Join us on Thursday, March 25, 2010 for a special Pre-Convening Workshop from Noon to 5 p.m.

“Art transforms lives.”  “Our program builds community.”  “We seek social justice.”  These are common aspirations that drive the work of artists, cultural organizations and their partners. But how do you measure such broad visions of change?

This creative interactive workshop, sponsored by Animating Democracy and Americans for the Arts, features artist Marty Pottenger and evaluator Chris Dwyer of RMC Research. They teamed up on a joint learning and evaluation design adventure around Marty’s work with the Arts & Equity Initiative in Portland, ME. Arts & Equity (AEI), directed by Marty, aims to improve municipal government through strategic art projects between artists, city departments, unions, elected officials and the community. As part of Animating Democracy’s Arts & Civic Engagement Impact Initiative, Chris and Marty applied an evaluation framework developed by Chris to systematically define outcomes and measurable indicators of change for the Police Poetry Project, which sought to improve low department morale and relations between police and the public.

Fun and substance guaranteed! Learn lessons from the Arts & Equity case study and how to use this framework in your arts for change work. Offer your own evaluation challenges for feedback! This workshop will help you focus on measuring what matters, turn anecdotes into credible qualitative evidence, and determine reasonable data collection methods. You’ll also see how the framework, used over time, can help you make the case for the role of the arts in making social change in your community. Animating Democracy co-directors, Barbara Schaffer Bacon and Pam Korza will introduce resources and other findings from the Arts & Civic Engagement Impact Initiative.

Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts, fosters civic engagement through arts and culture. The Impact Initiative strengthens the capacity of practitioners to assess and describe social change outcomes by equipping them with practical knowledge and useful/usable tools and models.

Register now to attend the pre-convening workshop with an additional special registration fee of $95. Lunch is included.

Click here for Pre-Convening Workshop Registration information.

Bios

Barbara Schaffer Bacon co-directs Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts, Institute for Community Development and the Arts, funded by the Ford Foundation. Launched in fall 1999, Animating Democracy’s purpose is to foster artistic activity that encourages civic dialogue on important contemporary issues. Barbara has worked as a consultant since 1990, and prior to that she served as executive director of the Arts Extension Service at the University of Massachusetts where she was on staff for 13 years.

Her work with partner Pam Korza includes program design and evaluation for state and local arts agencies and private foundations nationally. Projects include strategic plans for the Heinz Endowment’s Arts and Culture programs and the New York State Council on the Arts, a 20-year review of the North Carolina Arts Council’s Grassroots Arts Program, and cultural plans for Northampton, MA, and Rapid City, SD.

Barbara has written, edited, and contributed to several publications, including the revised edition of Fundamentals of Local Arts Management and The Cultural Planning Work Kit, published by the Arts Extension Service. She is an arts management educator, serving as a primary instructor for the “Fundamentals and Advanced Management” seminars, guest lecturer for the New York University Graduate Program in Arts Management, and a senior faculty member for the Empire State Partnerships’ Summer Institute in arts education.

A graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Barbara has served as a panelist and adviser for many state and national arts agencies. She is president of the Arts Extension Institute, Inc., a board member of the Fund for Women Artists, and chair of her local school committee.

Chris Dwyer is Senior Vice President of RMC Research, a firm specializing in research, evaluation, and technical assistance in education, health, social service, media, and culture. She has a long track record of pro bono service in the arts and is currently Chair of both the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts and her city’s cultural commission. Her particular interests are in cultural policy and measurement issues as they relate to culture.

Pam Korza is co-director of Animating Democracy, an Americans for the Arts program. Animating Democracy fosters arts and humanities activity that encourages civic dialogue and engagement on contemporary issues. Supported in its first phase by the Ford Foundation, Animating Democracy advances arts and humanities-based civic engagement through convenings, a website, publications, and services and programs. Pam provided research for and co-wrote the study Animating Democracy: The Artistic Imagination as a Force in Civic Dialogue. Pam partners with Barbara in organizational assessment; planning, program design and evaluation for cultural organizations; state arts agencies; and private foundations. Among their consultancies, they have assisted the New York State Arts Council and the Heinz Endowments Art & Culture program in developing strategic plans and evaluated the New England Foundation for the Arts Building Community through Culture program. For 17 years, Pam worked with the Arts Extension Service (AES). While at AES, she coordinated the National Public Art Policy Project in cooperation with the Visual Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts, which culminated in the publication Going Public: A Field Guide to Developments in Art in Public Places, a publication she co-wrote and edited. She directed the Boston based New England Film and Video Festival; coordinated the New England Arts Biennial; co-authored The Arts Festival Work Kit; and was co-editor and contributing writer to Fundamentals of Local Arts Management, also published by AES. As an independent consultant, her consulting and teaching activities have included organizational planning for a children’s picture book museum initiated by renowned book artist Eric Carle; assessment of a citywide arts festival and published report commissioned by the Indianapolis Arts Council and the Lilly Endowment; planning with the Maine Arts Commission for expanded artist services; and consultation with individual artists.

Marty Pottenger, playwright, performance artist, director and political activist, is a pioneer in the community arts and civic dialogue movement. Her plays have been performed throughout Europe and the United States. The New York Times described her Obie-winning play about a 60 year long public works project as a “mix of Studs Terkel, Anna Deavere Smith and Pete Seeger.” Pottenger’s play ABUNDANCE was written after asking 30 multi-millionaires and 30 minimum wage workers “What is enough? What would be enough for you?” In 2005, her community arts performance project “home land security” included members of Portland Maine’s homeless, indigenous and immigrant community, along with the Mayor, State Senate President, and Fire Chief. Pottenger is currently working with the City of Portland as the Director of the Arts & Equity Initiative (AEI), a national experiment to improve municipal government’s policies and practices through strategic arts projects with city employees, elected officials, and unions.