Spotlight the Dimensions of Impact Cohort

As nonprofits work to maintain visibility, currency, and relevancy amid changing funding trends, philanthropy patterns, and global economic shifts, organizations are turning to impact measurement and reporting to demonstrate the vitality and effectiveness of their work. 

Evolving from practices within the social enterprise and international development sectors, impact measurement seeks to both quantify and qualify how our work makes a difference on the people, culture, and economic wellbeing of our communities. 

The arts face a difficult path here: boiling a project’s impact down to a single marker often contradicts the nature of artistic practice. Art changes minds and connects communities in ways that are hard to quantify. While this work undeniably fuels the economy and trains the talent behind our digital media, measuring only these logistical elements tells an incomplete story of the sector’s true impact. 

What’s more, most of the groundbreaking work being done in impact measurement for arts is happening in major centres, and doesn’t often scale down to offer smaller, rural arts organizations the tools to jump into this work easily. Implementing the wrong tools is a waste of time and capacity. This work shouldn’t answer “how do we play the game to survive?” but rather, “how can we use these tools to deepen our understanding of how our work makes a difference, and refine our choices, and strengthen our messaging?”

Since 2023, we’ve been working with Dr. Gillian Morrissey at the MUN Centre for Social Enterprise to build and offer useful resources to the arts community in Newfoundland and Labrador. The first step, supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, was a research project, Dimensions of Impact in Arts Organizations, that offers a framework arts organizations can use to identify and collect the impacts that tell their story best.

This winter, thanks to support from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, we launched the Impact Cohort, an initiative offering leaders in the arts sector the chance to work and learn together through a six-part training course offering a foundational orientation to impact measurement, followed by the chance to host internships to evaluate, modify, and co-design measurement tools and protocols for their organizations. Our hope was that ten organizations would register; last week, 23 received their certificates. Clearly, the community sees the need for this conversation and is willing to put in the time and effort to join. 

This spring and summer, we’re keen to see what percolates as participating organizations work with interns from the Centre for Social Enterprise. Expect to hear more from us in this space as participants reflect and work together to refine this work. In the meantime, here is what one participant had to say about the experience so far:

“This course has REALLY shaped and improved my understanding of impact measurement, why it's important, and how I can implement new skills into my everyday admin tasks to keep on top of impact measurement.

As the ED of a small organization with no other staff, it is difficult to find the time and resources to measure impact, as well as to find people with experience that know how to streamline and measure impact effectively for the needs of the organization. This course has given me a lot of confidence and a renewed understanding of the needs of our organization and the goals we are looking to hit, which can then be translated into new funding opportunities.

Overall, these are skills and methods of research that I can now implement into the administrative fabric of our organization, and instead of feeling intimidated by it, I'm actually excited to see what data we can collect and improve on.

THANK YOU!!”