for story-based program evaluation (similar to a word tree or tree map). Driven by an analysis of text, these maps show the “overlap between how an organization describes itself (to donors) and how storytellers describe the organization or some relevant social problem.” Most importantly, what these visual aids reveal is that some “donor communications have little in common with project beneficiary stories.” Social change organizations could use this visual mapping exercise to understand how their