In partnership with policymakers and arts funders, we strive to understand and document the value of arts and culture to communities. RMC has helped communities evaluate their cultural vitality and has worked closely with arts and cultural funders across the country to measure the impact of their work, seed ideas for new ventures, and maximize the effective use of their resources, whether they are supporting individual artists, arts organizations, or local communities. Projects include:

Cultural Data for Planning and Economic Development Professionals
With funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, RMC conducted an inquiry into the perspectives of planning and economic development professionals on the utility of different types of arts and cultural data. RMC created a typology of arts and culture data and tested it through focused discussions and interviews. Through this process we learned about ways that cultural data might be collected and presented more effectively. One outcome of this work is the monograph Communicating Value: Re-framing Arts and Culture Data.

Heritage Preservation Project
The nation’s first comprehensive inventory of our material heritage, the Heritage Preservation Project contracted with RMC to survey more than 3,300 museums, libraries, historical societies, scientific organizations, and archives to gather data on the extent and condition of collections in the country today. The resulting report, which found the collections (books and literary ephemera, sound recordings, moving images, photographs, art objects, historic and ethnographic objects, archaeological artifacts, and scientific specimens) in serious disrepair, was widely carried by national media.  

Evaluation of a Teacher Institute on Kinetic Sculpture
The DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Massachusetts commissioned RMC to conduct a local evaluation of its Summer Teacher Institute on “Kinetic Sculpture and the Art of Wind Dynamics.” The evaluation looked at how well the program helped teachers develop curricula based on anchor art works, specifically on kinetic sculpture, and explored the value to teachers and students of interdisciplinary approaches to learning. RMC’s work was part of a national evaluation program sponsored by the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Evaluation of a Teacher Institute on Exploring Persian Culture
The Arts Alliance, a nonprofit organization that supports culture and the arts in northern New Hampshire, contracted with RMC to conduct a local evaluation of a Teacher Institute on the arts. Funded by the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the five-day Institute, “Exploring Persian Culture through the Book of Kings,” drew 24 educators and artists from five New England states. Combining the study of teaching techniques and curriculum design with hands-on activities, participants created their own books in the style of the 16th century Persian classic. RMC’s evaluation was based on NEA criteria for extending teaching and learning opportunities through the interdisciplinary study of an anchor work of art.

Creative Practice in the 21st Century
With other partners, RMC conducted a feasibility study to identify options for funding new voices, new works, and new collaborations in the performing and media arts. The Ford and Rockefeller Foundations supported the work, which included convening meetings of producers and artists and overseeing a series of interviews with both emerging and established artists, conducted by working artists. RMC designed and managed all aspects of the project and synthesized the findings into a descriptive summary and recommendations.

Policy Partners: Making the Case for State Investments in Culture
In 2001, at the behest of the Pew Charitable Trusts, RMC designed a study, gathered information, convened meetings, and prepared a final report on how arts and cultural groups could work with each other and government agencies to increase public investments in culture and the arts. Partnering with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, and other national organizations, RMC produced a hands-on guide for state-level organizations to communicating the public benefits of culture and the arts, exploring revenue sources, and creating alliances that integrate the arts into public policy agendas.
Download Policy Partners: Making the Case for State Investments in Culture or the executive summary.  
Visit the Innovations in State Cultural Policy website

Very Special Arts: Making Education Accessible to Students with Special Needs
Very Special Arts (VSA), a Congressionally designated organization that coordinates arts programming for people with disabilities, contracted with RMC to research promising practices in using the arts to help students with special needs meet their learning goals. Working with the three models proposed by the VSA—a whole school arts environment, a teaching artist model, and a professional development model for arts integration, RMC collected data at three sites, each representing one model. Intended to “set the stage” for further study.
Read the VSA report, Using the Arts to Help Special Education Students Meet Their Learning Goals.

Retrospective Reviews of Grant-making in the Arts
Several foundations have commissioned RMC over time to capture information about the effects of grantmaking in the arts. RMC has conducted retrospective reviews for the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Wallace Foundation, the Knight Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation—the latter focused on the Artists Project Regional Initiative.  The Warhol Foundation was interested in a systematic review to aid in redefining their grant-making program. The Rockefeller Foundation and the Warhol Foundation jointly supported a review of a joint program (along with the National Endowment for the Arts) of ten years of grants to regional arts organizations to support individual artists. In all cases,  RMC designed and conducted surveys of grantees and led numerous discussions with both small groups and individuals to report on grantmaking successes, challenges, and opportunities. In addition to influencing the shape of grantmaking programs at the foundations, the reports have been used by groups developing funding for individual artists.