Reflections on Arts and Civic Engagement Briefing Paper

This paper reflects Animating Democracy co-directors’ thinking following Working Group discussion of Chris Dwyer’s “Arts and Civic Engagement: Briefing Paper for the Working Group of the Arts & Civic Engagement Impact Initiative.” The discussion got to the heart of the challenges of measuring the social impact of arts-based engagement and somewhat shifted the Initiative’s theory of change. This “Reflections” piece addresses concerns related to the Initiative’s focus and emphasis including: intentionality in terms of social impact; intermediate effects and outcomes of arts-based civic engagement; level of change; scale of efforts evaluated; promoting evaluation as integral to effective work; shifting expectations in terms of what is realistic impact and practicable evaluation; case making goals.