Identifying and categorising the social goals attached to Australian arts organisations' work

What is it about?

We analysed the websites of 100 Australian community-engaged arts organisations to understand how they conceptualise and represent the social goals of their work. We first documented the stated change goals, target cohorts and contexts for arts work. Then we analysed these considering the dimensions of change (e.g. individual, relational, systemic) and change agenda frequently attached to the arts (e.g. education, social development, health and wellbeing). This process revealed a typology of four dominant roles that characterise Australian socially-engaged arts organisations: Content Producers; Social Development Organisations; Advocacy and/or Peak Bodies; and Activist Arts.

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Why is it important?

Arts organisations in Australia are increasingly expected by funders to report on social goals. There is tremendous diversity across socially-engaged artistic work, and the change goals are frequently multi-dimensional. The typology of approaches that our research has identified offers a valuable and timely tool for articulating the difference between approaches, which in turn will help arts organisations to refine and nuance their theories of change. It also offers an initial consideration for evaluators, researchers, funding bodies and policy makers when determining the most appropriate indicators for assessing and understanding the impact of individual projects and organisations.