Social Research ¦ Market Research ¦ Behavioural Insight ¦ Evaluation ¦ SROI
Social Research ¦ Market Research ¦ Behavioural Insight ¦ Evaluation ¦ SROI
The Creative City Grants Programme was funded through a £2 million grant from Birmingham City Council. The programme aimed to be a catalyst to increase community-led artistic creation and boost local pride and funded in excess of 100 individual projects across the creative and heritage sectors in Birmingham during the Commonwealth Games Cultural Festival.
The evaluation focused on understanding whether the Creative City Grants programme:
This evaluation included a formative element – to assess the development and implementation of the programme, allowing for learning and programme development – and a summative element – which focussed on the outcomes the programme has had on the local groups and organisations, as well as other stakeholders such as artists, freelancers, staff, volunteers, participants and audience members.
The evaluation used a mixed methods approach to engage with all 106 of the projects in a tiered way, with sampling undertaken to account for the range of project type in terms of format, offer, audience and geography among other considerations.
Qualitative interactions were supported by MI data as well as 2,823 surveys from a range of stakeholders, including audiences, volunteers, freelancers and staff etc. which we also collected as part of another strand of our work for Birmingham 2022.
The Creative City grant programme has enabled community groups and local people to learn and create through relatively unbounded artistic approaches and to connect with others around them. The evaluation also found evidence that there is a real need for ongoing programmes like Creative City which offer substantial funding to community groups shining the light on the creativity that exists in all corners of Birmingham.
Organisations and participants valued the amount of artistic freedom offered which in turn helped voice what the community wanted to deliver, which also led to improved relationships. People’s perceptions were changed through being able to learn about cultures and this also helped people discover each other – learning about people through creative means helped shape this process. Having such a widespread programme helped organisations infiltrate new and unused social spaces in the community. This allowed projects to create improved access to arts and creative practices.
Community groups and organisations that were part of the programme identified that they had created and improved partnerships and networks in the city and their industry. There was a desire to continue the work they had delivered through the programme but future funding was a major barrier to achieving this.
You can read the full report here and it is also available in ETEXT accessible format.
