We want to learn which of our programs bring the participants the most sense of belonging and empowerment.

The Kennedy Center's Social Impact programs continue to be grounded in the framework of the five pillars. Artist Empowerment, Community Empowerment, Cultural Leadership, Impact Performance, and REACH Activation. The Kennedy Center has three overarching outcomes for the Social Impact initiative—solidarity with artists and cultural leaders, expansion and deepening of community relationships, and programmatic shifts.

Challenges

The Kennedy Center runs 14 diverse programs and faces significant challenges in understanding the social impact of each initiative. Initiated data collection efforts encompass inputs from four distinct stakeholder groups. Yet, the center encounters substantial hurdles in the data's aggregation, purification, and subsequent analysis—a process marked by its time-consuming and laborious nature. While the research team evaluates, program leaders need more granular, actionable insights to drive their decision-making processes.

Solution

Sopact Sense (Data Strategy and quick insight): The Kennedy Center first brought all the historical data on the Sopact Impact Cloud to analyze and visualize them to learn the gaps. After identifying some data gaps, the team made necessary changes in the future data collection strategy. All the surveys will now have updated questions and qualitative analytical capacity. The team is also working on a larger strategy to have a program evaluation framework to make data-driven decisions for future programs.

Sopact Survey (Data Collection): Using the Sopact survey now, The Kennedy Center continuously collects stakeholder data. All the data is coming in seamlessly, and open feedbacks are categorized for program leaders to learn from alongside all the quantitative data.

Impact Cloud (Dashboard): Ready to share the dynamic dashboard with all the insights with board members and internal staff.

Value

1. Using the insight in the board meeting presentations.
2. Attract more prospective funders using transparent impact data insights.
3. Bringing data insight to their partner organizations.
4. Opportunity to update programs using data such as which program is meeting impact goals and how to improve them to get the most out of them.
5. Data for the coaching experience help improve delivery methods and material.
6. Prevent drop-off and increase retention of the audience as well as artists, staff, and community leaders.
7. Growing by attracting more and more artists and audiences to participate in the programs.
8. The Kennedy Center can be a valuable contributor to promoting social change.