Future Arts Centres’ Model of Change draws on extensive research including 200 case study stories from across the UK to evidence how arts centres create transformational change in people’s and communities’ lives.

Creating the Conditions for Change identifies a unique model of change, based on a combination of physical environment; access and opportunities to creative, artists and cultural experiences; and repeated engagement, building trust.

These factors are proven to create the conditions in which societal change happens. It centres the sector’s role in delivering outcomes across a wide range of policy areas, at neighbourhood, place and system level.

For policymakers, public services and other partners it highlights the opportunity to use this trusted anchor institutions in many areas of delivering policy priorities and programmes, through their genuine, deep local engagement and trust, including some of the most underserved people and communities in society,

For FAC’s 200 arts centre members, who welcome more than 30 million visitors (18.3 million for free-to-access, unticketed) annually, it provides further evidence of the role the organisations play as some of the few remaining elements of social infrastructure in urban and rural settings UK-wide.

Arts centres work on average with 28 different local partners, and cumulatively support 6,440 different community groups and more than one million hours of participatory activity. They collaborate with 4,300+ schools and across the NHS, local and strategic authorities, other public services, VCSE and business.

Please take a look at the video to see Co-Directors explain how this Model of Change works, and why arts centres are so unique in making a difference to people’s lives from education and employability, to agency and decision-making, community connectivity, health and well-being and much more.

You can read the full report here.