Over an eleven-month period, eight NeighborWorks network organizations evaluated a wide range of arts and culture work, such as artists-in-residence programming, public art murals, nature trail art or community gardens. This pilot project provided resources to the organizations to support their efforts including a paired evaluator, access to the Success Measures evaluation tools for creative community development and the Success Measures Data System, and grant funding from NeighborWork America.
This Learning Brief focuses on the experience of the participating organizations, their outcomes and the supports they identified as important to the success of creative community development work. Uniquely, the evaluation incorporated reflection activities, allowing the organizations to capture their experience and feelings about the journey, creatively and in real time. These photos, interviews, poems and digital illustrations accompany the narrative of this report.