Many Creative and Cultural organisations are in a position where they have to claim societal relevance, impact or demonstrate with measures how the things that they do make a difference. However, impact can be intimidating, hard to grasp and more often than not filled with political or funding-related expectations.

The Data Conversations project has taken on the task, investigating the most challenging aspects of impact thinking. To this end, we started with an open survey to the actors of the cultural and creative sector, who revealed several relevant points.

Results of the Data Conversations journey

After the first release of the 10 learnings from the impact survey, we want to present a deep insight of the results.

The Universities of Florence and Malmö conducted a survey on the state of the art of impact assessment within the European cultural and creative sector. Specifically, they conducted 20 interviews with European cultural and creative organisations and collected another 64 responses through a questionnaire.

The results of this survey, which also included a mapping activity of 29 existing impact assessment tools, reveal a multifaceted and dynamic panorama regarding "impact."

Let's look at some key findings together.

1. Is there one true definition of impact?

There is no single dominant definition of impact. When asked, “What impact means in the work of CCIs” a scenario emerged that covers different areas, ranging from accountability to social change:

The primary definition is the “planned, purposeful and positive change” that an organisation effects (37 out of 64 responses).
This is supplemented by the necessity to "understanding the economic, social, cultural change" generated by the organisation (35 responses)
Another key dimension is the idea of "changing the minds of people with new ideas" (30 responses), which underlines the cognitive and inspirational dimension of cultural activity.

2. Are CCIs leveraging their impact assessment to its full potential?

The survey revealed ample room for improvement regarding the conscious use of impact as a tool for internal enhancement:

Almost 80% of the organisations surveyed are aware that impact analysis is necessary to provide a better service, activity, or content.
The percentage of organisations that acknowledge they "should work more with impact analysis but are not doing it at the moment" stands at 60%.
The percentage of organisations that actively use impact as a tool to guide internal development reaches just over 43%.

These figures indicate that, despite strong awareness of the analysis' importance, its systematic implementation as an internal development tool remains limited, creating a significant scope for empowerment action from a project like Data Conversations.

3. Are CCIs speaking to citizens, or just to their funders?

The other side of the coin is represented by impact as a tool for external communication. The three targets identified in the survey (funders, government authorities, and the public) hold equal weight for the organisations interviewed. In fact, the responses are quite aligned, and there is no reference target that is considerably more relevant than the others.

However, when explicitly answering the question, "Who are you reporting your impact?", the responses indicate a clear priority towards government bodies. The focus is concentrated on institutional or managerial targets that require accountability for sustainability or planning. Meanwhile, the general public is the least covered area among the relevant external targets, suggesting a gap between the perceived importance of having a social impact and the actual practice of communicating it directly to citizens.

4. Is audience loyalty the singular golden indicator for non-monetary value?

More than 80% of respondents agree that the impact measures for cultural and creative organisations must also be non-monetary, and there is a clear desire within organisations to move beyond solely financial indicators.

The importance of balanced budgets is not ignored, but the participants expressed an overwhelming conviction regarding the need to demonstrate non-monetary value. Nevertheless, there is a debate internal to CCIs about which non-monetary measures are the most appropriate, with audience loyalty (returning visitors) being considered a key measure by many, though not the only sufficient one.

While a single impact-indicator might be desirable for its simplicity, it is also clear that organisations value diversity of measures and measuring approaches as there is an agreement that no singular “golden indicator” exists that captures the diversity and richness of the impact that cultural and creative industries can have.

5. What are the challenges holding CCIs back from effective data use?

Organisations also identified the main obstacles to impact analysis, which stem from a combination of time/priority and resource constraints (financial and expertise).

At the same time, there is a lack of clarity regarding what audience data organisations actually possess. Simply having the data is not always enough: organisations that report having data may still lack the necessary tools, capacity, or confidence to effectively analyse and interpret it for audience understanding.

Conclusions

These findings are precious for the project development, since they ensure that the services offered by the project will be as useful and relevant as possible.

We will continue our data conversation with professionals of CCIs in the next project steps - an art and research residency is about to launch - and seek the best possible solution for our Data Conversations tool.

Stay tuned!

Article authors: Marzia Cerrai, Elena Coli, Danae Kaplanidi and Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt.

17 Mar 2026

Impact survey results

Results of the Data Conversations journey

Conclusions

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