Tag Archive for: The Evaluator

Arts Evaluation UK, Capturing Creative Impact, Process and Place

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Arts and Culture Evaluation

Thoughtful Evaluation for Arts and Culture Work

Arts and culture programmes often explore complex ideas, identity, heritage, place, power and social change. They are rarely linear, often experimental, and frequently shaped by artists working in close relationship with communities.

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.

Ready to Build Evaluation That Keeps Pace With Your Work?

If you are an arts organisation working with artists, communities and big ideas, and you want evaluation that is credible, funder ready and creatively appropriate, we can help. We will figure it out with you.

Evaluation, Measurement, Impact.

Nature Project Evaluation UK – Measuring Environmental and Community Impact

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Nature & Environmental Evaluation

Why We’re the Partner of Choice for Nature-Based Projects

Nature-based programmes are increasingly complex — expected to deliver measurable environmental outcomes, climate resilience, community wellbeing and inclusion, often simultaneously.

We provide environmental evaluation for nature recovery, habitat restoration, climate adaptation and community engagement projects across the UK.

At The Evaluator, we specialise in helping organisations working in environmental and nature recovery contexts make sense of this complexity. Whether the focus is habitat restoration, climate adaptation or connecting people with nature, we design evaluation that is credible, proportionate and genuinely useful.

In short: we’ll figure it out with you.

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 with people, not around them. We know that nature-based projects are rarely straightforward, so clients trust us to bring both rigour and flexibility — creating evidence that is credible, clear and genuinely helpful, while staying grounded in the realities of delivery.

We are thoughtful partners who help good projects understand their impact and grow their confidence.

Client Highlights: Nature & Diversity in Action

Freshwater Renaissance – National Trust

A two-year programme restoring freshwater habitats — streams, ponds, flushes and ditches — to strengthen biodiversity and climate resilience, with a strong focus on inclusion.

  • Ecological change (habitat condition, species presence, connectivity)
  • Participation and inclusion across under-represented groups
  • Shifts in connection to nature

A Wilder Walkmill – West Cumbria Rivers Trust

Located in a 36-hectare former coalmine site near Whitehaven, this project combines wildlife recovery with access, training and community engagement.

  • Habitat change (woodland creation, INNS removal, nursery production)
  • Volunteer and training participation metrics
  • Qualitative shifts in sense of place and green space access

Climate FORTH – RSPB Scotland-led Partnership

A large-scale programme (2023–2026) supporting heritage, natural and built assets in the Inner Forth to become climate resilient through collaboration and co-creation.

  • System-level change across partners
  • Evidence of collaboration and co-creation
  • Stories of transition, resilience and inclusion

Nature Calling – National Landscapes Association

A national arts-in-nature programme inviting new communities to connect with England’s 46 National Landscapes through creativity and participation.

  • Diverse participation (demographics, geography, lived experience)
  • Shifts in connection to place and nature
  • Impact of creativity within environmental contexts

Why Our Approach Works

  • Focus on ecological change, engagement, inclusion and learning — not just outputs
  • Methods tailored to layered objectives (nature + people + place + climate)
  • Credible, funder-ready evidence answering who, where, how much, what changed and what next
  • Integration of quantitative data and qualitative insight
  • Clear, proportionate approaches suited to scale and budget

Tackling Environmental Complexity?

If your project spans nature recovery, climate adaptation, inclusion or wellbeing — and you need a credible case for impact — we can help you measure what matters.

Evaluation. Measurement. Impact.

Festival Evaluation UK – Measuring Cultural, Community and Economic Impact

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Festival Evaluation

Why We’re the Festival Evaluator You Want

At The Evaluator, we help festivals turn bold ideas into measurable, credible impact, without unnecessary complexity.

Festivals are ambitious by nature. They bring together culture, community, place, and economy, often at scale, often free to attend, and often under scrutiny from funders and stakeholders.

Whether the focus is audience growth, community engagement, economic benefit, or long-term legacy, we bring clarity, insight and rigour. If you want to hear from real audiences and deliver real change, we’ll figure it out with you.

Festival Client Highlights

Here are five festivals we’ve supported, illustrating the breadth of scale, ambition and creative focus we work alongside.

We Invented The Weekend (WITW)

Salford Quays / MediaCity,  a free two-day festival celebrating the invention of the weekend itself, rooted in place and industrial heritage.

With 60,000+ visitors and 200+ free activities, the festival blends large-scale programming with community participation.

  • Audience profile and geography
  • Economic impact and local spend
  • Community engagement across activities
  • Legacy planning for future editions

National Festival of Making (NFOM)

Blackburn, Lancashire, a free family festival celebrating “making, from the kitchen table to the factory floor”.

With 100+ workshops, artist commissions and performances across 20+ venues, it connects culture, skills and manufacturing heritage.

  • Participatory and workshop outcomes
  • Maker-economy and skills impacts
  • Place-based manufacturing identity

British Textile Biennial (BTB)

A contemporary art festival across East Lancashire exploring the legacy and future of the textile industry.

Blending heritage with global artistic practice, the festival reframes textile innovation for modern audiences.

  • New narratives of craft and heritage
  • Audience reach across towns
  • Contribution to cultural regeneration

Pendle Festival of Culture

Nelson, Lancashire, a vibrant community festival celebrating people, environment and culture.

  • Engagement of diverse communities
  • Participatory arts outcomes
  • Local stakeholder and partner feedback

Yorkshire Festival of Story

Produced by Settle Stories, a hybrid storytelling festival connecting live and online audiences globally.

  • Digital reach and global engagement
  • Participation across formats
  • How storytelling drives reflection and change

Why This Matters

When festivals operate at this level. free access, diverse programming, significant visitor numbers and community outcomes, credible evaluation is not optional.

  • Demonstrating impact to funders and partners
  • Attracting future investment
  • Securing long-term stakeholder buy-in
  • Shaping sustainable legacy beyond a single edition

Good evaluation doesn’t slow festivals down. Done well, it strengthens the story, sharpens delivery and builds confidence in what comes next.

Ready to Build Robust Festival Evaluation?

If you’re planning a festival and want evaluation built in from day one, proportionate, funder-ready and genuinely useful, we’ll figure it out with you.

Evaluation. Measurement. Impact.

Meet Victoria

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MEET VICTORIA

Meet Victoria – The People-Focused Evaluator Making Stories Count

At The Evaluator, we believe that great evaluation isn’t just about numbers and data—it’s about people. That’s where Victoria Huntriss comes in. With a background as a qualified counsellor and clinical supervisor, Victoria brings something truly special to our evaluation projects: the ability to really listen. Her experience in community work, social care, and mental health support means she knows how to create safe spaces where people feel comfortable to share their experiences.

Whether she’s conducting interviews, gathering case studies, or interpreting qualitative data, Victoria makes sure that every voice is heard and valued.

Her skills in person-centred and cognitive behavioural therapy make her a natural at understanding the impact that projects have on individuals. She has worked in substance misuse programs, bereavement support, trauma counselling, and more—so she knows that every story is unique.

Victoria is especially passionate about advocating for neurodivergent and autistic individuals, ensuring that evaluation is inclusive, accessible, and meaningful.

As part of The Evaluator team, she takes a people-first approach, turning real-life experiences into powerful insights that help to shape better, more impactful projects. With her on board, we’re not just collecting data—we’re telling the human story behind it.

Cheers to a Festive Break

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We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our wonderful clients from this year, it is a pleasure to work with such outstanding people and provide meaningful evaluation services and data analysis. We look forward to working with new and existing clients next year.

In the spirit of the festive season, the Evaluator team will be taking a break to refresh and recharge during Christmas. Therefore, we would like to inform you that our office will be closed for the holiday period starting from Monday 23rd of December and will resume operations on Monday 6th of January.

We appreciate your understanding, and we assure you that we will return in the new year fully revitalised and ready to continue delivering our exceptional service.

Meet Our Intern – Nadia

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Nadia stands in front of the Sydney opera house at night with a dark blue sky My name is Nadia and I am excited to announce myself as the newest intern here at The Evaluator.

A bit about me: I’m currently studying Economics at the University of Liverpool, where I’ve developed an interest in Data analytics and statistics.

This internship presents an incredible opportunity for me to dive deeper into my interest of data analytics and apply the theoretical knowledge I’ve gained in a practical setting. What appeals to me about The Evaluator specifically is their core value of being creatively simple, I think the focus of anyone who handles data should be to ensure that any data can be easy enough for the average person to understand and useful enough that it can help them view their project or business in a way they may not have before.

Outside of studying my interests include music, film and travelling. In fact, I recently just spent 6 months living and travelling in Australia. I spent a semester studying in Melbourne and the rest of my time travelling across the east coast – I think my favourite memory from travelling abroad would be getting to go to the Melbourne Grand prix and meeting Daniel Riccardo as I’m a big fan of his. That or being chased by a possum was a fun memory also.

During my internship with The Evaluator my goal is to develop my data and report writing skills, both of which I feel I have already made a start on in the 2 months since I have been here. I’m excited to go forward and see what the new year has in store and I can’t wait to see what I can learn from Kirsty and the team.