The evaluation journey: a toolkit for cultural operators
How to define value in the cultural sector? How to get communities and stakeholders involved, and keep them involved? And how to make sure that the conclusions do not end up in a drawer?
With this digital toolkit, we hope to encourage and facilitate access to evaluation, as well as help navigate other existing toolkits and resources on the topic. Evaluation is a very relevant element of everyday cultural and artistic work and has been deeply explored in recent years by European networks and their members. As a network of cultural centres, we gave special thought to our members - cultural operators working in cultural centres, on a local or European level, who in their daily work may reach for tools to evaluate their project, programme and/or organization. But these tools will also be useful for all arts and cultural professionals interested in evaluation. The publication has generally been designed to support people working in organisations with limited budgets and limited human resources for evaluation.
Read and download The Evaluation Journey as a PDF
We are looking forward to hearing your feedback, as well as examples that can help us enrich this toolkit and continue the evaluation journey (office@encc.eu).
This publication was created in the framework of Lights On, our learning, mobility and staff exchange programme, in collaboration with On The Move cultural mobility information network.
Marie Le Sourd, Secretary General of the cultural mobility information network On the Move, started to be interested in the evaluation as a way to build argumentation and collect narratives and stories (of impacts) that could help advocate for artists and cultural professionals’ mobility. For this Evaluation Journey, Marie Le Sourd received feedback and contributions from On the Move’s colleague Maïa Sert, as well as suggestions from Fanny Bordier, founder of M-topia, and Elena Di Federico, IETM Project Manager for Research and Publications.
Dagna Gmitrowicz is a visual artist, facilitator, coach, therapist and process designer who creates meaningful learning spaces at conferences, workshops and in her studio. She strongly believes in and supports a collaborative work culture – one that uses the potential and strengths of everyone and taps into the collective creativity of the group.
Jordi Baltà, special adviser for this toolkit, works as a researcher and trainer in cultural policy and international affairs. He has provided training on the evaluation of cultural projects and policies, and their impact on development, and has worked as an evaluation consultant for UNESCO and others.
Coordination & editing: Kasia Skowron, Ioana Crugel, Marie Le Sourd and Lucie Perineau
Graphic design: Lucie Perineau & Marine Domec
Illustrations: Lucie Perineau
The cover and chapter header illustrations are inspired by Marcel Broodthaers’ Bateau-Tableau (1973), a slideshow of 80 photographs that zoom in and out of a 19th-century seascape painting.