National Story Venues Cohort
We partnered with a national cohort of nine storytelling venues working with their local communities to help them understand, articulate, and strengthen their impact.
SECTOR
Creative and Cultural
WHAT WE DID
Framing the Work
Outcomes and success criteria developed with all nine venues at the start, so the evaluation reflected what the cohort actually set out to achieve rather than an externally imposed framework.
Research designed to capture both individual venue impact and what cohort working itself added, the value of nine organisations in relationship, not just nine separate impact stories.
Learning and Evidence
Site visits, in-depth interviews and reflective conversations with all nine venues to track individual progress and the shared learning that came from working together.
Cross-cohort analysis identified shared patterns and meaningful differences across nine places, organisations and communities.
Sense Making and Legacy
Cohort learning report that gave nine independent organisations a common language for their collective value, directly informing a shared advocacy document used to make the case for storytelling venues to government and funders
Evidence base built to travel: findings structured to support individual funding conversations and collective policy influence, including alignment with the Curriculum Review and National Youth Strategy.
Our impact
The cohort used the shared language and evidence base from our research to present their collective impact at an international conference on storytelling and creative spaces, and to develop a joint bid to Arts Council England for the National Year of Reading, moving from nine organisations working in parallel to a cohort with a common voice and a joint programme agenda.
Rob Smith
Director
Ministry of Stories
“Culture Change Works delivered an outstanding piece of work for the National Story Venues Cohort, bringing real depth, rigour and added value throughout the process. Their expertise and breadth of skills, combined with thoughtful, sensitive facilitation and clear strategic vision, helped us make sense of complex work across the cohort and move forward with confidence. They were a genuinely trusted partner, supporting shared learning while strengthening our collective ability to articulate value, impact and future direction.”