article thumbnail

An Evolution of Evaluation in Grantmaking With a Participatory Lens

sgEngage

And, the focus of MEL is generally on evaluating grantee projects or organizations, rather than on the grantmaker and its practices. A Shared and Flexible Understanding of Impact As practitioners of and advocates for participatory philanthropy, we believe there’s a better way. It promotes mutuality instead of extraction.

article thumbnail

Grantmaking: What’s Participation Got to Do with It?

sgEngage

Lots of grantmakers are intrigued by participatory grantmaking. Participatory grantmaking invites to decision-making tables people who have historically been excluded. Why Would a Grantmaker Choose a Participatory Grantmaking Approach? So, what does participatory grantmaking look like in practice? Those at the top decide.

professionals

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Adventures in Evaluating Participatory Exhibits: An In-Depth Look at the Memory Jar Project

Museum 2.0

Two years ago, we mounted one of our most successful participatory exhibits ever at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History: Memory Jars. Better yet, the graduate student who led this project, Anna Greco, documented the whole project and did in-depth analysis of the visitor contributions. What was it?

article thumbnail

The community approach to problem solving

Candid

Participatory grantmaking [i] is no longer new. To be clear, participatory grantmaking has never been new. One of the first projects I was assigned to after joining Candid (then Foundation Center) was the guide on participatory grantmaking, now a seminal work in the growing body of literature on participatory grantmaking.

Problem 119
article thumbnail

What I Learned from Beck (the rock star) about Participatory Arts

Museum 2.0

There are many artistic projects that offer a template for participation, whether a printed play, an orchestral score, or a visual artwork that involves an instructional set (from community murals to Sol LeWitt). One of the things I always focus on in participatory exhibit design is ensuring that everyone has the same tools to work with.

article thumbnail

The Johnny Cash Project: A Participatory Music Video That Sings

Museum 2.0

This question is a byproduct of the reality that most participatory projects have poorly articulated value. When a participatory activity is designed without a goal in mind, you end up with a bunch of undervalued stuff and nowhere to put it. The project is designed to scale. What's the "use" of visitors' comments?

article thumbnail

Great Participatory Processes are Open, Discoverable, and Unequal

Museum 2.0

He casts the whole idea of a great jazz jam in the context of the tragedy of the commons--like a poetry open mic, the jazz club is a community whose experience is fabulous or awful depending on the extent to the culture cultivates and enforces a healthy participatory process. participatory museum Unusual Projects and Influences inclusion'