Color Congress
Field Building Fund Project: Evaluation Coaching
Color Congress is an ecosystem-builder that resources, supports, connects, and champions organizations led by people of color (POC) that serve nonfiction filmmakers, leaders, and audiences of color across the United States and US islands. Color Congress offers free membership to organizations based in the U.S. territories. Congress members have access to monthly meetups, technical assistance, and sustainability support.
MCE was hired to deliver technical assistance to Congress member organizations. MCE’s technical assistance consisted of (1) a workshop that explored how to use data to learn from and document the past, plan for the future, and improve organizational storytelling; and (2) ten hours of one-on-one consultation support for Congress member organizations.
The Intercultural Leadership Institute
Read the ILI COVID 19 Impact Study
The Intercultural Leadership Institute (ILI) was created out of a shared vision among four cultural organizations to create leadership opportunities for artists, culture bearers, arts practitioners, and change-makers. In Native Hawaiian, “ili” means skin – the outer layer that holds together something vital. Like the Native Hawaiian “ili,” ILI’s intercultural approach to leadership aims to hold together a space for resilience and resourcefulness while emphasizing overlapping experiences, shared spaces, and mutual accountability – all in pursuit of cultural equity. Since 2015, when ILI launched its pilot leadership fellowship, ILI has designed and delivered people-centered leadership fellowships with a cultural context that challenges the dominant social norms that permeate the arts and culture sector.
At the height of COVID-19, the ILI leaders observed how the artists, culture bearers, arts practitioners, and change-makers within the ILI community were largely being excluded from funding opportunities. The ILI leaders were determined to ensure that their communities were not excluded in the emergency relief efforts. They organized to design a funding approach that met the needs of their communities, the historically excluded and overlooked. ILI hired MCE to evaluate the impact of the COVID -19 Relief Fund. This impact evaluation was designed with a participatory research approach to help ILI identify, synthesize, and understand the impact of their COVID Relief efforts amongst their designated communities.
The International Association of Blacks in Dance
Read The Black Report
The International Association of Blacks in Dance (IABD) preserves and promotes dance by people of African ancestry or origin. It also assists and increases opportunities for artists in advocacy, audience development, education, funding, networking, performance, philosophical dialogue, and touring.
MCE provided data analysis, data visualization, and writing support toward the development of The Black Report: The State of the Union for Blacks in Dance. This report is a call to action meant to highlight the experiences and challenges of a representative sample of Black dance companies in the United States and advocate for increased funding and capacity support for Black dance companies in the United States. The report was instrumental in assisting IABD with securing their first $3M gift from the Mellon Foundation.
New England Foundation for the Arts
Read the National Theater Project, Evaluation Report
The New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) is one of six regional arts organizations established with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. Each program and project that is brought to life at NEFA is created with the underlying goal of building a stronger and more dynamic infrastructure for the arts. In 2010, NEFA piloted the National Theater Project (NTP), modeled on NEFA’s National Dance Project. NTP supports innovative, devised, and ensemble theater artists with building a network of organizations committed to strengthening opportunities and cultivating audiences for their work. Since 2012, NTP has not only provided funding but also has cultivated an informed, interactive network of producing theaters, presenters, and ensembles that promote the funded projects and the development of the field as a whole.
NEFA hired MCE to examine and document the impact of NEFA over the last ten years. MCE worked closely with NTP’s staff, utilizing a participatory research approach to frame the evaluation goals, data collection priorities, and the modes of analysis. MCE designed and launched an impact evaluation to assist NEFA with examining how NTP met its program goals, identifying and tracking the most applicable NTP performance measures.