As part of Animating Democracy’s Arts & Civic Engagement Impact Initiative, evaluator Chris Dwyer of RMC Research worked with two New England-based arts initiatives to systematically define outcomes and indicators that provide evidence of concern to targeted stakeholders and opinion leaders. Dwyer’s approach offers two useful frameworks.
The Worksheet to Define Indicators with Casemaking in Mind sets up five questions to methodically work through to help clarify and define indicators that matter to targeted stakeholders.
The Outcomes/Indicators Preliminary Menu is a tool to help you articulate outcomes and specify indicators, with the additional early step of defining what data collection strategies would be needed.
To view the full Evaluation Plans developed through the use of these two tools, explore:
The Arts & Equity Initiative (AEI) is a national initiative to improve municipal government through strategic art projects between artists, city departments, unions, elected officials and the community. Piloted in the City of Portland, ME and led by artist Marty Pottenger, the evaluation plan focuses on the Police Poetry Project and considered the framework’s application over time to substantiate the case for the role of the arts in civic systems.
Art & Soul is a project of the Orton Family Foundation. The Art & Soul Civic Engagement Project, being piloted in Starksboro, VT tests whether the use of arts-based methods of community engagement will catalyze articulation of the unique assets of a community, in turn impacting community decision-making.