Evaluating the Ripple Effects of Arts and Culture Grantmaking
Assisting Grantmakers in the Arts
We were hired by the Greater Worcester Community Foundation, a local foundation with a broad grantmaking portfolio; part of their strategy includes giving grants to support artists in their region. After five years of work, this foundation wanted to understand the impacts of their arts and culture strategy and grantmaking initiative on grantees, fellow artists, and the community.
Evaluation Question
Beyond the money, how have the Foundation’s contributions to the arts and culture ecosystem mattered?
Data+Soul Approach: Ripple Effects Mapping for Impact Assessment
Ripple Effects Mapping is an evaluation method that brings program participants and other community members together to reflect upon and visually map intended and unintended changes. It is an ideal tool for evaluating systems change efforts that involve a lot of people, are rolled out over a long period, and are complex (Chazdon et al., 2017).
We invited community members and program participants to an in-person listening session. Over the course of a three-hour conversation, we began mapping “ripples,” tracing the impact of the grant program across three levels of influence:
The impact on the individual
The impact on teams or businesses
The impact on the community
Participants were invited to additional one-on-one interviews, which helped us dig deeper into themes surfaced during the convening. We analyzed convening notes and interview transcripts to understand the impacts of the program, what worked, challenges within the Initiative, and recommendations for the foundation. In our analysis, we chose to center the perspectives of BIPOC organizations and compared our findings with two relevant frameworks at the intersection of systems change and philanthropy (Water of Systems Change and Trust-Based Philanthropy).
Participant Experiences During Ripple Effects Mapping
We selected Ripple Effects Mapping for this project expecting that a participatory, visual, conversation-based data collection method would resonate with intended participants—many of whom are visual and creative processors.
Participants were highly engaged during the gathering, with half of them signing up to participate in follow-up interviews. This high percentage surprised us given the three long hours they had just spent with us.
During follow-up interviews, several participants shared their appreciation for both the chance to gather with fellow artists and leaders of creative organizations within their community and the opportunity to have the ear of the funder and provide recommendations to shape future grantmaking programs. Several participants even recommended that the funder host similar conversations annually to keep the conversation going.
By incorporating participatory methods, community engagement, and a focus on cultural responsiveness, we ensured that the evaluation process was inclusive and reflective of the diverse voices within the community. This collaborative learning approach helped foster a deeper understanding of the grant program's impacts and contributed to ongoing efforts toward equity and social justice in the arts and culture ecosystem.
Key Takeaways from the Evaluation
We learned that support from the funder contributed to multiple changes in the ecosystem, including:
Improved compensation for individuals, organizations, and communities
Increased capacity, skills, and resources for artists and organizations
Supported new business opportunities for artists
Created new or deepened connections and collaborations between artists and organizations
Opened new or ongoing conversations about a city-wide cultural plan
Participants shared stories that gave each of these findings texture, highlighting variations in their experiences and clarifying what these findings meant for themselves, their organizations, and the broader community. This storytelling approach brought a rich narrative to the evaluation process, underscoring the power of visual storytelling and qualitative data in conveying the program's impact.