About Culture3
Culture3 is about managing, as well as measuring social impact. With key values of peer-to-peer development and mutual support and the need to be ‘good enough’ rather than perfect, Culture3 is a holistic evaluation guidance package, with an emphasis on demonstrating social impact or value. It helps us plan, deliver and review work for greater social impact, especially creative, cultural, ‘place-making’, infrastructure and regeneration work. Culture is ‘cubed’ when it contributes to a triple bottom line of People, Prosperity and Planet.
Who is it for?
Culture3 is for socially engaged practitioners and organisations delivering projects or services in a wide range of industries.
There are three main benefits to measuring social value; to motivate, to improve and for accountability and advocacy. It allows participants, practitioners and investors to be motivated by seeing the progress a project delivers. Practitioners and investors can identify improvements they can make and investors can also be sure their money has been well spent.
What makes it different?
- It is about the whole process rather than focussing on the tools to use.
- It is based on the belief that scoping the evaluation well and sharing it afterwards is equally if not more important than the evaluation.
- It is based on a Plan Do Review cycle starting by emphasising the importance of scoping appropriately and following through to guidance about managing change.
- It includes links to tools and frameworks that can fit within this approach. As these are advancing all the time, it aims to share principles rather than specifics.
- It avoids technical language.
CORE Principles
Culture3 is founded on CORE principles of not letting perfection get in the way of progress; of being:
relevant and suitable for the people we are talking to.
On message
about our Story of Change and in keeping with our ethos.
Realistic
achievable and proportionate for our service.
Enough
to evidence what we need to, in a way that is good enough.