Social impact measurement, is one of the most difficult challenges facing the philanthropy and social sectors, and the arts sector in particular. Although there is agreement within the field that socially motivated organizations must do more to accurately measure their impact, the practice is expensive and difficult. This raises tough questions about where the responsibility for funding such expenses lies. Is it with the resource-strapped nonprofit organizations or with their backers who increasingly demand the information?

The Civic 50, an initiative of Points of Light, in partnership with Bloomberg LP, honors the 50 most community-minded companies in the nation each year as determined by an annual survey. Benchmarking and sharing the best practices of community engagement offers companies that participate in The Civic 50 a roadmap for using their time, skills, and other resources to improve the quality of life in the communities where they do business. The Civic 50 helps translate good intentions into sound business practices for years to come.

The Irrigate toolkit stemmed from the Irrigate project, which leveraged the arts to offset the disruption caused by construction of a new rail line in St.Paul, MN. Disruption is something that all communities face at some point in their trajectories, and this toolkit clearly lays out how the arts can help help turn a ubiquitous challenge into positive outcomes.

Our research coupled empirical and desk research to explore the relationship between participatory arts and political engagement. Although undertaken within the confines of a relatively small Development Project, both empirical and desk research showed a positive correlation, particularly in relation to informal forms of participation and personal political engagement. [Executive Summary p. 2]

Transcript of Yo-Yo Ma's lecture, for the 26th Annual Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy on April 8. 2013.

This is one of a series of Animating Democracy papers looking at different segments of the arts-for-change field.

This report serves as a point of entry into creative placemaking as defined and supported by the Tucson Pima Arts Council’s PLACE Initiative. To assess how and to what degree the PLACE projects were helping to transform communities, TPAC was asked by the Kresge Foundation to undertake a comprehensive evaluation. This involved discussion with stakeholders about support mechanisms, professional development, investment, and impact of the PLACE Initiative in Tucson, Arizona, and the Southwest regionally and the gathering of qualitative and quantitative data to develop indicators and method

The 2011 convening, Innovating for Impact—Arts Based Solutions for a Stronger America comes amidst widespread calls for collaborative action and innovative solutions in order to address challenging issues including economic opportunity, at-risk youth, and the impact of the current recession on daily lives. This attention is coming not just from government or the not-for-profit community alone, but from artists as well as social, corporate and philanthropic sector leaders.

The 2012 National Arts Policy Roundtable convened around the idea that the arts are fundamental to navigating our shifting economy and should be recognized as such. Communities all across America are grappling with changing structures in economics, education, demographics, and more, and the arts have an important place in every locale—urban, rural, and everything in between. Thus, the charge for the 2012 National Arts Policy Roundtable was to grapple with the question of how best to navigate “the remake” through the lens of the arts, and develop a set of actionable steps