ABSTRACT
Cultural institutions’ and cultural activities’ social legitimacy is frequently called into question. Two positions are observed, either a consideration of any activity being effective in reaching its audience and being even beneficial by its mere existence, or a critique of being a superficial and overly elitist activity that lacks accountability for the value for money that it creates for society. In the middle of them, the first attempts to prove the societal value of arts and culture have tried to apply an economic cost–benefit analysis as the legitimation of publicly funded cultural institutions. Both extremes are driven more by activist positions due to the lack of evidence-based strategic planning and management, and the focus on economic impact is not always perfectly aligned with the mission and aims of cultural institutions.
This chapter calls for a reformulation of impact measurement into a managerial process that will contribute to the achievement of the cultural organization’s aims in a collaborative way by building partnerships with stakeholders. Through the adoption of an impact-oriented strategy, cultural institutions could easily consider not only their narrow economic impact, in terms of the monetary estimation of its contribution to jobs, income and tax revenue, but also their impact in terms of societal dimensions, many of which are supposedly to be much more linked to its aims and mission as cultural organizations and to the intrinsic values of cultural assets and programs.
