Equipment/Facilities Improvement

3: "The capacity of those providing arts experiences is increased or strengthened by changing, expanding, or enriching the ways in which they connect to their communities through the arts." Performances staged in The YES! House's theater space will explore the power of collaborative work that's driven by a community's articulated needs. DoPT will continue to nourish the positive feedback loop of hearing a community's voices with equity, supporting practicing artists, and developing creative solutions to complex, long-standing challenges. The immediate effect will be felt by DoPT and local residents and businesses. However, artists and arts organizations in rural settings across the country have the potential to be affected as the replicable YES! House model is shared widely. 7: "Minnesota's Arts Sector grows in reach and impact through programs and strategies that improve the health and operations of regional arts organizations." The community-driven performing arts projects at The YES! House will deliberately engage artists from underrepresented demographics and non-traditional arts audiences, highlighting the viability of arts as drivers of economic, social, and community wellness in rural towns. The immediate effect will be felt by residents and businesses in Granite Falls and nearby towns. However, artists and arts organizations in rural settings across the country have the potential to be affected as the replicable YES! House model is shared widely. From the beginning of our community-engaged design process a year ago, in anticipation of assembling the resource guide for other communities to use, we have been documenting our approach, our collaborations, our successes, and our failures. We track these and other moments of engagement through quantitative, qualitative and participatory evaluation strategies, including photo, video, interviews, story circles, sharebacks, surveys (in person and online) and non-traditional approaches (games, storytelling, poetry, drawings, etc.) at and following each of our public events. Because of these diverse metrics, we have a well-established starting point to which we frequently compare our progress. Once the renovation of The YES! House is complete and our diverse programs are underway, we plan to collect and assess data about their effectiveness under the guidance of Metris Arts, a consulting organization whose mission is to ?improve and measure cultural vitality? and who has extensive experience working in the field of creative placemaking. To establish a baseline for this evaluation, we plan to work with Granite Falls officials to distribute a survey to all town residents in early 2020 to assess their current feelings about their community, including sentiments about the town's overall potential, sense of promise, economic and social viability, and long-term livability, as well as the connectedness residents feel to their neighbors. As our programs mature over the next five years, we will ask the same questions periodically to identify any collective shifts in perception that may have been spurred by our work. With the facility slated to open and by fall 2020, we will have collected our baseline data as well as participant numbers, geographic reach, and representative demographics by mid-2021. Data about adoption / adaptation, implementation, and effects of this resource in other communities will be collected in the years to come, to establish the applicability and effectiveness of our community-engaged creative design process in other contexts.