Empowering Organizing through Participatory Evaluation in Art & Cultural Change

This session will explore ways for evaluators to lead participatory evaluations in a social impact context. The presentation will reference the ongoing work of the Youth Organizing and Cultural Change Fund (YOCCF), which consists of a cohort of organizations working at the intersectionality of art and cultural organizing. The initiative aims to empower organizations and strengthen youth leadership by developing the organizations’ skills and enhancing their collaborative potential through the support of a group of foundations/funds, a steering committee, workshop partners, and a youth advisory group. The presentation will explore the opportunities provided by establishing an advisory group that consists of youth participant evaluators and assess how this dynamic affects an evolving initiative. Additionally, we will discuss the challenges inherent in social impact evaluation such as using non-quantitative indicators. By the end of the session, attendees would gain insights on:

1. Curating a youth-led participatory evaluation framework


2. Uplifting the needs of grantees by engaging with them throughout the data collection and analysis processes 


3. Strategizing for social impact evaluation with non-quantitative indicators


4. Understanding how all this culminates from the perspective of a youth participant-evaluator who will be leading the session