How Arts Groups Can Adapt to the “Evaluation Craze”

Singing Our Praises: Case Studies in the Art of Evaluation, by Suzanne Callahan, highlights the experiences of several arts groups to demonstrate how the arts-and-culture field can respond to demands for accountability. Ms. Callahan, a consultant, says that arts groups can use a “participatory approach” to evaluation that involves artists and staff members in collecting data and assessing performance. She examines how grant makers used audience reactions to assess grants to a theater group, and a fellowship project that relied on feedback from past participants to inform its future support for dance choreographers. Her book, which received support from the Wallace Foundation, details how those lessons can help other groups conduct evaluations. She also describes how the findings of some recent national studies of the arts world can inform the evaluation process.

Publisher: Association of Performing Arts Presenters, 1112 16th Street, N.W., Suite 400, Washington, D.C. 20036; (202) 833-2787; fax (202) 833-1543; http://www.artspresenters.org; 171 pages; $16.95.