Community Partners in Arts Access Evaluation: Final Report
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University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Philadelphia and Camden: Community Partners Community Partners in Arts Access Evaluation in Arts Access Evaluation—2004-2009 6-2009 Community Partners in Arts Access Evaluation: Final Report Mark J. Stern University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Susan C. Seifert University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/siap_cpaa Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons, Civic and Community Engagement Commons, Public Policy Commons, and the Urban Studies and Planning Commons Stern, Mark J. and Seifert, Susan C., "Community Partners in Arts Access Evaluation: Final Report" (2009). Community Partners in Arts Access Evaluation. 3. https://repository.upenn.edu/siap_cpaa/3 SIAP's evaluation of the Community Partners in Arts Access (CPAA) initiative in North Philadelphia and Camden, NJ was undertaken with support by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Philadelphia and Camden Cultural Participation Benchmark Project, in collaboration with Alan S. Brown & Associates and Research for Action, provided baseline data and concepts. Regional cultural participation estimates were made possible by access to the Philadelphia Cultural List Cooperative database provided by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance. This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/siap_cpaa/3 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Community Partners in Arts Access Evaluation: Final Report Abstract This research report evaluates the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Community Partners in Arts Access (CPAA) initiative to expand cultural participation among residents of North Philadelphia and Camden, NJ. The initiative had two phases. From September 2003 to December 2004, Knight invited 35 cultural organizations to participate in a planning process with a focus on organizational capacity, audience development, and action plans to broaden, deepen, and diversify participation. In December 2004, Knight awarded grants to 19 organizations to carry out their action plans over the next three years. The final evaluation report concluded that CPAA met its goals. Both regional and benchmark participation rates had increased from the beginning to the end of the initiative. By 2008 the gap between levels of cultural participation in North Philadelphia and Camden and the rest of the metropolitan area had been reduced significantly. This conclusion, however, belies the complexity that attended the initiative as it unfolded. Knight began CPAA in 2003 with an orthodox theory of organizational capacity building but by 2006 had shifted its focus to community transformation, and grantees had to rethink their projects. SIAP maintained its evaluation design: waves of grantee and regional participant data-gathering; a survey of artists living or working in North Philadelphia and Camden; and ongoing interviews and participant-observation with CPAA grantees. The qualitative record allowed SIAP not only to document what actually happened but also to make sense of changing theories of action during the course of the initiative. Disciplines Arts and Humanities | Civic and Community Engagement | Public Policy | Urban Studies and Planning Comments SIAP's evaluation of the Community Partners in Arts Access (CPAA) initiative in North Philadelphia and Camden, NJ was undertaken with support by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Philadelphia and Camden Cultural Participation Benchmark Project, in collaboration with Alan S. Brown & Associates and Research for Action, provided baseline data and concepts. Regional cultural participation estimates were made possible by access to the Philadelphia Cultural List Cooperative database provided by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance. This research report is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/siap_cpaa/3 COMMUNITY PARTNERS IN ARTS ACCESS EVALUATION: FINAL REPORT A report to: The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Prepared by: Mark J. Stern and Susan C. Seifert University of Pennsylvania Social Impact of the Arts Project June 2009 Mark J. Stern and Susan C. Seifert Philadelphia l June 2009 For information, contact: Susan C. Seifert, Director Social Impact of the Arts Project University of Pennsylvania l School of Social Policy & Practice 3701 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6214 E-mail: [email protected] http://www.sp2.upenn.edu/SIAP/ TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction and Executive Summary 2. The Long and Winding Road: Theories of Action in CPAA The Community Indicators Project The Community Partners Program The Conservation Company/TCC Group The RAND Model of Cultural Participation The Centrality of Organizational Capacity Theories of Action in Practice: CPAA Grantees’ Perspective Arts as Transformative Experience Placing Young People at the Center of Change Arts for Community Mobilization and Empowerment Arts as Catalyst of Community Progress and Well-being Community Transformation The Reinvestment Fund Social Capacity and Civic Institutions Public Assets and Infrastructure Economic Assets and Market Relationships Flows of Information, Capital and People Conclusion Outputs Outcomes Impacts 3. Outputs: The CPAA Grantees—Who They Were and What They Did North Philadelphia CPAA Grantees Located in North Philadelphia Regional Grantees Serving North Philadelphia School District of Philadelphia-based programs Camden, New Jersey CPAA Grantees Located in Camden Regional Grantees Serving Camden 4. Outcomes: How Cultural Participation Changed in North Philadelphia and Camden Between 2004 and 2008 The Changing Social and Economic Context Population Income and Property Values Methods for Estimating Cultural Participation Regional Participation Findings Regional Participation in 2004 Regional Participation in 2008 Socio-economic Profile Benchmark Participation in CPAA Communities Findings The Role of Artists in North Philadelphia and Camden’s Cultural Ecology Methods and Data Findings Conclusion 5. Impacts: What Are the Long-term Effects of CPAA? Social Capital and Civic Institutions Engaging Place Communities Outreach Workers and Neighborhood Residencies Public Events and Festivals Artist-driven Community Projects Youth Arts Strategies Engaging Institutional Communities Public Assets and Infrastructure Public Institutions Philadelphia Housing Authority School District of Philadelphia Public Space and Community Facilities Economic Assets and Market Relationships Applying the Organizational Development Model Social Entrepreneurship and Risk Mitigation Human Capital ii Real Estate Development Flows of Information, People, and Capital Community Arts Centers as Networked Enterprises CPAA Arts Partnerships Community Partners 6. CPAA’s Legacy The Benchmark Report’s Analysis of Assets and Challenges North Philadelphia and Camden’s Cultural Sector in 2008 References iii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION AND EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report evaluates the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Community Partners in Arts Access (CPAA) initiative, an effort to expand cultural participation in North Philadelphia and Camden, New Jersey. The initiative emerged from the Foundation’s Community Partners Program and its efforts to identify issues of concern in the twenty-six communities in which the Foundation is active. The initiative had two phases. In September 2003, a group of thirty-five cultural organizations were invited to participate in a planning process that would include organizational capacity building, training in audience development, and developing an action plan to expand cultural participation. Eventually, in December 2004, a group of nineteen organizations were awarded a total of $4.8 million to carry out their work between 2005 and 2008. In contrast to many evaluation efforts that begin after a project is already underway, CPAA was being evaluated before it even began. The Foundation asked the University of Pennsylvania’s Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP) to lead a research team—that included Alan Brown and Research for Action—to document the state of cultural participation in North Philadelphia and Camden in 2004 and 2005. This research led to the Philadelphia and Camden Cultural Participation Benchmark Report, co-authored by Mark Stern and Susan Seifert. That report included a detailed analysis of two elements of cultural participation: an estimate of regional participation drawn from the organizational records of a cross-section of metropolitan Philadelphia cultural organizations and an estimate of “benchmark” participation focused on organizations located in or serving North Philadelphia and Camden. These two estimates served as the basis on which this evaluation has judged the outcomes of CPAA. 1 This report concludes that CPAA met its goals. The participation analysis finds that both regional and benchmark participation rates increased from the beginning to the end of the initiative. By 2008, the gap between the levels of cultural participation in North Philadelphia and Camden and the rest of the metropolitan area had been reduced significantly. However, this simple conclusion belies the complexity that attended CPAA as it unfolded. Most important to that history was a change in the Foundation’s program emphasis—a change that we document in Chapter 2. Where CPAA began with an orthodox theory of increased organizational capacity leading to a planned strategy for audience-building, by 2006 grantees were told that they should rethink their