Edutainment - the mixture of education and entertainment ranging from video games to soap operas, harnesses the power of entertainment to promote 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: case study, practical tool
The Preliminary Menu encompasses process outcomes (short-term), intermediate outcomes (during the life of the project), and impact (long-term, post-project results) for the Art & Soul Project in Starksboro, VT. Community members and researcher/evaluator Chris Dwyer used the worksheet to clarify what to measure and how.
Resource Format: case study, practical tool
The Preliminary Menu encompasses process outcomes (short-term), intermediate outcomes (during the life of the project), and impact (long-term, post-project results) for the Art & Soul Project in Starksboro, VT. Community members and researcher/evaluator Chris Dwyer used the worksheet to clarify what to measure and how.
Publication Date: May 14, 2012
Resource Format: practical tool
Continuum: Awareness, knowledge, understanding
MWW: Audio in Philadelphia serves as an example of innovation in data collection and evaluation. This resource captures Penny Balkin Bach’s contribution from Animating Democracy’s 2012 Social Impact & Evaluation Blog Salon.
Resource Format: book / article, practical tool
A bible on the topic of qualitative inquiry, this book introduces the principles and methods of qualitative research and evaluation. Chapters cover conceptual issues in qualitative inquiry (including strategic themes and variety), the design of qualitative studies, fieldwork strategies and observation methods, interviewing, analysis, interpretation, and reporting. Important controversies are outlined, and key points are illustrated with examples. This text is a resource and training tool for applied researchers, evaluators, and graduate students.
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Resource Format: practical tool
This paper reflects Animating Democracy co-directors’ thinking following Working Group discussion of Chris Dwyer’s “Arts and Civic Engagement: Briefing Paper for the Working Group of the Arts & Civic Engagement Impact Initiative.” The discussion got to the heart of the challenges of measuring the social impact of arts-based engagement and somewhat shifted the Initiative’s theory of change.
Resource Format: practical tool
ixia, the public art think tank, is funded by the Arts Council England and aims to provide guidance on the role of art in the public realm. Through its activities, ixia identifies and challenges restrictive practices which result in limited and missed opportunities for artists working in the public realm. ixia works with artists, policymakers and implementers within the public and private sectors and carries out research, supports events, delivers training, and commissions publications.
Publication Date: April 30, 2012
Resource Format: website
Principal investigator of the Social Impact of the Arts Project at the University of Pennsylvania, Mark J. Stern suggests that cultural research must move beyond purely economic yardsticks in judging well-being. This resource captures Stern’s contribution from Animating Democracy’s 2012 Social Impact & Evaluation Blog Salon.
Since 2000, the Saguaro Seminar's mission has been both to improve social capital measurement and the availability of social capital data and to undertake analysis of building social capital in increasingly diverse communities. The web site includes extensive information on measurement of social capital including Putnam’s 2000 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, as well as evaluation tool kit, guide, and links to useful organizations and resources. The Saguaro Seminar is an ongoing initiative of Professor Robert D. Putnam at the John F.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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: 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, 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.
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: 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