Giving Insights > Research > The art of measurement

The art of measurement

It’s clear that arts institutions will be hit hard in the months and years ahead. Cuts in the region of 25% to 40% are predicted. The Arts Council estimates that 200 of the 850 organisations in its portfolio will fold over the next four years if cuts of around 30% are made.

Unsurprisingly, these estimates have led to an outcry in the arts world. Leaders of prominent arts institutions have appealed directly to Prime Minister David Cameron to stop government from causing “irreparable damage” to the arts. The government in turn has appealed to private philanthropists to step in and plug the gap, with culture minister Jeremy Hunt writing to private donors to the arts to stress the importance of private philanthropy.

While this appeal to private philanthropy has been welcomed by some people in the arts world—such as Peter Bazalgette, deputy chairman of the English National Opera, who wrote in the Guardian on 8 July that arts institutions needed to become better at harnessing private giving—philanthropists made it clear that they will struggle to rise to the challenge. In fact, the country’s most prominent arts philanthropists have signed a letter to David Cameron explicitly warning that they will not be able to make up the shortfall created by government cuts.

This leaves many arts institutions—like a lot of other charities—in a precarious funding situation. However, the debate on how to promote private philanthropy for the arts has largely focused on how a change in tax incentives could encourage giving. What has been absent from this debate so far is whether arts organisations should get better at measuring, demonstrating and communicating the impact of their work to attract more funding.

Of course the issue of evaluating arts programmes is a tricky one. But programmes that focus on the social benefits of art—rather than on preserving art for art’s sake—must make more effort to evaluate their impact. As NPC learned in a recent piece of consulting work for J.P. Morgan, many arts organisations still have room for improvement in this area. In fact, J.P. Morgan, a long-standing arts funder, observed that funding applicants for their arts programme often lagged behind applicants for their education and community development programmes in terms of monitoring, evaluation and impact communication.

Raising standards

This gap left J.P. Morgan wondering how to raise the standards of applications for their arts programme, while at the same time ensuring applications were aligned with J.P. Morgan’s funding priorities. They decided to commission NPC to help them with a review of their application process. The work had two aims: to explore the potential of arts projects to deliver impact on a broad range of social issues; and to provide J.P. Morgan with a more probing approach to assessment in order to identify projects with the greatest potential to make a measurable and sustainable difference.

NPC began by creating a two-phase application process for the arts programme. For phase one, NPC developed a short, incisive application form to test J.P. Morgan’s key criteria, such as whether the applicant could articulate what success looks like and how this would be measured. NPC also devised a scoring system to go alongside this form, which was tested with the J.P. Morgan team.

With input from the team, NPC went on to design a more in-depth phase two application form. It probed key criteria further, such as commitment to monitoring and evaluation, and asked applicants to provide evidence to back up statements made in phase one. It also asked questions about the organisation to help position the charity’s work within a wider context. J.P. Morgan sent this form to a limited number of applicants that had been successful in the first round. After a thorough review of all phase two forms, a short list of high-quality arts projects was put to the regional Philanthropy Steering Committee.

Learning process

The review was a learning process for J.P. Morgan and NPC. J.P. Morgan learned that a more rigorous application process leads to better decision-making. As Carol Lake, Head of Corporate Responsibility for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said, ‘The two staged approach and the assessment process developed by the NPC team ensured we asked the right questions and gave all organisations the same opportunity to provide us with the information to help us make informed decisions.’ NPC increased its knowledge about the arts funding sector, and learned to adapt some of its charity assessment criteria accordingly.

The review also showed that demanding more from applicants, and asking challenging questions, raises the quality of funding requests. The value of thorough assessment was also recognised by some applicants. While they were not used to funders being this challenging, they felt the process was worthwhile as it pushed them to reflect carefully on their work and the project they were seeking funding for—something that was encouraged by the feedback from the J.P. Morgan team. As Kerry Michael, Artistic Director of Theatre Royal Stratford East, said, ‘While the application process was rigorous, we also found it to be an extremely powerful tool which we will utilise in future. Stage 1 demanded clarity and brevity on what we wanted to do and why it was necessary; forcing us to challenge our own motives and commitments and to distil it as a short strong vision. Stage 2 needed to express delivery methods and benefits in practical and financially viable terms, with clear tie-ins to our own organisational goals. It forced us to address how, post project, we could demonstrate and measure its value and social impact’.

At a time when funding cuts are inevitable, charities should think carefully about how they too can demonstrate the impact of their work—both to justify internal priorities, and to make a convincing case for funding. Arts funders can encourage this by asking applicants tougher questions about whether projects are based on a real need, what they aim to achieve, and how this will be measured and communicated.

Focusing the debate on these types of questions, and away from tax incentives, is likely to increase the ability of arts organisations to fight for their long-term survival by showing to the world exactly what they can achieve. As Carol Lake said, J.P. Morgan hopes ‘that the results will open up thinking about the role the arts can and does play in delivering positive social impact in many ways’.