Arts and Civic Engagement
The Arts & Civic Engagement Impact Initiative
Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts, is implementing an initiative to advance understanding of and to help make the case for the social efficacy of arts-based civic engagement work. The Arts & Civic Engagement Impact Initiative is supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts Institute for Community Development and the Arts, fosters arts and cultural activity that encourages and enhances civic engagement and dialogue. It is based on the premise that democracy is animated when an informed public is engaged in the issues affecting people’s daily lives. The arts and humanities can contribute unique programs, settings, and creative approaches that reach new and diverse participants, stimulate public dialogue about civic issues, and inspire action to make change. http://www.americansforthearts.org/animatingdemocracy/about/
Americans for the Arts brings to bear its leadership and experience in research, policy, advocacy, and field service to advance these goals:
- Coalesce knowledge and advance learning among leading practitioners, researchers, evaluators, and funders who have independently explored common questions about how to assess and communicate social change impact of arts-based civic engagement work;
- Position the arts as valid and viable contributors to civic engagement and the achievement of social change by developing compelling communication strategies; and
- Strengthen the capacity of practitioners to assess and describe social change outcomes by equipping the field with practical knowledge and useful/usable tools and models to measure and communicate the social change effects of arts-based civic engagement.
Core consultants to the initiative are charged with collecting and making meaning of existing information and resources, including research and evaluation findings; translating findings into frameworks and tools that are useful for practitioners; assessing what is needed for effective case-making; and disseminating resources to potential users. The consultant team includes: Mark Stern and Susan Seifert, Social Impact of the Arts Project/UPenn; Suzanne Callahan, Callahan Consulting for the Arts; Chris Dwyer, RMC Research; Maribel Alvarez, Southwest Center, University of Arizona; and Maria-Rosario Jackson, Urban Institute. (See Research Reports, Professional Papers, and White Papers for more details.)
The initiative also engages a Working Group comprising these contracted consultants and others with expertise in arts-based civic engagement who lend key insights and vet findings from their vantage points as field practitioners, leaders, and funders. See the Working Group for a list of members.