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1. James Doeser and Melissa Nisbett. King’s College London. “The Art of Soft Power: A study of cultural diplomacy at the UN Office in Geneva.” 2017. United Kingdom.

This enquiry explores how art and culture are deployed by diplomats to influence the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of others in the negotiations that take place at the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG).

 

2. Chrissie Tiller. Creative People and Places. “Power Up.” 2017. United Kingdom.

A think piece on mapping cultural patterns and uncovering the role of cultural in all citizens’ lives, from high culture and “ordinary,” everyday culture.

 

3. Christopher Walker and Anne Gadwa Nicodemus. Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC). “Arts, Culture, and Community Outcomes: What Four LISC Projects Accomplished.” 2017. United States.

Commissioned by LISC, this report uses programs in four cities to analyze what arts and culture add to community development efforts, particularly insights to how these programs had an impact on economic and social change.

 

4. Thomas H. Sander and Kathleen Lowney. Harvard University. “Social Capital Building Toolkit.” 2006. United States.

A central challenge for those desiring more local social capital is how to build it. The goal of this Toolkit is to briefly describe the social capital concept and its dimensions, and then outline and illustrate some effective ways to build social capital among individuals and groups.

 

5. J.A. Dewald. Open Buffalo. “Social Justice and the Arts: Arts Organizations Partnering with their Communities to Advance Social Justice.” 2015. United States.

This document is designed to provide a concise but representative sampling of the many arts programs, projects, networks, and individuals involved in creative, progressive change in their diverse communities.

1. Scott Dickinson and Fiona Tuck. SDG Economic Development. “Exploring the role of arts and culture in the creative industries.” 2017. United Kingdom.

Arts Council England commissioned SDG Economic Development to carry out case study research that explores the relationship between the arts and culture sector and the creative industries. The case studies explore partnerships and alliances, the transfer of skills and staff, and the trading of goods and services between organisations in the arts and culture sector and businesses in the creative industries sector.

 

2. Jennifer Novak-Leonard and Rachel Skaggs. Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts. “Public Perceptions of Artists in Communities: A Sign of Changing Times.” 2017. United States.

Novak-Leonard and Skaggs developed and pilot tested survey indicators to gauge public perceptions of artists within communities. In this article, they describe the indicators, report on the national pilot test topline results, and discuss the indicators’ merits to be used over time drawing from the pilot test results. Understanding public perceptions of artists within communities can inform and influence policies supporting artists’ work and offer a means to monitor shifts to the larger arts and cultural policy paradigm in the U.S.

 

3. Anne Gadwa, Rachel Engh, and Christopher Walker. Metris Arts Consulting. “Not Just Murals: Insights into Artists’ Leadership in Community Development.” 2017. United States.

Not Just Murals draws upon a literature review, interviews with 15 artists leading in different facets of community development, and conversations with experts who have unique insights into regional and national context and trends. The interviews and examples draw heavily from two locales in the LISC network that are exceptionally fertile ground for artists taking up the mantle of leadership in community development, Minnesota’s Twin Cities and Philadelphia, as well as several projects and artists in the South that have received support from Alternate ROOTS, a regional arts service organization that provides artist leaders with training and resources at the intersection of arts and social justice.

 

4. Nick Wilson and Jonathan Gross. A New Direction (A.N.D.). “Caring for Cultural Freedom: An ecological approach to supporting young people’s cultural learning.” 2017. United Kingdom.

Building on our programme of research on creative ecosystems, this report makes a significant contribution to recent debates concerning the value of understanding the cultural sector ecologically and provides new ways to interpret how cultural opportunities operate for young people within cultural ecosystems. It focuses on young people within the London Borough of Harrow, showing how issues related to space, place and mobility, relationships and institutions, knowledge production and cultural agency impact on young people’s cultural learning.

 

5. Miriam Jorgensen and Miskodagaaginkwe Beaudrie. Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. “Progressing Issues of Social Importance Through the Work of Indigenous Artists.” 2017. United States.

The executive summary of our social impact evaluation of the four pilot projects of our Community Inspiration Program (CIP). From this report you will learn how our CIP artists and communities carried out these outstanding projects.

1. Troyd A. Geist. North Dakota Council on the Arts. “Sunflowers and Sundogs: An Art for Life Program Guide for Creative Aging, Health, and Wellness.” 2017. United States.

The North Dakota Council on the Arts (NDCA), with the support of the Bush Foundation, has released an arts and creative aging toolkit. Reaching 1,200 organizations, it is one of the largest efforts of its kind. Based on the NDCA’s nationally-recognized Art for Life Program, it represents a five-year effort to develop a program guide with associated materials to increase capacity and bring together a community’s folk and fine artists, local arts agency, a participating elder care facility, and a partnering school to conduct creative aging, health, and wellness work. The Art for Life Program seeks to improve the emotional and physical lives of elders in care facilities with intensive art and artist interaction.

 

2. NYC Cultural Affairs. NYC Office of the Mayor. “CreateNYC: A Cultural Plan for All New Yorkers.” 2017. United States.

CreateNYC is the first comprehensive cultural plan in New York City history. With CreateNYC, the City of New York established the first cultural plan in the United States with disability-specific strategies for expanding cultural access, including a new fund for disabled artists, cultural workers, and audiences. In this and other ways, the city is modeling the kind of leadership that is urgently needed at all levels of government.

 

3. Ceri Wilson, Jenny Secker, Lyn Kent, and Jo Keay. International Journal of Mental Health Promotion. “Promoting mental wellbeing and social inclusion through art: six month follow-up results from Open Arts Essex.” 2017. United Kingdom.

A new study published in The International Journal of Mental Health Promotion suggests that active participation in the arts can improve wellbeing and social inclusion for a period of at least six months after the activity.

 

4. Frances Richens. Arts Professional. “Pulse report: Local authority arts funding – what should be done?” 2017. United Kingdom.

As budgets tighten, many local authorities feel they have little choice but to cut spending on arts and culture. But how is the sector reacting? Frances Richens shares the findings of ArtsProfessional’s latest Pulse survey.

 

5. Harder+Company Community Research and Edge Research. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. “Peer to Peer: At the Heart of Influencing More Effective Philanthropy.” 2017. United States.

In 2015, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Foundation commissioned Harder+Company Community Research, in partnership with Edge Research, to conduct a field scan to inform its own strategies in this area as well as those of other organizations working to increase philanthropic effectiveness. The Foundation was interested in learning more about how foundations find knowledge and how it informs their philanthropic practice.

1. Isabelle De Voldere and Kleitia Zeqo. European Commission. “Crowdfunding: Reshaping the crowd’s engagement in culture.” 2017. Europe.

The study “Crowdfunding: reshaping the crowd’s engagement in culture” maps and analyses how crowdfunding is currently being used for the benefit of cultural and creative activities, and evaluates to what extent barriers hamper the further integration of crowdfunding in the financing mix and broader practice of cultural and creative sector (CCS) actors. As the topic of crowdfunding for CCS touches upon the interest and activities of several stakeholder groups (CCS actors, intermediary organisations supporting CCS actors, crowdfunding platforms, backers and policy makers), the research combined the perspectives of each of these stakeholder groups to come to a 360° analysis. The research involved literature review, stakeholder interviews, data and case study analysis, surveys, expert workshops and crowdsourcing on barriers and options for policy action.

2. Kumar B. Rajan and Rekha S. Rajan. National Endowment for the Arts. “Staying Engaged: Health Patterns of Older Americans Who Participate in the Arts.” 2017. United States.

Staying Engaged examines data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a nationally representative sample of older adults (in this case, aged 55 years and older) who are tracked longitudinally. The authors find that older adults who both created and attended art in 2014 reported better health outcomes that year (lower rates of hypertension and greater cognitive and physical functioning) than did adults who neither created nor attended art.

3. Roland J. Kushner and Randy Cohen. Social Stanford Innovation Review. “Creating a Policy Index for the Arts.” 2017. United States.

On January 20, 2010, an audience of 200 business leaders, mayors, members of the US Congress, directors of large urban arts commissions, and media gathered at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. They launched the National Arts Index, a new research and policy initiative that promised to do for the arts what the Dow Jones Industrial Average did for stock ownership.

4. Ecorys. Creative People and Places. “Creative People and Places: End of Year 3 Report.” 2017. United Kingdom.

Ecorys, a research agency, was commissioned to create the overarching evaluation (the meta-evaluation) for the first three years of Arts Council England’s Creative People and Places (CCP) programme.

 

5. David A. McGranahan, Timothy R. Wojan, and Dayton M. Lambert. Journal of Economic Geography. “The rural growth trifecta: outdoor amenities, creative class and entrepreneurial context.” 2010. United States.

The presence of creative class workers in rural communities has been shown to impact economic growth, particularly in places with outdoor amenities and entrepreneurial support. Tests confirm that the interaction of entrepreneurial context with the share of the workforce employed in the creative class is strongly associated with growth in the number of new establishments and employment, particularly in those rural counties endowed with attractive outdoor amenities.

 

1.  Holly Sidford and Alexis Frasz. Helicon Collaborative. “Not Just Money: Equity Issues in Cultural Philanthropy.” 2017. United States.

With support from the Surdna Foundation, Helicon has looked at the picture again, five years on, to see what has changed. Spoiler alert: despite important efforts by many leading foundations, funding overall has gotten less equitable. Cultural philanthropy is not effectively – or equitably – supporting the dynamic pluralism of our evolving cultural landscape.

2. Deidre Williams. Comedia. “How the Arts Measure Up: Australian Research into Social Impact.” 1997. Australia.

This Working Paper, no 8 in the series, was written by Deidre Williams, a former community arts worker and now an arts consultant, from South Australia. Deidre conducted the only substantial research into the social impact of community arts projects which we have come across, published as Creating Social Capital in 1996. She draws on, and updates, this unique Australian research to make a powerful case for recognition of the diverse benefits arising from community art, and the factors on which they depend.

3. Dr. Emmett Carson Pam Loeb and Dennis McCarthy. Blackbaud. “Diversity in Giving: The Changing Landscape of American Philanthropy.” 2015. United States.

This paper is based on a survey of 1,096 U.S. adults who say they have donated to a nonprofit organization in the past 12 months. The survey was conducted in October 2014 using the web-enabled KnowledgePanel®, a probability-based panel designed to be representative of the U.S. population.

4. Museums Association. “Museums Change Lives: The MA’s Vision for the Impact of Museums.” 2013. United Kingdom.

Museums Change Lives aims to enthuse people in museums to increase their impact, encourage funders to support museums in becoming more relevant to their communities, and show organisations the potential partnerships they could have with museums. Museums Change Lives follows on from earlier work by the Museums Association to encourage change in museums.

5. Michael Kaiser, Malik Robinson, Zannie Voss and Donna Walker-Kuhne. American University. “Colloquium: Addressing Funding Inequities for Arts Organizations of Color.” 2016. United States.

Several recent studies have explored issues of equity and funding for arts organizations of color. The DeVos Institute of Arts Management, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, the National Center for Arts Research, and others have all drawn conclusions and offered recommendations to define the problem and suggest solutions. This Colloquium focuses on funding for arts organizations of color, and connect these reports to current practice and current experience of cultural managers and artists.

1. Mark J. Stern and Susan C. Seifert. Culture and Social Wellbeing in New York City. “The Social Wellbeing of New York City’s Neighborhoods: The Contribution of Culture and the Arts.” 2017. New York (NY).

This report presents the conceptual framework, data and methodology, and findings of a two-year study of culture and social wellbeing in New York City by SIAP with Reinvestment Fund. Building on their work in Philadelphia, the team gathered data from City agencies, borough arts councils, and cultural practitioners to develop a 10-dimension social wellbeing framework—which included construction of a cultural asset index—for every neighborhood in the five boroughs. The research was undertaken between 2014 and 2016.

 

2. Nick Wilson, Jonathan Gross, and Anna Bull. King’s College London. “Towards cultural democracy: Promoting cultural capabilities for everyone.” 2017. London (UK).

The final report of King’s fourth Cultural Enquiry. On the basis of a 15-month research project, it presents a timely and distinctive vision of how to build a cultural life for the UK that is valuable for everyone, and made by all.

 

3. Vassilka Shishkova. IETM. “Look, I’m Priceless! Handbook on how to assess your artistic organisation.” 2017. Brussels (BE).

This toolkit aims to guide you through the key steps of evaluation, whether you have chosen to do it yourself or if a funder or decision-maker asks you to do so and provides you with pre-conceived tools.

 

4. Michael Etzel and Hilary Pennington. Stanford Social Innovation Review. “Time to Reboot Grantmaking. 2017. United States.

Social sector organizations need a “healthy diet” of funding to achieve maximum impact, a concept neatly captured by the Grantmaking Pyramid now used by the Ford Foundation. Bridgespan developed, and then refined with the Ford Foundation, a simple Grantmaking Pyramid that reframes how funders and their grantees should think about building successful, resilient organizations.

 

5. Gay Hanna, Judy Rollins, and Lorie Lewis. Grantmakers in the Arts. “Arts in Medicine Literature Review.” 2017. United States.

A growing body of research is bringing attention to how the arts — including literature, performing and visual arts, as well as architecture and design — can greatly enhance the healthcare experience. Arts in medicine contributes to improved healthcare outcomes, better patient and staff satisfaction, and lower healthcare costs. Established as a field in the 1990s, arts in medicine programming in clinical settings usually developed as part of university healthcare systems in partnership with community based artists and arts organizations.