Creative Evaluation for a Creative Industry

Evaluation is not a new idea.  Nor is the idea of value and supply and demand.  In the creative sector, namely arts organizations in the United States, these practices aren’t always used with efficacy, if they are used at all.  Like the reading states, it is not from a lack of intelligence or good intentions, but rather a wide-ranging difficulty of exactly how to evaluate arts programming, from arts in education to performance series.

After reading Geoff Mulgan’s article, I recognized that I have heard the conversation about “social value” in the context of the arts before.  The supply and demand angle of evaluation isn’t as new as he suggests in his writing, but not because arts professionals have had an earlier insight into this way of thinking.  Rather, it’s that the industry has been struggling with what ‘demand’ means to their particular organizations in current years.  It’s an interesting spin on the problem presented in the readings: social ventures need to measure their social value by studying supply and demand, yet arts organizations have had the opportunity to study their (traditionally static) supply and (steadily declining) demand and haven’t been able to adjust their idea of the social value they are providing.

It is a relatively new conversation, but in my opinion timely and relevant, that arts organizations are recognizing that program evaluation is crucial for sustainability.  However, without the need in the last thirty or so years of governmental and foundation, endowment, etc. support, organizations created previously may had never thought about evaluation at all. 

For the sake of scope, I will focus on large-budget, American symphony orchestras.  Their situation is in some ways opposite to new social ventures in that they have been in existence for, in some cases, a hundred years or more, and haven’t had to analyze their product in relation to demand.  In some sense they have, but not to the point where it effected their programming decisions.  In recent years, it fell to the marketing department to make the programming relevant to the changing audiences.  Now, with much more competition for the general public’s expendable income and free time, orchestras are facing an uncertain future.  As I mentioned before, new funding sources and standards set by funders and regulators demand that the structures of these organizations must adapt to survive.

But the conversation spirals around the same question – how and what can we evaluate?  That’s where these articles can be applied to the evaluation predicament.  It takes a collaboration of many different people with different backgrounds and expertise to come up with measurements that make sense.  Orchestras fall into the same kind of reporting as Ted London’s article states; uplifting stories and the fact that you are ‘helping children’ or ‘creating excellent music’ is not a measure of success.  Similarly, the holistic idea of measurement is crucial.  Measuring attendance is like only measuring products distributed, but not how those products are affecting the people who receive them in their lives and communities.

My solution to this problem is an arts take on the holistic view that encompasses effective supply and effective demand.  In my experience, traditional orchestras have a tunnel-vision view of ‘demand’.  Demands are changing, and there’s no way to please all people all the time.  Orchestras need to understand where they fit into the larger picture of the community.  In some places, sticking to a traditional ‘classics only’ season may actually be sustainable.  However, in others, new music or overlapping popular interests with the classics will be more sustainable because you are adjusting your supply to match the demand.  Also, I whole-heartedly believe that arts organizations, like social ventures and other initiatives should learn as many lessons as they can from businesses.  This background will help them compete in today’s changing world of entertainment and culture.

In conclusion, arts organizations should closely follow the progress of social ventures and their methods of evaluation and measurement.  Their missions, while different, dovetail in many ways and both sectors can learn from each other.  Evaluation is a difficult conversation when societal value is the determining measurement, but from these articles it is clear that there are tangible outcomes from whic all sectors can benefit.