New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA)

After ten years of supporting the creation and touring of new devised theater through the National Theater Project (NTP), NEFA wanted to better understand the program's impact on artists, organizations, and the broader theater field. They were looking for more than a final report—they wanted meaningful learning that could inform future strategy and investment.

McNeil Creative Enterprises served as NEFA's evaluation partner, designing and leading a participatory evaluation that centered the experiences of artists, presenters, and program leaders while helping the organization assess the impact of a decade of investment in the field.

Working closely with NEFA staff, MCE co-developed the evaluation framework, identified key learning questions, collected and analyzed qualitative and quantitative data, and facilitated conversations that helped make sense of the findings. Our approach prioritized learning over compliance, ensuring the evaluation generated practical insights that could guide future decision-making.

 • Program Evaluation

 • Research Design

 • Strategic Learning

 • Survey Design & Data Collection

 • Qualitative Data Analysis

 • Stakeholder Engagement

 • Reporting & Data Visualization

The evaluation provided NEFA with a deeper understanding of how the National Theater Project had evolved over its first decade and where it was creating the greatest value for artists and the field. The findings informed strategic conversations about the program's future while documenting its contributions to the national theater ecosystem. The work was also featured in Inside Philanthropy in the article, "You Have to Actually Change": A Major Theater Funder's Quest to Diversify Its Decision-Making.