CREATIVE  PEOPLE  &  PLACES

CHALLENGE

To demonstrate the social impact of a £1.1m project focused on increasing cultural engagement in Norfolk. The project aimed to not only get more people involved in the arts but also to ensure practices were inclusive and accessible to all members of the community.

The key requirements were:

Establish a Theory of Change, helping the project respond to the three core questions set by the funder, Arts Council England.

To evaluate and communicate the impacts and benefits of the project on and for all stakeholders.

To explore and communicate the project’s role in the long-term local impact on arts and culture.

APPROACH

Embedding evaluative processes from the project’s beginning, working with the whole team to establish the Theory of Change, based around Art Council England’s core questions. The approach was to build a system of "reflective evaluation" that was integrated into the project's daily operations and which steered the project from its outset.

  • Designing an evaluation framework from the outset that aligned with the funder's reporting requirements.

  • Training staff and partners to collect data in an accessible way, including qualitative feedback and quantitative metrics.

  • Focusing on qualitative outcomes, such as "inclusive and accessible practices," to show not just who participated but how the project changed mindsets and behaviours.

  • Building trust with community volunteers to facilitate ‘real’ conversations that monitored engagement and impact, without feeling ‘like a boring survey’.

OUTCOMES

The evaluation framework successfully captured the project's impact, allowing us to:

  • Provide a comprehensive report to Arts Council England, demonstrating how the project delivered on its core objectives.

  • Showcase our success in increasing local cultural engagement and building public-private partnerships.

  • Establish a model of inclusive practice, which was a key requirement of the funder, and provide evidence that our programs successfully engaged diverse audiences.

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