20th August 2026
ENGAGE: a new way to understand arts participation
ENGAGE: a new way to understand arts participation
What do you know about the participants in your workshops or classes?
Want to know what effect your programme of activity has on wellbeing, social cohesion or place-making? Do you have the right data for impressing funders or future investors? We can help! Our new survey Engage does all of that and more. Read on to find out more…
Another survey?!
Yes! But wait, this one isn’t about audiences, it’s about participants. Participants that actively engage in the arts – via classes, workshops or courses. Which is why we’ve called it Engage.
Identifying motivations and outcomes
How is Engage different to IMPACT? In some ways, it isn’t. We still ask for demographics like age and gender etc to find out who exactly is taking part. But we also ask new questions about motivations and outcomes: why are people choosing to engage in arts activities and what are they getting out of it? It covers some social impacts too, such as place-making, wellbeing and social cohesion.
“We already have evaluation forms”
Lots of organisations already do evaluation surveys. Some ask for a rating on the tutor or facilitator. Some ask about skills learned. Some ask about the cleanliness of the loos. None are the same and that’s the problem. We cannot compare like with like unless everyone uses the same system.
Evaluation is not the same as research
Evaluation is about understanding the efficacy of an existing thing. Research is broader and asks questions to create new knowledge and deepen understanding. Engage is research and its purpose is to create sectoral level understanding of who is engaging in the arts, why and what effect it has.
Developed in consultation with the sector
How do we know the right questions to ask? Well, we do know a bit about research… but we also consulted with experts in delivering arts activities – arts organisations! And we ran a pilot, too. In other words, Engage has been developed in consultation with the sector – and a big thank you to everyone who helped.
Engage is not for everyone
It is not suitable for children and young people under the age of 16 because surveying minors requires asking age-appropriate questions. Engage is also not suitable for comprehensively researching ‘participatory practise’ (where participants create or co-create work as part of a socially-engaged initiative) as this requires different research methods to investigate the different aims and outcomes.
Starting this September
Engage is being rolled out from September 2026. If you work for an organisation that runs arts activities such as classes, courses or workshops for adults and would like to take part in this new programme of research or find out more, please get in touch with Verity@wewillthrive.co.uk
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