Measuring your impact

We have all experienced the positive impact of music – either as a music makers or music listeners. However, measuring that impact can sometimes be quite a difficult concept to grasp.  If you have secured funding for a music project or activity, you may be already aware that measuring impact is often a standard  requirement. However, it needn’t be burdensome. There are many benefits in adopting a simple and proportionate approach that may help grow your group, improve the impact it makes and help with a funding application.

• Why should we measure impact?
• How do we measure the impact on members, audience and community?

Why measure impact?

There are four main advantages of measuring the impact your organisation has through music-making.

1. Knowledge and evidence – rather than guesswork

Collecting sound evidence is a powerful way to prove the impact your group makes.

• Collect regular feedback from your members and audience at regular intervals – ask them what benefits your music brings them.  Document this.
• Check the year-on-year trend of active members in your group. This helps plan future membership recruitment campaigns, and benchmark your progress against similar groups - this signposts where and how you could improve.

2. Identifies activities and performances that have most impact

Understanding your audience and your impact helps calibrate your marketing activities.

• Are your values and branding connecting with your audience?
• Which of your activities, performances or engagements achieved the biggest impact – focus on these types of activity for greater impact.

3. Strengthens your applications for funding

You are likely to need some information to pass to funders and grant-givers, both pre and post application.

    During the application process:

• Evidence of the impact your group already has within the community.
• Shows how your group could deliver additional impact with funding support.

    Post application process

• Proves your group has met the funder’s objectives.
• Future funding applications that can be backed up with proof of past success.

4. Proves that what you do is worthwhile

Music-making doesn’t happen by itself, it involves a huge amount of effort from organisers, the committee, your MD and not least the regular members who turn up week after week.

• Being able to show what all this effort achieves will make it feel worthwhile for everyone who is involved.
• Highlighting this helps attract new members and audiences

How do we measure impact?

Firstly, check what your funders actually need from you. It may be information you already have, for example how many people in your regular music-making group, or how many people were in the audience at your concert that they sponsored. Alternatively, it could be information - such as the impact on the community, including quantifiable outcomes/targets. It is also worth checking if the funders can help you to evaluate your project once it is complete.

Impact on your membership

You may already collect basic information about membership numbers and track how this changes over time? Growing numbers shows a thriving music group that is attracting new members. Being able to describe some characteristics of your membership is helpful too, especially if the funding relates to specific groups e.g. young, disadvantaged, older etc
Beyond these basic metrics, a fuller picture of impact can be presented by asking your membership about how it makes them feel to be part of the group and what difference it makes to their lives.

But why do this? Isn’t it subjective and a bit intrusive? In recent years there has been a burgeoning field of research into wellbeing - for example The What Works Centre for Wellbeing - and many more connections are being made to the positive wellbeing effects that music has on both performers and audiences. At the same time researchers have found ways to capture wellbeing impacts so that they can be measured and assessed in different situations.  

Here are some ideas that might help you gather information about the impact your group has on its members.

• Keep it simple.
• Ask members 2 or 3 questions about what music making means and the difference it makes to their lives.
• Collect this information over time rather than on a one-off basis.
• Consider three questions you could ask when annual subscriptions are due.
• Use a mix of collection methods, paper-based handed out at a rehearsal or your AGM - and free online survey tools.
• Anonymity helps generate honest data.
• Explain what the responses will be used for, and that they are treated in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulations.  
• Help and advice on what questions to ask is available from the What Works Centre for Wellbeing’s new guidance on measuring wellbeing.

As we have mentioned earlier, this data can also help you pinpoint the activities that make the biggest positive difference to your members, and could help attract new members.

Impact on your audiences?

You may already collect the basics, such as the size of your audience at concerts and the number of performances each year. If you are able to collect additional detail about the diverse range of people that attend your concerts, that’s also useful information. Do you attract families, children, older people or perhaps audience members attending for the first time?
Collecting this data over the space of a year will give you a fuller, more accurate and more insightful measure of impact.
Here are some basic ways you might think about collecting additional data.

• Ask for feedback from the audience if you can.  Feedback can be simple quotes, or you might have boxes post performance, where people post anonymous questionnaires.
• If you sell tickets online, follow-up with an email link to a short survey, to ask about their experiences of the concert.  
• Case studies can be a very useful approach - particularly from people you have attracted to the concert for the first time.  If they are happy to explain why they came, what they thought, even better if they are able to articulate what impact your group’s activities made to them personally.
• Collecting data little and often is the key to measuring your impact - so think how you can do this efficiently and effectively over a long period of time.
• You may wish to ask a member to volunteer to collect, analyse and safeguard this information?

With any requests to members of the public do remember to say why you are collecting the information.

The impact on your community?

You may receive funding from a Trust or Local Authority for an event that involves collaboration with several organisations. For example for a local music festival or commemorative concert, you may have had to liaise with venue organisers, possibly built new relationships, or had joint committee meetings.

Similarly if you have performed jointly with other music or arts groups, or worked with a charity, school or voluntary organisation. This will have involved learning about them, forming new partnerships and holding regular meetings and conversations. These aspects shouldn’t be underestimated because you’ve broadened your reach in the community, forged new relationships, made new links, helped other community groups and all of this may well lead to further activities in future.  

What’s more the members of your music group might now feel a greater sense of belonging to the community as a result of participating, and that’s worth capturing as a positive impact too. 

The funders will be keen to hear how the community at large have benefitted so it’s worth thinking how to provide some convincing evidence.

Again, you could start with the basics.

• Simply collecting some data on the numbers of performers involved, and on audience sizes, especially if these were larger than normal and attracted people who would not otherwise be listening to your music.  
• Beyond this, record information about the venue, possibly you have performed in a venue that takes you to a different location or part of the community?
• Rather than seeing this as a big data collection exercise at the end of your project/concert try to record the information as you go along e.g.
  • document the people and organisations you have worked with as you go along.
  • get feedback on what people felt about the collaborative effort and how it has affected them – you can do that in the course of a meeting or conversation.  

There is a more sophisticated level of evidence collection around community wellbeing and social capital  (see the What Works Centre for Wellbeing guide)  and it might be a tall order collecting and collating this type of evidence. Nonetheless, it’s worth understanding how you group impacts on community wellbeing and generates social capital. At the very least, a description of how you think you’ve made an impact in these areas is a very good start.

So…

Next time you are asked what difference your music-making has made, with a few simple steps you’ll be ready with a good convincing story to tell about the amazing impact music can have on people’s lives and the communities we live in!

We hope you find this Making Music resource useful. If you have any comments or suggestions about the guidance please contact us. Whilst every effort is made to ensure that the content of this guidance is accurate and up to date, Making Music do not warrant, nor accept any liability or responsibility for the completeness or accuracy of the content, or for any loss which may arise from reliance on the information contained in it.