Thoughtful Evaluation for Arts and Culture Work

At The Evaluator, we love working with artists, creatives and organisations exploring ambitious ideas. We bring rigour to creative and sometimes challenging environments, designing evaluation that keeps pace with inventive work while staying simple, honest and useful.

What makes us different is not just our technical expertise, but the way we work. We are guided by values that are creatively simple, honest and useful, which means we design evaluation that respects artistic process as well as accountability. Clients trust us to bring clarity without flattening complexity, helping creative projects capture what matters in ways that are credible, proportionate and genuinely helpful.

If you are pushing boundaries and want evaluation that supports your ambition rather than slowing it down, we will figure it out with you.

Client Highlights, Creative Thinking, Challenging Themes, Artist Led

Our arts evaluation work spans place based programmes, artist led organisations and long term cultural strategies. Here are five examples.

Salford Place Partnership Fund, Culture and Place

Salford, Greater Manchester. This partnership focuses on unlocking grassroots led cultural activity, enabling communities and artists to shape Salford’s cultural future.

• Co creation processes and power sharing
• Community and artist relationships
• How culture shifts when decision making sits with communities, not only institutions

Derbyshire Makes

A county wide, three year programme celebrating making in all its forms, artists, craftspeople, designers and communities across Derbyshire, connecting heritage with new creative futures.

• How artist led workshops and commissions embed creativity in everyday life
• Shifts in audience relationships to making, craft and heritage
• Links between creative practice, innovation, sustainability and community identity

In Situ

Brierfield, Pendle, East Lancashire. An embedded arts organisation working at the intersection of art, community and ecology, collaborating closely with artists and local people.

• How art, community and environment relationships develop over time
• Impact of creative residencies on everyday life
• How complex themes become accessible through artistic practice

Super Slow Way

East Lancashire. A long running place based arts programme working alongside artists and communities, drawing on heritage, environment and local identity.

• Artist and community dynamics
• How ambitious creative work reaches new audiences in non traditional settings
• How the arts shift perceptions of place and belonging

What This Means for Your Arts Project

• Artist led, experimental work supported by evaluation designed for fluidity, not rigid checklists
• Process and outcomes both captured, the creative journey is part of the impact
• Clear focus on who is involved, how they are involved, and what shifts for people, practice and place
• Space to capture the unexpected, emergent outcomes, stories and insight alongside numbers
• Useful outputs that strengthen narrative, improve delivery and support future funding

Supporting Arts Organisations With Evidence and Reporting

Alongside independent evaluation, we support arts and cultural organisations with the practical side of gathering, understanding and using their evidence. This includes Arts Council England Illuminate returns, audience and participant research, data analysis and reporting, and the Impact & Insight Toolkit. We regularly work with Arts Council England funded organisations and understand the reporting and evaluation requirements facing NPOs and other funded programmes. We can work with the evaluation approaches and data you already have, or help develop proportionate new methods where needed.