Community Possibilities
Community Possibilities
Prove It! Without Killing Your Creative Soul: Meet Kelly Feltault and Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld
The tension between creative expression and rigid reporting requirements creates a disconnect that undermines both funders and grantees. What if there's a better way forward?
Kelly Feltault and Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld join us to unpack how traditional accountability frameworks often miss the mark when applied to arts organizations. Drawing from their work with Creative Forces—an innovative collaboration between the National Endowment for the Arts, Department of Defense, and VA—they share how military veterans and their families experienced profound transformation through arts programming, yet organizations struggled to "prove" these outcomes to health-focused funders.
The problem isn't a lack of impact. Arts organizations witness life-changing outcomes daily—increased resilience, social connection, identity formation, and emotional well-being. The challenge lies in translation. When funders expect clinical-style measurement from community-based organizations without providing capacity-building support, they create what Kelly calls an "unfunded mandate" that burdens nonprofits and obscures their true value.
Their solution begins with honoring what organizations already know. Rather than imposing external frameworks, Kelly and Hannah help nonprofits articulate their outcomes in language funders recognize. This process of translation empowered Creative Forces organizations to secure new funding partnerships and influence systems change in ways they hadn't previously imagined.
For nonprofit leaders struggling with resource constraints, evaluation can become a strategic tool rather than just another burden. As Hannah reflects from her executive director experience: "Although this process takes time and intention, it ended up taking something off their plate instead of adding something on" by providing clarity amid the daily "paradox of choice."
Whether you're a funder seeking to support innovation or a nonprofit trying to communicate your impact, this conversation offers practical wisdom for building trust-based relationships that honor both accountability and creativity. As Kelly reminds us, "Evaluation is really just about being curious and strategic and brave—not about becoming a statistician."
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Music by Zach Price: Zachpricet@gmail.com
Welcome to Community Possibilities, the podcast that explores innovative ways community leaders, nonprofit professionals and funders can collaborate to amplify impact and build stronger, more resilient communities. I'm your host, anne Price, and today we're diving into a topic that's been on my mind for a while why funders need to rethink the way they frame accountability for their grantees, especially when it comes to arts-based organizations. Whether you work in the art world, lead a community-based nonprofit or manage a foundation, you've likely felt the tension between the rigorous reporting requirements and creative process that makes the arts and many grassroots initiatives so powerful. What gets lost in translation when we reduce creativity to numbers on a spreadsheet, and how can we bridge that gap so that funders honor the very innovation they seek to support? Today, kelly Fatteau and Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld join me, and over the next few minutes we're going to explore how traditional accountability frameworks can inadvertently stifle creativity and what we risk when we overlook the less tangible benefits of arts-based work. Practical steps funders and nonprofits can take to co-create reporting approaches that capture nuance, foster trust and celebrate learning. In a world where everyone is stretched thin, how can organizations build a culture of inquiry without adding another item to the to-do list? We'll share steps for getting started, no stress required. The to-do list We'll share steps for getting started, no stress required. Finally, we'll discuss how to center community voices when gathering information and sharing your organization's story, so that data doesn't just reflect what funders want to see, but what communities truly value. To help unpack these questions, I'm thrilled to welcome two folks who live and breathe participatory learning and creative evaluation.
Ann Price:Kelly is principal and executive director of Cultural Cross, federal agencies, higher education, nonprofits and professional association. Kelly brings a uniquely holistic perspective oh yeah, and she's an artist in her own right. Own right. She's experienced guiding teams through participatory inquiry, data-driven decision-making and continuous improvement, always grounded in building trust and honoring local knowledge. Our second guest is Kelly's collaborator, hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld.
Ann Price:Hannah specializes in strategic planning, fundraising, project and program management and meeting facilitation for a diverse array of community-based organizations. A Yale graduate with a BA in art history, she helps nonprofit craft compelling narratives and board consulting strategies that reflect both their mission and the communities they serve. That reflect both their mission and the communities they serve. Together, kelly and Hannah will share real-world stories of organizations that led them to develop a framework they're using to build evaluation capacity, ignite learning cultures and find new ways to respect and reflect community wisdom, all while satisfying funders' needs for rigor and transparency. So if you've ever felt frustrated by reporting templates that don't fit your work, or if you're a funder seeking support for innovation rather than boxing it in, you're in the right place. Hi everybody, welcome back to Community Possibilities. I am so excited to have Kelly Fatteau with me, with Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld hey, kelly, and Hannah. Hello, hey Anne. Hey. So, kelly, you and I met in the Zoom world first, I think right.
Ann Price:We did Right. So Kelly and I are both evaluators. I'm a community psychologist and an evaluator. Kelly, you have a different background, and then you brought Hannah Blumenfeld into my world and you guys work together all the time. So I'm excited to talk to you today. But first, why don't we just jump right in with you guys giving an introduction, so that our audience can know who you are? So, kelly, do you want to start?
Kelly Feltault :an introduction so that our audience can know who you are. So, kelly, do you want to start? Yeah, sure, I mean. My winding path starts as a visual artist. I have a BFA in painting and printmaking, and then in my 20s I spent a couple of years living and traveling overseas, particularly in Turkey and Hungary, during times of enormous change in Eastern Europe, and that experience really shaped me and sparked my deep interest in how communities create change when systems change around them, and whether that's on their own terms or how they respond when change is sort of thrust upon them. And that curiosity led me to a PhD in applied anthropology and eventually, a career in evaluation.
Ann Price:I love that and I love anthropology. If I discovered anthropology before I discovered psychology, I might be an anthropologist.
Kelly Feltault :We would welcome you, ma'am.
Ann Price:Thank you, and I love the idea of travel. I love what you're saying about being in those countries when some stress and strain systems change was going on. How did you meet our friend Hannah here?
Kelly Feltault :Well, that was sort of, I would say, the best luck I've ever had in my life, nice. I'm going to let Hannah sort of introduce herself first, and then we can talk about how we met, because we met through a project and she was already on the project when I was brought in. So, hannah, Thanks Kelly.
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :Um, hannah, thanks Kelly. Well, I will say I feel really similarly and it's so. It's so funny how paths sort of come together in ways that just work. It makes me, it really makes me think about art and artists in general and how, when we work with creative people, when we work in creative fields, things happen, they fall into place, but it's not by accident, it's because creative people, when we work in creative fields, things happen, they fall into place, but it's not by accident, it's because creative people think about solutions creatively together and they link up and we're about community. And that's where I see my background really coming together, even though it is also sort of a winding path.
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :I started in childhood with theater and singing and I've just always done that. That's always been a part of my life, but I never thought it would be my career. I also grew up in Ann Arbor, michigan. I was going to the art fair from the time I was really little, working at the information booth and, again, not something I thought of as a career, just something I love to do. Then, when I got to college, I became an art history major.
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :Despite not understanding that language of art history, I will never forget my first few weeks of art history. I just I didn't get it. I didn't know why. Why are we not just using words? Why are we not just doing history? Why add art to it and this whole other language?
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :And I had a TA who asked me to stay after class. She took me to the museum and she just had me stand in front of a painting and she said what do you see? And I started talking about what I thought it meant and what I thought the artist was doing and she said just stop, what do you see? And it totally changed my perspective. It completely changed how I saw art and how I understood this language, this language of visual, formal quality that I was seeing in front of me, quality that I was seeing in front of me.
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :And I think that this really connects back to how Kelly and I worked together, because a lot of what we talk about is this inner knowing that we actually know a lot about things that seem really far from our level of understanding. But a lot of it is about a translation process. A lot of it is about understanding that there are different languages for different fields or different spaces, but that there's an inner knowing that we all have, especially around the arts that we can really tap into, and so that was a really powerful moment for me. And then, when I graduated, I thought I was going to go on and get a PhD in art history and work in museums, and that was not my path. I ended up being told by a professor that I wasn't academic enough for that, which was oh my goodness, Hannah, that's terrible.
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :Quite a thing to hear as a 21-year-old and a Yale-y and I had considered myself pretty academic up to that point in my life but what was interesting about that is that it really forced me to go back to those early experiences that I mentioned Art fair and theater and these spaces that were really about community access and people being able to access the arts without any gatekeeping. And so that's how I entered the nonprofit art space and I've been in that space ever since and I feel very grateful that the winds sort of pushed me and professors pushed me rather assertively into that path. But I'm happy to pause there or jump right into how I met Kelly, which is coming right off of that.
Ann Price:Oh well, yes, I do want to talk about the project that brought the two of you together, but a couple of random thoughts. One that's terrible, Hannah, that somebody would say that, If it makes you feel any better, I once had a professor tell me that there was no way I was ever going to get into a PhD program I had the same thing.
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :And look at you now. Thank you, yeah, yeah, why?
Ann Price:Yeah, yeah. Why do? Why? Why do we do this to people? Hannah, did you ever go to school, or did you? Did you go down that path, or so you just didn't?
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :or I didn't. I didn't. I graduated with my BA in art history and I started working in community arts and I fell in love with it and I still work in that field and I feel like I've gotten this amazing experience through that. But also it's been such a joy and such a learning for me to have the opportunity to work with Kelly, to work with Kelly, and I think that as a result of our different backgrounds and different paths, we bring really distinct pieces of this puzzle together in a way that that you know what? I'm glad I don't have a PhD, because otherwise, otherwise, how how could we possibly fit together so well? I don't know. So it was meant to be.
Ann Price:Yeah, well, well, very good, but yeah, I think, especially as women, we should be helping each other find the path that we were meant to be on not telling people what to do, but I'm glad that you landed where you are happy.
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :That's awesome Well thank you for saying that and you know, as I think about becoming a mom in the last two years I have a toddler and it was not an easy process for me and thinking about the kinds of things that women are holding whether they're moms or not, but the way that we have to enter all kinds of situations in work and in life, I've never thought more about how much women hold than in the last few years in this chapter of life. So I completely agree with you and really honor any path that women are forging, because it is not easy.
Ann Price:No, no, it is not, and I got to tell you folks who are listening. You can't see the screen, but I can, and I was watching Kelly look at you with such love and admiration, so it was really sweet. It was really sweet. So let's talk about how you guys came to work together. I love that you have an art background. Another fun rabbit hole Did I tell you guys that I have siblings that are artists Lots of them. I don't feel like I got the G. Yeah, my sister has an MFA. My other sister has a bachelor in arts and then got an MBA. They're both very talented weavers, painters, all the things. My brother is a potter. I always say I didn't get that G. I can cook, I can feed people, but, oh my gosh, I crochet badly. That's about all I can do. So tell me how, how, uh the how you two came together and what project that you started working on together.
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :Absolutely Well. This project was called Creative Forces. It's a National Endowment, Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs project which just what, what, what, what Right?
Kelly Feltault :How to get a scratch Right. Miracles do happen, yeah, so the NEA and the DOD and the VA came together and created this amazing project called Creative Forces that linked clinical art therapy with community-based therapeutic arts for communities, for veterans communities yeah, so it was amazing.
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :It really was such an incredible project really linking together this idea that military-connected populations are diverse, they are widely varied, and geographic locations matter and place-based work matters when we're talking about any population, but particularly when you're talking about differences in age, demographics and other kinds of demographics women all kinds of conversations were happening about how do we support all of these people children, spouses, veterans, active duty, national Guard and again this vocabulary really expanded how I was thinking about how we work in the arts and how we work across sectors, and I was the community engagement manager, so it was really my role to think about how we connect the community based work with these folks who were leaving clinical art therapies and connecting them within the community to arts experiences that would continue to help them to build their art muscles, to engage with this piece of themselves that many of them had found to be really, really valuable when they were coming back, when they were transitioning back either to civilian life or are partnered or are in some way involved in that community, and so a lot of what I was doing was building relationships both within communities and locations, so between arts nonprofits offering these services and other nonprofits, or back with VAs or helping them to speak to the clinical folks and better understand each other's languages, better understand that, even if what they were doing was healing work, that it was not therapy work and I think that there are some real nuances in that conversation Also helping clinical folks understand that just because it's not therapeutic doesn't mean that it isn't healing.
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :And so there was a real two-way conversation that was really fascinating and really was about building a learning community, also connecting them with each other, because the 12 original sites were scattered all across the country intentionally so that we could really be building a nationwide network of folks who were doing this work. So that was an amazing opportunity to really support community. But without this other piece, without a sense of how do we, how do we prove it? It was it was really hard for them to get to that next level, and that is where Ellie came into the project, about a year after I started yeah.
Kelly Feltault :So I came on board um in 2021 and Hannah had created an amazing community of practice with all of the non nonprofits in the pilot project. So this was a pilot project with the NEA and the DOD and the VA. But in conversations with those nonprofits, what I heard repeatedly was that they were very eager to quote, prove their impact, especially to health-related partners, and to tell those stories with evidence. And they knew they had outcomes because they could see the change in their participants. Their participants would stay with them for years. In some cases they just really couldn't name those outcomes in a way that resonated with health partners or other funders. So we created a series of workshops and provided a year of coaching to work with them, to build their capacity to name and measure what mattered to them and to tell their story with evidence.
Kelly Feltault :And then Hannah and I decided well, let's assess the impact of our own efforts here and, based on those results and our work over the last two years with some other nonprofits, we've continued that work we decided to launch Outcome Studios, which will offer accessible equity-driven evaluation capacity building so that more organizations can measure what matters and really tell their story with power. So it was an amazing opportunity to work with these organizations and see the the high level of outcomes and impact that they were really having, and to watch them get very excited about translating their knowledge. They knew they had outcomes, they had their own terminology for them within their organizations, but they needed to be able to translate that to something the funders could easily recognize, and that's what we helped them do was just really a translation process right and that was. It was very empowering and impactful, not just for them but for me as well. Literally, it was the first time that my arts background and my evaluation background had come together in one space, and it was amazing.
Ann Price:Yeah, I love that, and it's interesting to me that you both use the word prove right.
Kelly Feltault :So yeah, that is their word.
Ann Price:Right, yeah, and oftentimes funders use those kinds of words prove your outcomes, prove your impact, prove that our investment was worth it. Be accountable. How do you? What kind of steps help us understand? How did you get from that to really translating what they were seeing into a way that they could communicate what they were seeing and you know, gosh, I'm using that word accountability to funders? What kind of things did you do? We're really talking about different mindsets, different language, different ways of seeing the world.
Ann Price:Right, yes, hannah, you were talking about standing in front of, you know, a piece of art. I can stand in front of a piece of art, I can tell. I actually had this experience with my older sister, who has the MFA, and we were standing in front of a piece of modern art. I'm like, yeah, I have no idea what this means. And she goes oh yeah, don't you see this is a blah blah blah mountain and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, all these things that are right. So how do you get there? How do you mesh these worlds? Because it sounds like, kelly, that was your job, right To help them do that.
Kelly Feltault :It was, yeah, to help them do that. And it's interesting, anne, because the other thing that we heard from them is, so many people discount the arts as not having any outcomes, right, yeah, but they've been observing, witnessing, watching these outcomes over, you know, years in some cases, as I said. So you know, it's interesting. You talk about accountability, and how did we do this? So the first thing we had to do was like, let's just start with what they know, which is their experience, and that's where our ways of knowing framework starts is with their experiential and artistic knowledge, right, so, their experience, and then the creative expression that happens in these classes. And so many people think that measuring the outcomes is actually measuring the art that's produced, and that's not exactly what you're measuring. You're measuring the changes in people as they make the art. The art. Yes, you can look at the skills they gained in producing. You know a watercolor or you know their performance on stage. We had a variety of artistic modalities in the program, from theater to visual arts to spoken word, to you know, you name it music. But what you're looking at is the transformation of that person in the program and it really is looking at them. What is this person, like when they join your program and they first come in, and getting them to reflect on what they know and what they've seen over time and describe that change. And once they have described that change, that's when we're able to talk to them about well, this is what an outcome is. It's change, and you've just described very beautifully somebody going from this point to confidence and resilience and being willing to try new things and having a better self-image.
Kelly Feltault :In many cases, for these veterans and their families, it was also about having to recreate an identity. After you have left the military right, or if you have a spouse or partner that has been seriously injured and is not going to be, you know your life has changed. At that point, then you have to recreate and find a new identity right, because this is not the plan you had with your spouse or partner for the rest of your life. So you know and they were the nonprofits were absolutely eloquent about describing these kinds of changes. They had included many of their uh participants on their teams Um, so it wasn't just one person from the nonprofit, it was up to five Um in some cases, one of them, we had seven, I think. Uh, right, um. So, yeah, um, and half of the team would be participants, um, so it was very collaborative, very participatory, um, there was a lot of community voice involved in it and once we got them to identify, you know what those outcomes are and then show them, okay.
Kelly Feltault :Well, what you all have actually described is social emotional learning skills. Those are measurable, right. What you have described is resiliency. That's measurable, and that was the key part of the translation. And then from there, it was building their capacity to be able to measure things, to be able to tell their story with data, to be able to go talk to a funder and focus on what is important to that funder and use your outcomes to tell that story to that funder. So you know, we started with experience and then moved through our framework after.
Kelly Feltault :Experiential knowledge and artistic knowledge is generalizable knowledge. Experiential knowledge and artistic knowledge is generalizable knowledge and that's when it gets translated into all those technical things like a logic model and a theory of change and those kinds of things, right, and you start to develop instruments and then, when we hit the practical knowledge end of our framework, it starts to move into implementing and using the data and then revising what you've done and learning again. So we really see it as evidence, more as a cyclical. I know in many cases people see it as experiential knowledge and other forms of knowledge as opposing opposites and polar opposites, and that's not what we see. We see it as a cycle.
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :Yeah, and you know, I just want to add here that this is only possible because of something that Kelly does so beautifully, which is build trust first, and you're not going to have people, people willing to dig into that deep well of experience, without first setting a base of really making them feel seen and heard. And I think that that was so powerful, kelly, what you did in that space, because I don't think that everyone is super excited to hear the words. Evaluator is coming right?
Kelly Feltault :no, they're never super excited. I think Anne would agree with me on that it's.
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :It's sort of like you know, pack up all the, all the you know the fun stuff, that able to treat it as no. Show your mess, show your everything here yes right.
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :That's a big part of it. There has to be trust, and you know there's. There are conversations we kelly and I were actually just talking about this a few days ago that the extent to which this is implemented is questionable, but certainly there are a lot of conversations right now about trust-based philanthropy and letting nonprofits decide where the funding will be best used right, instead of so much of that directional funding, and so I think that's an important conversation too, that when we talk about trust-based philanthropy, it's not just about letting nonprofits decide but also building that trust that doesn't come without relationship. There are some really important ways that we've seen how helping nonprofits and the people who are working in them can own their own expertise.
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :That was a word that was really hard for people to use. There are people who've been in this field for years and years or had lived experience that was so core to the work they are experts, and it can be very hard without that degree behind your name or without 50 years or without a big foundation behind you, to be able to own your own expertise. And I can talk from the perspective of having been a co-executive director of a small community-based arts nonprofit about the trade-offs that you're constantly making in the nonprofit space or in the community space and being able to really understand that those pieces of capacity building are really, really critical when we're talking about any of this kind of work rethink their accountability requirements to grantees in a way that allows them to support and even pay for capacity building so that organizations can learn how to do the evaluation work that, let's face it, funders are asking for and requiring but they're not supporting and not helping folks build the capacity to do this work.
Kelly Feltault :I tend to call it the unfunded mandate. You know we heard from the nonprofits, yeah, you know they always require us to tell the outcomes but you know all we can give them is a headcount because we just don't know how to do this work. You know, the grant comes with a clause that says the funding can only be used for direct services to participants and that leaves out a variety of things that could support quality programming. But that includes evaluation. So we really, you know, want to start a conversation with folks about how do we rethink what counts as evidence and how do we rethink how we trust nonprofits to determine what is going to support their programming the most, you know, in the arts and health space, small community arts organizations are often asked to measure the same outcomes as clinical or academic health researchers, and often in the same ways, right the same methods, which is completely unfeasible, unrealistic for community-based arts programs. You know we need that evaluation approach that's more practice-based and you know this is one of the ways that their experiential knowledge gets discounted.
Kelly Feltault :And you know, hannah and I repeatedly told folks you know you're the experts of your program, we're just here to help you facilitate this translation process. You know, and that, I think, was. I think that was refreshing for many of them you know us basically telling them you guys are the experts here, we're here to help you. Just tell us where you need the help the most. And it was really just, you know, helping them get unstuck in this translation, translation process and rethinking what counts as evidence, particularly in the arts and health field, which is emerging and growing and expanding. What I don't see happening is a lot of this bench to practice approach, so that we're moving out of the clinical research phase and into how can communities evaluate the programs that they're doing and build their skills to be able to do this. So yeah, we're really trying to start that conversation and move that forward.
Ann Price:Yeah, my head's going in a lot of different directions. What I heard you when you were talking a few minutes ago, kelly, was talking about listening first, right, just tell. Talking about listening first, right? Just tell us about your experience, right? It was a long time before you got to the technical logic model. And how are we going to evaluate, right, versus? I'm going to start with the logic model and here's your evaluation plan and here's your measure, right? And we're not. It's definitely not. Here's your pre-test. Here's your post-test situation.
Kelly Feltault :Oh right, oh, and you have said the nasty words. I will tell you when we first met with the pilot programs, with the nonprofits, with Creative Forces, they all were like, well, we have to do a pre-test and a post-test. And I said, do you? Understand what that entails.
Ann Price:Do you really what? Wait a minute? You mean, you don't have to do a randomized control trial?
Kelly Feltault :That was the other one, right. So I mean, this was all of the clinical methodology and language that was being pushed on them Pushed by the funders.
Ann Price:Who was was pushing this?
Kelly Feltault :Yeah, yes, yeah. Some funders it wasn't the NEA and it wasn't the DOD right, it was other. They were trying to go after other grants that were health-based right, Health-based foundations, who are used to funding clinical programs.
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :but you know it was, and I think that's just the information that's out there, right.
Kelly Feltault :The idea that, if you.
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :Google evaluation, right, because I just want to throw in that a lot of them again. They don't have necessarily the support or the guidance or the direction, so where do they go? They're going to go to. They're creative, they're scrappy, they're going to try to figure it out. Right, if you are going to go look for that scrappy, they're going to try to figure it out, right. If you are going to go look for that information, what you're going to see is a randomized control trial, a pre-test and a post-test, which is not going to help.
Ann Price:Right and measuring depression and measuring all these clinical symptoms. Right, yeah exactly.
Kelly Feltault :We said no, okay, let's just back off of that and let's talk about the creative opportunities here that evaluation can give you. If we're going to measure some of these things, and also let's listen and determine what are you actually measuring first? Yeah, exactly Right.
Ann Price:Yeah, I mean you can, just because there is a tool, that doesn't mean that tool fits that situation, and I think that's really what we're talking about. And there's so many opportunities to be creative. So we're my company is evaluating a full service community schools grants. We're in 15 rural schools in Georgia and one of the things that we did is, rather than hold a focus group with kids and this totally was from some of my team, right, they had this idea. Well, let's make it a game. Right, let's turn our survey questions into a game and the kids could roll the dice and have little pieces that look like little animals and when they landed on a certain thing, they asked a question and we recorded their answer. Right, or we can have them draw. Tell me, draw me a picture about your first day of school and tell me a story about it. There's so many opportunities when we allow open that door of creativity, and I think that's what you both are talking about is what are the many opportunities we have to quote unquote.
Ann Price:Evaluate this, whatever it is that we're doing, right, right.
Kelly Feltault :And I think too, you know, in that translation process you can hear funders say well, we really want to see quantitative, we want numbers, and so you know, finding ways that they could creatively do that was one of our challenges. But then also, just as you just described, and there are arts-based methods to collect data, right? So you know, using those and with your other example, is age appropriate, right? So?
Kelly Feltault :now we're talking about being culturally relevant in our data collection methods and how we approach communities and work with them to determine what the outcomes are and assess what those outcomes are. So you know finding ways that work for, in this case, the military-connected populations, and you know what's going to resonate with them, what's going to be culturally appropriate for them. And you know what we heard from the nonprofits was we really don't want to do this pre and post-test because we don't want a survey to be the first thing these military families experience with us because they get surveyed to death in the military. That's not what we want. To be right.
Kelly Feltault :We want to build community. We want to be welcoming, we want to be a place where everybody feels like they belong, you know, a place you can come and relieve some stress and make some art and, you know, build some social emotional skills. And you know they were like we really don't want to do that pre and post test and I was like great, there are many other ways that you can collect data, we don't have to do it this way. This is just what you've been hearing from your clinical way. This is just what you've been hearing from your clinical partners. So, yeah, having them realize there are just other ways. Evaluation has many, many methods, and many of them are creative and work with all sorts of organizations. You just need to find the one that's going to work for you and keep the meaning and impact that you have with your community.
Ann Price:Yeah, yeah. So what has been? I'm sure the nonprofit organizations and your sites and your community practice. I'm sure they were relieved. What was the reaction to the funders, who maybe had a different idea what evaluation should be or what the outcome should be? Were they pretty receptive?
Kelly Feltault :I would say so. I mean so, as I mentioned earlier, hannah and I evaluated the work that we did about a year later and looked at, you know, and looked at what's been the ripple effect of this project. Where are people now? What tables are they sitting at? And, yeah, all of the nonprofits had gotten a seat at the table with at least one funder that they had not even gotten a foot in the door with before.
Kelly Feltault :So many of them were now having conversations and some of them were starting to influence, like county level mental health work, having conversations with a variety of VA hospitals. So, you know, that was something we were really happy to see that they felt empowered and were moving forward and funders were able to understand what their outcomes were and I think this was the key translation process is that they went in and said these are the outcomes that we produce social connection, resiliency, you know a variety of things that health funders like oh yeah, okay, we get that, and so that opened the door and let them get the seat at the table. And I think once you have that opportunity, you can start that conversation about what counts as evidence and talk to people about we're not clinicians, we are not going to measure this the way you measure, and we're measuring these other things over here and we're doing it in a way that is culturally relevant and appropriate for our communities, but it's still valid data right.
Ann Price:Right, yeah, exactly, yeah. So you know, for many nonprofits it's challenging, seems like such, that doesn't even fit. Oh my gosh, I don't even have the words right. We know, as the next couple of months unfold, as we all wait to see what the federal budget is going to be, as funders are under more, foundations, specifically, are under more and more pressure to fund nonprofits, specifically, are under more and more pressure to fund nonprofits, yeah, it's not fun times for many of us. So, hannah, as somebody who works in the nonprofit space not just the nonprofit space, the nonprofit art space like, how do we communicate our value? How do you prioritize things like continuous learning and community of practice and all these lovely things? When you are worried about survival, what have you learned? What advice do you have?
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :Yeah, no, it's something I think about all the time and I really appreciate how you framed that, and I think we need to talk about capacity here, that even in the best of times truly the best of times the kinds of decisions that nonprofit leaders are faced with daily. I mean, I have been in the seat when we were talking about whether we should pay ourselves, pay the phone bill or make payroll, and these are the kinds of conversations that I think anyone in the nonprofit space would recognize, whether it's that specific one or something else, and so I suppose one thing I want to say is that there's never a time when nonprofit leaders are not thinking about survival and about sustainability, and I want to honor that because I think it can be. That is why they are such a cornerstone of our communities, because they're always, always responding to what's happening in the community. And this is no different, because what's happening in the world, what's happening here in our country, is impacting communities on on a really cellular level, and our nonprofits, and particularly our arts and creative nonprofits, are spaces where we can let all of that and own that, not going to be able to fund every single nonprofit and I always say that if you have to twist yourself into pretzels to make a funder understand what you do or to fit what you do into a grant, it's probably not the right fit. It's not the right $5,000, $10,000, $50,000 for you I say that with donors too. But there is the right $5,000, $10,000000, 10, 50 donor out there. There is.
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :And so I think that a lot of it is about sitting in that confidence to be able to say I'm twisting myself into pretzels, this isn't the right thing. I'm going to say I'm done with that and focus on something else, and I think that that's where evaluation comes in. It's very hard to do that. It's very hard to convince yourself to say no when you think, oh, this money could really go towards something so good, right, you know your program, you know how important and impactful it is this process of evaluation. I think of it less as about helping a funder understand the evidence, more as a way of helping prioritize, because, again, as a nonprofit leader, you're faced with so many decisions daily. If you have this logic model in front of you, eventually, right, or you have this sense of what you want your impact to be, it's a little bit easier to have something objective outside of you, that you helped to form, that you helped to shape, but that you can put on your wall literally right and say you know what?
Kelly Feltault :That's what I said, I was going for and I'm over here with this grant, or I'm over here with this grant, or I'm over there with this program.
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :Let's bring it back to here, and we heard from a lot of people that, although this process is messy and it takes time and it takes effort and it takes intention, it ended up taking something off of their plate instead of feeling like it was adding something on.
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :Because, personally, what I found to be one of the most challenging parts of being an executive director at a nonprofit was the paradox of choice. Every day I could do 20 million different things and they would all be important. How do I prioritize that? I think that prioritizing is one of the absolute most helpful things we can do, and evaluation the way I think about what Kelly brings to the table and what this evaluation process does is that it actually takes the burden of choice off of you on a daily basis because you've put in this intentional time to make those choices. So I'm not sure that's so much advice. So much is to say that this moment, while extreme, is not so different from any other moment and we just need to be that much more protective of our own time, our own capacity, our own spaciousness, because that's what allows us to be creative and to move toward the right fit for our nonprofit. It's out there.
Ann Price:Yeah, I love that, that's so wise. Yeah, and I hear you, I hear that for everybody, not just non-profit leaders, but for everybody, is to kind of really what you're saying is be true to that north star, that thing that drives you that mission, all the things I say all the time to um, harry non-profit leaders, um, beware the shiny object right because everything looks like the thing you should go after and, wow, that's so wise.
Kelly Feltault :And we heard from many of the nonprofits in the pilot project.
Kelly Feltault :At the end, the executive director said this has allowed me to take things off my plate Because the staff now really understood the program and they just let them go do what they needed to do and the executive director could then focus on funding and partnerships and other things.
Kelly Feltault :Or several of the programs really honed in, focused in and said this is what we do, this is what we do really well, this is what we're going to focus on and be strategic about it. And many of them did sort of okay, our program has gone off into the left field here, let's bring it back and retool it a bit. One of our participants realized that they had the highest population of female veterans of any state in the nation and decided wow, we're not doing any programming for female veterans. Maybe we need to refocus and that set them on a path for amazing work and new funding opportunities. So you know, as Hannah says, evaluation can be many things, not just how do we measure our outcomes, but how can we be strategic about our decision making, how can we be strategic about where our programs and our organization are going? So there's many levels and ways to use this evaluation work.
Ann Price:Yeah, and learning too, so somehow we managed to answer all of my questions without me asking most of my questions, so that's beautiful. So, as we kind of draw this to a close. Yeah, so many things. I heard listening, I heard starting where you are, I heard translation, I heard creating communities telling your story. Just so many lovely themes here. Anyway, rapid fire questions to both of you. What is giving you hope these days?
Kelly Feltault :well, I think, community-based organizations realizing they don't need to mimic research institutions to prove their value and their worth and them reclaiming their voice in defining and measuring success yeah.
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :Hannah artists, artists, always give me hope. Follow the artists awesome.
Ann Price:What is one piece of advice you have for community leaders during this work? Hannah, we'll start with you.
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :My piece of advice is to make unconventional partnerships, to think beyond who you think might be interested in your work and make those communities build those networks and honor the fact that this is work. That's not easy to do, so building in the space and the grace to know that making unconventional partnerships takes a lot of effort. Yeah, kelly.
Kelly Feltault :It's what I told, and still tell, nonprofits that I work with. You are the experts of your program and your community and you already know more than you think you do. Evaluation is really just about being curious and strategic and brave, and it's not about becoming a statistician.
Ann Price:Correct, correct. I can't remember the last time I did anything more fancy than a t-test, right? So the question I ask all of my guests when you look to the future, what community possibilities do you see?
Kelly Feltault :Well, I mean, I see a point where evaluation becomes a tool of empowerment and not extraction, where small, creative organizations are not just participants in systems change but they're architects of it, and they're using their own data, they're telling their own stories and they're able to translate their knowledge and get that seat at the table.
Ann Price:Yeah, love Hannah. What?
Hannah Jacobson Blumenfeld :about you. I see an ecosystem where the arts are at all kinds of different tables. Where are the artists when we're asking what to do about retail or downtowns or main streets or public spaces or transportation and through ways? That's really what I see is communities that are filled with arts and creative spaces, not just as an add-on, but as the core of who we are. I love it.
Ann Price:I love it. Thank you so much, both of you Thank you. Anne and Hannah for having this conversation.
Kelly Feltault :If folks want to get in touch with you, how can they find each of you? Yeah, so Outcome Studios launches in early 2026 and our website is soon to be up and running. But in the meantime, yay, you can follow our journey and sign up for updates and pre-launch mini courses and other events by connecting with either of us on LinkedIn, and then, if you send me a DM on LinkedIn, I will add you to our mailing list and give you more information about what Outcome Studios will be providing.
Ann Price:Awesome. Thank you both so much Again. I love a good partnership. It was great having this conversation with you today. Yeah, thanks, anne. Lovely to see you.
Ann Price:Hi everybody, thanks so much for listening to Community Possibilities. This is the podcast that is all about imagining possibilities for our communities. I'm a podcast listener too, so I know you have lots of choices for the things you put in your ears. So thanks for listening. You know, for some of us it's kind of hard right now. I see you and I hear you.
Ann Price:One of the things I'm focused on is bringing all the love and value I can to my clients and the communities we serve together. We've been busy revamping the resources on our website. We offer a wide range of free and low-cost tools, and one of the things I'm most proud of is our new non-profit mission statement template. It is gorgeous and will help you so much. There's no time like the present to truly rethink your mission and ensure that it excites the people you serve and those you're trying to attract to your cause. I hope you'll grab it at communityevaluationsolutionscom.
Ann Price:Please be sure to visit the website over the next few weeks, as we'll be rolling out additional templates and resources related to strategic visioning and strategic plan development. In the meantime, we offer lots of other resources from our logic model template, our coalition self-assessment, non-profit evaluation capacity self-assessment and so much more. And if you're one of the non-profits finding your budget stressed but need some help with evaluation, I hope you'll check out our course Powerful Evidence Evaluation for Non-Evaluators. Now, lastly, before I let you go, please let me hear from you. Let me know what you're enjoying about the show. Send me an email if someone you know or know of would be a great guest on the podcast. Thanks, everybody, and don't forget to take a breath. Thank you.