Appendix 1: Methodology

Leeway and Dragonfly Partners worked together to design the impact assessment process as an action research project so that Leeway staff and board members had opportunities to reflect and learn throughout the process. The process was led by the Leeway board, specifically the impact assessment working group made up of Germaine Ingram, Carolyn Chernoff and Eli VandenBerg. The working group, along with the executive director, crafted the vision for the impact assessment process. The original goal was to produce an impact assessment report with accompanying video and a graphic illustration of Leeway’s art and social change grantmaking model.

The first step was to develop the graphic illustration of Leeway’s art and social change grantmaking model. Dragonfly worked with the Leeway staff and board over multiple discussion and design sessions through the fall of 2018 to develop the grantmaking model. These sessions helped us identify the overall elements of Leeway’s approach and the broader set of questions we wanted to explore in the data collection for the impact assessment report. It also showed us that the grantmaking model would be better illustrated by a video animation rather than a static diagram. Finally, it became apparent that we should also produce a third video outlining the unusual history of Leeway, because that history is a key factor in why Leeway is able to have the impact it does.

In terms of data collection for the impact assessment report, Dragonfly designed a ripple effect exercise for community members to contribute to at a Leeway community meeting held in December 2018. This meeting was one of a series of events done in honor of, and in conjunction with, the foundation’s 25th anniversary. At the meeting, 22 people participated and answered the following questions: What are two ways Leeway has had a positive effect on you, and what are you doing differently because of how Leeway affected you? The exercise was facilitated by Dragonfly and Leeway staff. Of the 22 people, six were grantees, 13 were local partners, and three were community members who were neither grantees nor local partners.

In February, March and April of 2019, Dragonfly carried out 35 semi-structured interviews by phone: 15 with grantees, six with panelists and panel facilitators (one of whom was also a grantee), six with local partners and seven with national partners, and one with a student at Moore College of Art & Design. Interviewees were asked about the impact of Leeway grants on artists and cultural producers in the wider Philadelphia area; if they thought Leeway’s strategies to build community with artists and cultural producers had been successful; if the ecosystem of social change artists in the Philadelphia area had become stronger and more sustainable because of Leeway’s work; and if they thought Leeway had had an impact on local partners, on national partners and wider conversations about art and social change.

Bonfire Media was asked by Leeway in February 2019 to begin the production of the grantmaking animation, the history video and the impact video that would accompany the

report. In March and April of 2019, they filmed interviews with the Alter family members who had set up and originally led the foundation, and with Denise Brown, Leeway’s executive director, and Amadee Braxton, chair of the Leeway board. They also filmed interviews with five grantees (Muthi Reed, Nehad Khader, Vashti DuBois, Ezra Berkley Nepon [who later joined the Leeway board] and Debora Kodish) and with one national partner, Elizabeth MéndezBerry, Director of Voice, Creativity and Culture at the Nathan Cummings Foundation.

At the end of March 2019, Dragonfly facilitated a reflection session with Leeway staff and board members to look at the initial findings from the interviews. The board and staff engaged in a deep interrogation of these findings and began to draw out what they thought were the key themes. In April, May and June of 2019, Dragonfly, Bonfire and Leeway worked together to confirm the key findings from the impact assessment process, informed by the March conversation with the board and staff, and to produce a report and videos that would illustrate those fully. In July through September 2019, board and staff members provided detailed feedback on the draft impact assessment report and the videos. Final versions of each were completed in October 2019.